Chase Utley, who won a World Series with the 2008 Phillies and almost got another ring with the Dodgers last fall, will reportedly be retiring at the end of the season despite having another year left on his contract with Los Angeles, the AP reports. Utley will be 40 in December so while he could maybe cut it for another year with the Dodgers, it makes sense that he wants to go out on his own terms instead of pushing things too far.
Chase Utley announces he will retire at the end of the season
The longtime Phillies star looks to be hanging up his cleats despite having another year left on his contract.
Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Utley was selected to six All-Star Games and won four Silver Slugger awards, and he has the 13th-most hits of active players. He’s played in 1,907 games as of today and has hit 259 career home runs. He shares the record for most home runs in one postseason series, with five.
Utley broke the news in a press conference Friday afternoon, in front of all of his teammates who crammed in to the room as support. He joked that he had signed a five-year contract extension before admitting that he was indeed retiring in the fall.
One of his stated reasons for retiring now is to be a “full time dad”
He was originally drafted by the Dodgers in the 1997 amateur draft, but didn’t sign with the team and was drafted by the Phillies in 2000. He fulfilled that early Dodgers association thanks to a trade from Philadelphia to LA in 2015.
During the 2015 NLDS, Utley fractured Mets’ Ruben Tejada’s leg with a slide into second, was suspended, appealed the suspension to be able to play in the remaining postseason games, and the suspension was eventually dropped upon appeal. The following spring, Noah Syndergaard threw at him in retaliation which is what eventually gave us this amazing video.
That’s as good a reason for him to make the Hall of Fame as any, I would think.
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