Two of the most decorated pitchers in Major League Baseball history called it a career over the weekend, and neither Max Scherzer nor Justin Verlander went quietly. According to a Daily Wire column by Rich Cromwell, the two pitchers — among only four in baseball history to win multiple World Series championships and Cy Young Awards while also throwing multiple no-hitters — authored their own endings, each in a manner that reflected the intensity that defined their careers.
Scherzer made his final start for the Toronto Blue Jays, his seventh major league team. True to form, he exited as he had played: fiercely, loudly, and on his own terms. Cromwell describes Scherzer as “a total psychopath” on the mound — a reputation the pitcher embraced at every stage of his career. He yelled at coaches. He fought with teammates. He practiced obsessively. He pitched through injuries. He argued with managers who tried to pull him from games, usually successfully. In his last outing, he did exactly that one more time.
Verlander’s ending was different in tone but no less deliberate. Known for his intensity, he cut short rehabilitation for a hip injury and a damaged hamstring to take the mound one final time. He re-signed with the Detroit Tigers, the franchise where his career began, so that his last pitch would be thrown in the same uniform as his first. When the moment came, it wasn’t an argument with a manager that marked the occasion — it was his daughter rushing to the mound to hug him.
Two Paths, One Warrior’s Code
Cromwell argues that suggesting these men should have exited gently misunderstands the nature of what he calls modern-day warriors. They were not surgeons or accountants transitioning to a quiet next phase. For men whose careers were spent in battle — against opposing hitters, against their own bodies, against self-doubt — the idea of bowing out without a final display of emotion is, in his view, ludicrous.
“For Scherzer and Verlander, their careers were spent in battle,” Cromwell writes. “They didn’t just have to defeat the opposing players and teams, but also their own bodies and minds. When the odds were stacked against them, when their shoulders were shrieking in agony, when they doubted themselves, they pushed through.”
That relentless approach produced historic results. Both pitchers built résumés that place them among the sport’s all-time greats, with the combination of championships, individual awards, and no-hitters achieved by only four pitchers in the history of the game.
Cromwell contends that the impulse to celebrate — to pump a fist, to shout — is not indecorous but fundamental. He compares it to the Super Bowl-winning quarterback who celebrates, the coach who engineers a comeback and doesn’t bite his tongue, or the homeowner who fixes a water heater on a Sunday night and proclaims his dominance. “It’s what men do,” he writes.
What men do not do, he adds, is try to silence a fellow man celebrating his retirement as a champion. “We honor him. We aspire to be him,” Cromwell writes. “We study how he coupled intense mental and physical preparation with his God-given talent. We think about the competitions in our own lives and how we can apply the lessons learned from the warriors.”
No Apology for the Farewell
Cromwell is careful to distinguish between manufactured bravado and earned celebration. A routine first baseman gloating over a routine stop in a blowout is one thing, he writes. Two generational talents saying goodbye as they prepare to take off dirty uniforms for the last time is another. Their retirement parties didn’t happen in a breakroom with punch and cake — they happened on national broadcasts, in front of fans who had watched them for two decades.
“That they took the time to pump their fists in the air and say ‘fight, fight, fight’ one more time is a testament to the strength they embody, not an indulgence in decadence,” Cromwell writes.
He concludes by lamenting a cultural tendency to soften or restrain such displays. “Instead of critiquing them, we should be glad such men with chests still exist at a time when we too often castrate the geldings and bid them to be fruitful,” he writes.
The retirements mark the end of an era for two pitchers whose careers spanned more than a decade and a half each, defined by a rare combination of longevity, dominance, and unapologetic intensity. Scherzer leaves the game having argued his way into one final inning. Verlander leaves having engineered one final moment, in the uniform where it all began, with his daughter at his side. Different endings. Same fierce spirit.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-last-stand-of-modern-warriors