SEATTLE - Two-time AL batting champion Edgar Martinez announced Monday he will retire at the end of the season, ending his 18-year career with the Mariners as arguably baseball's greatest designated hitter.
Martinez, 41, was a seven-time All-Star. He batted over .300 in 10 seasons and led the league in hitting in 1992 and 1995.
Martinez rarely showed emotion on the field but choked up while calling it quits. Former Seattle slugger Jay Buhner and several players turned out to support Martinez, and team chairman Howard Lincoln said his No.11 would be retired.
"I have decided that this will be my last season," Martinez said at Safeco Field. "I am very fortunate and grateful that I have been able to play my entire career with the Seattle Mariners. The fans here have always been and continue to be great."
The sleepy-eyed Martinez was a hitting machine, spraying extra-base hits to all fields. Five-plus years from now, he could become a test case for whether a player who spent most of his career as a DH should be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Martinez holds the record for home runs and RBIs while playing DH and has the highest batting average among DHs with at least 1,000 at-bats, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Overall, Martinez is a .312 lifetime hitter with 305 home runs and 1,244 RBIs. He has 2,205 hits, including 510 doubles.
A third baseman when he began his major-league career in 1987, he played most of his games at DH. Of his 7,060 lifetime at-bats, almost 5,000 have come as a DH.
This season, Martinez is batting .258 with eight home runs and 46 RBIs. His playing time has been scaled back since Bucky Jacobsen was brought up from Triple-A Tacoma in mid July.
The Mariners began the season with high hopes but are stuck in last place in the AL West at 41-70. They were off Monday.
"Everything has gone in a different direction; it's been hard for me," Martinez said. "It's been hard for everyone in that clubhouse.
"It's baseball. Sometimes you have to go through that. I never saw it coming."
Martinez said he'd been thinking about retiring for a few weeks, adding, "the decision came recently, within days."
"Obviously it's very hard," he said. "As a player, I feel in my mind and my heart that I want to keep playing, but my body's saying something different."
As for why he announced his decision early, he said, "I thought it was appropriate to do it now."
