Former Giants, A's Ace Barry Zito Announces Retirement
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Former San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics ace Barry Zito took to the internet Monday to announce he is retiring from professional baseball.
The 37-year-old left-hander went 23-5 with the Oakland Athletics in 2002, winning the American League Cy Young award.
In seven seasons with the Athletics, Zito rolled to a 102-73 record before signing a 7-year, $126 million contract to move across the Bay as a free agent and join the San Francisco Giants.
However, Zito struggled in his first five years with the team, drawing the ire of many Giants fans.
Those feeling disappeared during the 2012 season when Zito went 15-8 in the regular season and 2-0 with a 1.69 ERA in the post-season as the Giants captured the World Series title.
"I couldn't possibly have expected to embrace the uplifting surge of energy from the Bay Area's baseball passion when I was succeeding and yet not weather the storm like a man when that passion turned into a raging frustration," Zito wrote on the Players Tribune website in Monday.
"I feel so honored to have spent my career in the Bay and to have been a part of the two incredible organizations that reside there."
After going 5-11 in 2013, Zito was not resigned by the club and sat out the 2014 season.
He signed a minor league deal to return to the Athletics in 2015 and was brought up for a pair of final farewell starts in September.
Zito reflected upon his career on his retirement post.
"My baseball career has been a mirror to my life off the field, full of euphoric highs and devastating lows," he wrote. "I've been at the top of a rotation and the 25th man on a roster. I've started Game 1 of a World Series in one year and I've been left off of a postseason roster in another."
Zito said he was now going to focus on his songwriting career.
