Final trip to mound before his goodbye
Ryan Vogelsong did not eat enchiladas Saturday night. He was in the stands at AT&T Park and could not have the food he ritually ate the night before a start. Wife Nicole got him a cha cha bowl.
Something else was amiss Sunday before Vogelsong made his final trip to a big-league mound as a player.
“This is the first time I came to the ballpark stress-free in a long time,” he said.
The stress was replaced by joy as the owner of two Giants World Series rings retired after 12 never-easy big-league seasons.
He donned his familiar No. 32 jersey, which he usually wore with a death stare, ran to the mound with the rest of the Giants, threw a few warm-up tosses to catcher Nick Hundley, then got “removed” by manager Bruce Bochy so Chris Stratton could take the hill and face Arizona.
The fans, who felt a more intimate connection with Vogelsong than they did with most pitchers, gave the 40-year-old right-hander an ovation, the end to a story that began when the Giants drafted him 19 years ago.
Well, maybe not the end. Vogelsong will report to the Giants’ instructional-league team in Arizona on Saturday to begin a five-day stint as a coach, a role that he might pursue with the Giants when his 8-year-old son, Ryder, gets older.
Vogelsong said Sunday’s retirement in a Giants uniform was six years in the making because he knew he wanted to end his career in the black and orange as soon as he returned in 2011, after three years in Japan and a fourth back in the States with other organizations.
And 2011 was a time when he could not even conceive of the two titles he would help the team win and all his other successes before the Giants chose not to re-sign him after 2015.
“A lot of it for me is just the journey, and how close I was to never even getting to experience any of those things,” Vogelsong said. “When I was sitting in Japan in different situations, I would have never dreamed that, one, I was going to get back to the big leagues, and then to make an All-Star team and win two World Series titles was about as far away as I could get from some of the places I had been.”
Vogelsong signed a minorleague deal last offseason. When told he would not make the team, he declined an invitation to go to Triple-A because he did not want to drag Nicole and Ryder through the minor-league ringer. So he decided to end his baseball career.
When he left the Twins’ clubhouse in Fort Myers, Fla., for the final time, he said, “I pretty much checked out mentally. Once I checked out mentally, I knew it was time.”
He also knew he wanted a ceremony like Sunday’s and broached the idea with general manager Bobby Evans in July when they were both in San Jose to see Madison Bumgarner make a rehab start.
Vogelsong and the club discussed different ideas for the ceremony. He said he would have “drawn the line” at facing an Arizona hitter.
He did not formally sign the traditional, ceremonial one-day contract Sunday, but is expected to do so when there are no roster implications.
Asked why he felt his story resonated so much with the fans in San Francisco, Vogelsong said, “I think it’s a blue-collar journey. I think people tend to relate to struggling, failing and fighting through things and coming out the other side.”
Even before the Giants decided to let Vogelsong go in 2015, many of those fans expressed hope that Vogelsong would return to the organization as a coach. Vogelsong would like to return to the Giants in a fulltime capacity someday, but not necessarily as a coach.
“I’m a true believer that just because you were a half-decent player doesn’t make you a good coach,” he said. “You have to have some coaching ability. I’m not sure if I do. I think I do. How the players respond to you will let you know that.”