Mark Teixeira and the exciting, tremendous, not bad, pretty good career

Mark Teixeira is a lot of things. One of the best switch-hitters in baseball history. Champion. All-Star. Lover of Broadway musicals. Someone who enjoys a really good pleat. He’s also going to be a recent retiree after this season, as he announced his retirement this week. It’s time to turn the fire hose of appreciation on him because he might be one of the easiest superstars to take for granted.

Even typing out the word “superstar” feels weird, but it fits. Kind of. Semi-star? Don’t know, but Teixeira’s career featured three All-Star Games, five Gold Gloves, MVP votes in seven different seasons and nine seasons with 30 homers or more. He was one of the more consistent players of his generation, and he feels like someone in danger of being forgotten in 10 years. If you think that’s too harsh, when was the last time you thought about Carlos Delgado? That guy was incredible.

So it goes for the great player who wasn’t quite generationally great, though. There are hundreds and hundreds of Teixeira memories the true believers and hardcore fans can share — balls hit into the gap, walk-off hits — but the rest of us get to say things like, “Wow. That guy was really good for a long time” and leave it at that.

I would like to make the argument, though, that we shouldn’t take Teixeira for granted. No, he won’t get a rocking chair made out of bats when he plays his last game against the Minnesota Twins, and the San Diego Padres don’t have to worry about making him a surfboard. There won’t be on-field ceremonies. But I’ll remember him distinctly for three reasons.

Seems like this is the most important one. I’ll put it up top because I don’t want it to seem like I’m minimizing his fantastic career. He could hit baseballs better than almost anyone who has ever tried. Don’t forget that part.

Is there another player who will be remembered as much for what he did for his original franchise after he left? Bartolo Colon has a strong case, but I’m struggling to find a better example. Think about what Mark Teixeira meant to the Texas Rangers.

First, he was the franchise’s reward for being so awful in 2000. The Rangers were irrelevant for most of their existence, and then they were a perennial postseason team in the late ‘90s. They found their identity. They were finally a baseball team you absolutely had to pay attention to. And just like that, poof, it was gone. They were stuck in 90-loss mud again.

The only good thing about that kind of season is the hope that comes with a high draft pick the next year. You’re expecting to get a player who will be an All-Star with that pick, even if most teams don’t get so lucky. The Rangers got an All-Star.

You’re expecting that player to move quickly through the system, even if most prospects don’t get so lucky. Teixeira spent just 86 games in the minors before coming up for good.

You’re expecting that player to be good immediately, without the struggles that some young players go through, even if most of them don’t get so lucky. Teixeira was good right away, and he progressed in a nice, linear fashion, getting better and better and better.

And when it’s time to part ways, when it becomes clear that a nine-figure contract for a veteran just doesn’t fit with the current organizational blueprint (as sad as it might be), you’re expecting to trade the player for several prospects who will help the team in the future, even if most prospects don’t get so lucky, with some of them never making it to the majors at all. The Rangers got four major leaguers out of the deal, helping them win three division titles and two pennants, and that’s just so far.

That’s ... that’s the perfect evolution of a career, at least as far as the Rangers are concerned. The best-case scenario is always for the homegrown superstar to stick around for 20 years and retire a franchise hero. But this is the next best thing. He was The Giving Tree, but for baseball fans. He was there, he was excellent, he did his thing and he left parting gifts behind.

This is the player you will always want your team to have. They will probably never have one, for they are exceptionally rare.

It’s either Teixeira or Lance Berkman, so we’ll talk about the guy who just announced he’s retiring. Take a spin around his Baseball Reference page if you need a refresher. His career arc, according to the pitchers who had to pitch against him:

That’s 10 straight years of, “Ugh, this guy again,” mumbled in the most respectful way possible. He wasn’t someone with a kryptonite weakness against left-handed or right-handed pitchers. He wasn’t someone with an obvious hole in his swing that you could hammer over and over again. He was always there, always excellent and always annoying to face. Before he turned 30, he was a walking .290 batting average with 30 homers and 40 doubles. Year after year after year after year.

And it probably won’t be good enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. I’m not going to argue on his behalf, at least, and I think he’ll get dumped into that Berkman/Norm Cash/Will Clark/Don Mattingly/Fred McGriff/John Olerud/Carlos Delgado/you get the idea bin. It’s tough to escape the gravity of the planet of All-Star first basemen. Teixeira was so, so close, if not for his body betraying him, as it’s done for so many others.

In that way, somehow, he almost becomes more memorable. He’s the face of Generic Perennial All-Star First Basemen, a club where the first membership requirement is that there can’t be anything generic about you. He had to hit like a monster for over a decade to be elected the president of the club. It’s a skill so rare that a team paid $180 million for it, and it was worth it.

Yet it probably won’t be quite enough for Cooperstown. That’s not a slight against this outstanding career. It’s a reminder of just how seriously we should take Hall of Famers and the votes that get them in there. I’m a big-Hall guy, so it’ll always be instructive to remember how good Mark Teixeira was. If he couldn’t get into the Hall, that gives us a great idea of how hard it should be.

It should be hard. Look at this great career, and realize even this wasn’t enough.

Your mileage may vary, and you might remember Teixeira for that time he sent everyone home happy, or because you were one of the lucky ones who got to watch that consistently marvelous performance year after year, or because you’re pretty sure he’s a Hall of Famer, no matter what some dork on the internet thinks. Fair enough.

But with so many players who come and go in this weird sport, that’s why I’ll remember Teixeira more than most. He was a true Rangers hero in the most perfectly direct and roundabout way possible, and he was a model of great-not-too-great that gives us perspective and appreciation for the Hall of Famers that follow.

Mostly, though, Mark Teixeira could sure hit the snot out of baseballs. That’s the first point. And it’s still the most important one. He’ll be missed.