Off Topic
Team Announces Hall of Fame Induction
September 26, 2042: Yellow Springs – It was sixteen days ago, September 10, when Jose Chavez went to the mound for the last time. His team, the Indianapolis Downforce, were in a post season game. The score was tied with runners on first and second base in the bottom of the eighth inning. He got ahead of 21-year-old prospect Matt Normore on a fouled-off strike, then grooved what was once the best knuckle-curve in the game. Normore pulled it past the first baseman for a run-scoring single.
And that was the end.
Today Jose Chavez made official the announcement he’d made earlier in the season by confirming he is now done as a baseball player.
“It’s been a fantastic career,” the one-time Nebraska Award winner said from his home in Santo Domingo. “The game has been fantastic to me and my family. It’s literally changed everything for me, and I can’t thank the fans of Yellow Springs and Manama enough.”
On his career, Chavez won 172 games with Yellow Springs, and another nine in the Middle East before returning to the Nine’s organization for one more tour through AAA. Though on rare occasion the world would shift and you’d see the flare coming off that gorgeous left arm of #21 (that really should have been #19, am I right?), it was, of course, obvious that he’d lost pretty much everything by the end. Still, the club signed him “because it was the thing to do,” as GM Ron Collins said. “We couldn’t see him retire from a different ball club.” And still, the club signed him because he wanted to come back. “Some of the best times in my life were with this baseball team,” Chavez continued. “I’ll never forget these guys.”
To go with his 172 wins, which is a franchise record, Chavez recorded 2,598 strikeouts—also a record. His 418 starts also leads the franchise. His 2029 season (16-6, 2.53) is considered one of the best seasons in franchise history, and his start to the 2030 season (2.76 ERA in 14 starts) was in the same vein. But a UCL rupture brought him a Tommy John Surgery and a nearly two season set-back from which some suggest he never quite came back. He went to four All-Star games, though, and given that his 58 WAR are also a franchise leading number just as many fans suggest that only that injury--and the ruptured tendon in his finger that brought a premature end to his 2037 season--have kept him from being arguably one of the best left-handed pitchers of all times.
“He made a real impact on this team and this community,” said assistant GM Jose Cabrera, who is in the last few days of his contract with the team. “It’s important for a good GM to be able to see that and say it, too. And that’s me. A good GM.”
There will be no spectacle, as there was last season when he first signed that minor league deal. Instead, Chavez will spend the playoffs with his family, glued to the satellite dish during the games. There will, however, be a ceremony come Opening Day 2043—a day that will see Jose Chavez, the guy they called “Dogface,” take his rightful place beside Lawrence Columbus “Crash" LaLoosh as he gets inducted into the Yellow Springs organization’s Hall of Fame.
“I’m excited,” Chavez said. “It will be great to get back to hear the fans cheering even if it’s just for one more day.”