Baseball wasn't as enjoyable as it used to be for Troy Tulowitzki as calf injury leads to his retirement
Troy Tulowitzki of the Yankees looks on during batting practice before a game against the Royals at Yankee Stadium on April 19. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Troy Tulowitzki desperately wanted his career to end differently, but his body wouldn’t allow it.
"There came a point in time this year, after I strained the calf, it just wasn't as enjoyable as it once was because I couldn’t do some of the things work-wise that I had done before,” Tulowitzki said Monday afternoon on a conference call. “My body was kind of just going south on me.”
And so the five-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove shortstop, whose body deteriorated in the final years of his 13-year career, officially announced his retirement over the weekend at the age of 34. Tulowitzki, having played just five games with the Yankees, went to the injured list April 4 with a left calf strain that never completely healed.
A strained right hamstring and a sprained right ankle limited Tulowitzki, then with the Blue Jays, to 66 games in 2017, and he had the surgery on his heels in March 2018.
Toronto released Tulowitzki, who spent the first 10 years of his career with the Rockies before being dealt to the Blue Jays at the trade deadline in 2015, in December with $38 million left on his contract. After seeing him in two workouts — one private — the Yankees then signed him for the league minimum of $550,000 (the Blue Jays were on the hook for the remainder of the $38 million).
Tulowitzki had a fairly healthy spring, highlighted by a homer against the Blue Jays Feb. 25 off Marcus Stroman, a close friend, that caused him to shout toward the Toronto dugout as he rounded third at Steinbrenner Field. Tulowitzki also homered in his second regular-season game on March 30 vs. Baltimore at the Stadium.
But the calf strain soon derailed his season and, ultimately, his career. Tulowitzki made enough progress to start a rehab assignment May 1 with High-A Tampa but it wasn’t to be.
Though his time was short with the Yankees, it made an impression.
“To have that experience in New York,” Tulowitzki said. “I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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