Astros star says this is his final year, then hits grand slam.
HOUSTON — Craig Biggio feels he has nothing left to prove on a baseball field.
After a 20-year career in which he stayed with one franchise, played multiple positions at an All-Star level and joined the elite 3,000 hit club, the Houston Astros infielder said Tuesday he will retire at the end of this season. Later, he broke a 3-3 tie with a grand slam in the Astros’ 7-4 win against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“There are a lot of guys that have the game taken away from them by injury,” he said. “For me to be able to walk away now, on top, on my own accord, I’m very happy with that. I’m in a good place. I think I’ve done everything that I was supposed to do on a baseball field. I have nothing to be disappointed about.”
During a news conference in which he reminisced about his accomplished career, Biggio said his favorite baseball memory always will be from this June 28.
“The 3,000th-hit night was the best. I’ll never forget that,” he said. “I just can’t believe it’s over. It’s gone by fast. I have no regrets. I played the game the right way.”
Biggio began Tuesday with a .247 batting average with 24 doubles, five homers and 31 RBIs. He had 3,014 hits, six shy of tying Rafael Palmeiro for 23rd place.
“I just didn’t want families bringing their kids to the game and saying, ’He’s just not the same guy we used to watch or the guy we really love and respect.’ I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be a player that played the game too long,” he said.
Along with teammate and friend Jeff Bagwell, who retired before the start of this season, Biggio led the Astros to four division titles, the team’s first NL pennant and trip to the World Series in 2005.
Biggio’s 3,000th hit came one day shy of the 19th anniversary of his first career hit, a single off Orel Hershiser on June 29, 1988.
Biggio is the only player in major league history with 600 doubles, 250 homers, 3,000 hits and 400 steals. Biggio is a career .282 hitter. He has already been inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. A seven-time All-Star, Biggio starred at Seton Hall and was the 22nd player selected in the 1987 amateur draft. He caught his first four seasons.
He made his first All-Star game in 1991, but the Astros moved him to second base in 1992, a position he had never played. But he made the All-Star team again, ranking among the NL’s top 10 in runs, walks and stolen bases.
SELIG TO “TRY” TO SEE HISTORY: SAN FRANCISCO — Baseball commissioner Bud Selig will try to be there when Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s career home run record, saying the San Francisco Giants star was “innocent until proven guilty.”
“Throughout this season, I have watched Barry Bonds’ pursuit of the home run record. Now that he is on the verge of tying the record, the time has come to announce that I will make every attempt to attend the record-setting moment,” Selig said in a statement.
Selig will be in Cooperstown, N.Y., for Sunday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremonies of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr.
NFL RETIREES, LEAGUE MEET: WASHINGTON — After months of complaints from retired NFL players who believe the league and the players’ union have abandoned them, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw met with a group of former players Tuesday to discuss those issues.
But in the collection of past players at the meeting that included Frank Gifford, Merlin Olsen and Cornelius Bennett, only former Packer Jerry Kramer represented the vocal group of retirees who have spoken out about the league’s pension plan and a disability system they insist is designed to deny most claims.
Three hours later, when they emerged, Upshaw and Goodell had little to announce other than that they had talked. They said they would focus on joint replacement, a dire-needs fund, a cardiovascular health program and the establishment of some kind of assisted-living arrangement.
But they said they would not build a retirement home for disabled football players, something that has been discussed by the league and union for years.
“We didn’t solve all the problems,” Kramer said. “We’ve got some more things to do.”
In many ways, the meeting — pushed for by Goodell — seemed to be an effort by the league and the players’ association to show they are addressing the issue of retired players. The subject flared up at the Super Bowl and never died down as studies came out showing potential long-term effects of concussions and former players told stories of their difficulty in obtaining disability payments. Many blamed the league and the union for creating a system that blocked them from collecting.
Upshaw and Goodell said that by bringing together the NFL Alumni organization, Pro Football Hall of Fame and NFL Charities into a group they call “the alliance,” more money will be available to provide assistance to players who need it. When asked how much that would take, Upshaw said, “It’s the $64,000 question, maybe the $64 million question.” Then he said that by pulling together the various league entities along with Kramer’s Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, they would be able to pull money from several entities and put them under a single umbrella.
Already Goodell and Upshaw have agreed to let those players who have qualified under Social Security disability standards receive NFL disability, saying this could help solve the problem of injured former players. But because those standards have yet to be applied, it’s hard to know how many players it will help.
Kramer has been chastised by many in his organization, including former New York Giants star Harry Carson, for agreeing to take part in Tuesday’s meeting. Many in the retired players movement have looked skeptically at the meeting as a public relations ploy by the league and union to deflect criticism. Kramer said he too was concerned about his decision and worried about it on Monday night in a conversation with Olsen.
As the meeting convened Tuesday, Kramer said Olsen accosted Upshaw by asking if the meeting was “a dog and pony show or are we going to come up with a solution?”
Upshaw replied, “Forget the yelling and see if we can intelligently look at it.”
Kramer said he was encouraged by Upshaw’s response.
Bernie Parrish, the unofficial leader of the retired players movement was not.
“The people they had there are a bunch of self-promoting, owner kisser-ups,” said Parrish, who was not invited to the meeting.
Parrish has repeatedly said he wants the NFL players’ pensions to match those of baseball (which are significantly higher but also require players to wait until they are 62 to collect) and have the disability system to be overseen by a firm other than the Groom Law Group, which has done work in the past for the NFLPA.
“When the owners open up their checkbooks and start writing checks for a pension plan like baseball’s and trash the disability plan and rewrite it, then they will be doing something,” Parrish said.