Yankees: WS champion Francisco Cervelli announces retirement

Former 2009 Yankees World Series champion Francisco Cervelli has retired from the game of baseball.

You ready for this hot take? We think you are. Fine, here goes: The Yankees don’t celebrate the 2009 World Series title without the energetic contributions of backup catcher Francisco Cervelli.

In the years that followed, Cervelli’s fist pumps became an integral part of what New York was building as their championship window unfortunately closed. Eventually, he found his way out of town, heading to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for lefty reliever Justin Wilson, and fully blossomed in the ‘Burgh, as his enthusiasm translated into a surprising mix of power and speed when his role was elevated.

To us, he’ll always be a Yankee, as exemplified by the photograph he chose to post on Instagram on Saturday, announcing his retirement at the age of 34 following a battle with repeated concussions.

But there was the young and spritely Cervelli again this weekend, captured forever leaping into the arms of Alex Rodriguez in a snapshot that represented the ’09 title team very well.

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t accomplish your dreams” indeed, Francisco.

We can talk all we want about Cervelli’s 2014 season, during which he hit .301, or the seamless way in which he adopted the backup catcher role from Jose Molina (you’ll really never see better backups than the Molina-Cervelli-Romine string the Yanks employed, excepting the Chris Stewart and John Ryan Murphy interludes).

But his best moment as a Yankee was his first career home run, the smash on a hanging Kris Medlen breaking ball that changed the ’09 season on that sleepy day in Atlanta.

Before Cervelli cranked a liner to tie a 1-1 game, the 2009 Yankees were 38-32 and being lectured by Brian Cashman as their offense cratered. After this smash? 65-27, and a juggernaut.

We’ll never forget all the times the Frisco Kid made everything amore in the Bronx, and we wish he’d been able to enjoy his career for far longer.

But man, did he ever know how to make an entrance .. and, unfortunately, an exit.

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