By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
NEW YORK – The New York Yankees not only ended the Seattle Mariners’ season, they finished one Mariner’s career and might have done the same to another.
Stan Javier, despite the urgings of several teammates, has decided to retire after 17 major league seasons. Jay Buhner, whose aching body is telling him this is it, says he will decide this winter if he will come back another year.
Javier, who cried when the Mariners celebrated their American League West Division championship because he knew it might be his final such moment, flashed a smile of satisfaction late Monday night.
“It was going to happen sooner or later,” he said. “I have a lot of good things to look forward to, my kids and my family. I’m ready to get on with a new life.”
Javier grew up as the son of a major league baseball player, former St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Julian Javier, and says he has never experienced a year of his life away from a baseball team.
At age 38, he was such a productive member of the Mariners that teammates urged him to reconsider.
“This is such a good group of guys,” he said. “I don’t think they still believe I’m going to retire.”
Javier went out the way he came in, with a hard smash that became an out in Yankee Stadium.
More than 17 years after Javier began his major league career as a Yankee with a fly out – “Off Lamar Hoyt,” he said, “fly ball to center field.” – he ended it with a line drive into third baseman Scott Brosius’ glove.
“My teammates were teasing me, saying that I’m still hitting the ball hard, so don’t retire,” Javier said.
The Mariners are Javier’s eighth major league team. He spent most of his career with the Oakland A’s, including the 1989 season when the A’s won the World Series.
“I’m so happy I ended my career in Seattle,” he said. “The city and the fans and the organization are the best in baseball.”
Buhner, who worked his way back from a foot injury and rejoined the Mariners in September, said it was well worth the effort.
“It’s always worth it,” he said. “Any time you can get back on the field of play and compete, it’s always worth it.”
But whether it’s worth another year of rigorous training to stay in playing condition, Buhner doesn’t know.
“Based on the way I feel right now, I think I got just about everything out of my body that I could get,” he said.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s finished.
“I’m not going to think about it yet,” Buhner said. “I’m still kind of numb about what just happened here. I want to talk to my family and fish a little bit.
“But who knows? I may be fishing for a long time.”
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