Baseball Says Goodbye To Retiring Toronto Blue Jays Omar Vizquel

Oct. 4, 2012 - PRLog -- Omar Vizquel's 2,968th game and end of 24 year baseball career

Three-time All-star, 11 Gold Gloves won, 2,968 Games played, 2,877 hits, Omar Vizquel (http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=123744) retires his career from baseball on a high note.

The 45-year-old Vizquel started his professional baseball career in Seattle with the Mariners in 1989. He has also played with Cleveland Indians, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers and the Chicago White Sox.

Following a video highlight montage fans at the Rogers Centre stood and cheered as the Toronto Blue Jays retiring shortstop Omar Vizquel threw out the ceremonial first pitch of their season finale game against Minnesota Twins.

In the seventh inning, Minnesota’s Drew Butera hit a pop fly to left field. Vizquel was able to run and make a basket catch. He grinned as if he was in bliss. The crowd roared. Throughout the Rogers Centre, you could see and hear fans chanting for Vizquel and waving their signs for him.

In the seventh inning Vizquel was granted a near Hollywood scripted retirement as he took to his final at bat as the 19,000+ crowd gave a standing ovation and Vizquel managed to muster a single hitter. As his 2,877th hit of his career, he managed to move to 40th in the all time hits list .

“God helped me out,” Vizquel said. “I talked to Him in that at-bat. I say, ‘God, I haven’t really talked to you in too many at-bats in my career, but this is a time you’ve got to come through for me.’ ”

Vizquel has said that a lot of people had told him that his last game in professional baseball should be one of the happiest days of his life, but he felt the exact opposite.

"It's one of the saddest [days], because I'm going to leave what I used to do for all my life," Vizquel said.

"It's a mix of emotion. You wake up today, this morning, my legs were shaking, my heart was pumping 100 mph. You don't know if you really want to go to the ballpark or stay home. It's so many things that go through your mind that it's just a really hard thing to express how I feel today."

He thanked Toronto Blue Jays for his final game and their support.  He praised Hechavarria for Toronto’s second run. Vizquel spoke of third baseman Brett Lawrie as “one of those players that you only see once in a lifetime.”

“I leave this game with my head really high, very happy about everything that has happened in my career … I left my heart out there. Today I’m looking bad and feeling small because I realized that I have been a fortunate guy.”  Vizquel said.

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