With sports team now willingly trading even their homegrown stars, it’s rare to see a single player stay with a team for his entire playing career. One Baseball Team-
Playing for one team for an entire career is very difficult to do and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. One doesn’t even have to look into many sports to find out why.
This year, longtime Yankees captain Derek Jeter was elected into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. He was the 55th single-team player to be included among the elite ranks of players. Out of the 22 players elected into the hall of fame over the past seven years, only six played for a single team for their entire career: Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Jeter, Chipper Jones, Edgar Martinez and Mariano Rivera.
Nowadays, playing for one team for an entire career is getting more and more difficult especially in the era of free agency, arbitration, and teams wanting to use younger talent instead. With this, here are a few players who’ve played for a single team for the entirety of their whole career.
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Yadier Molina, St. Louis Cardinals
Molino said that he wants to be a Cardinal for life. He’s already got plans if the team won’t bring him back after his contract expires this fall. Honestly, seeing him appear in a different uniform is weird. He represented the Cardinals at nine All-Star Games. He also won nine Gold Glove Awards and four Platinum Gloves, and helped the team win two World Series in 2006 and 2011. Of the 1,881 games that had Molina in the starting lineup, he’s started all but nine of them behind the plate. He will start the 2020 season seven games behind Ozzie Smith for third place on Cardinals’ all-time games played list.
Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals
‘Mr. National’ as he’s known with his teammates, was the first draft pick in 2005 when the Expos moved to Washington. In his 15th year in the league and still playing for the Nationals, he’s still contributed significantly to their World Series win. Wanting to end on a high note, he’ll play for the team for one more year after signing a one-year, $2 million contract with them.
Mike Rizzo, the team’s general manager, predicts that Zimmerman will get a statue made after him at the Nationals Park one day and that it will show the player’s home run from a Gerrit Cole pitch that helped bring home the bacon.
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Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals
A year after Molina debuted, Wainwright soon made his. Within 13 months of him playing for the club, Wainwright threw one of the most unforgettable pitches: a curveball that left Carlos Beltrán dazed, sealing the Cardinals’ 2006 National League Division Series berth. He worked hard to move up the ranks from a shutdown reliever to a go-to ace pitcher. He also earned four top-three finishes in the NL Cy Young Award voting in six years from 2009 to 2014.
He also made a great recovery after undergoing a Tommy John surgery he underwent in 2011. He made a similar comeback after he tore his Achilles tendon in 2015. Last year, he helped the team win 14 games in October with his excellent pitching. His performance earned him a one-year contract extension which could see him and Molina retire together.
