Yankees folk hero (who deserved a better ending) announces official retirement

The New York Yankees only employed Matt Carpenter for a brief period of time, but calling him "lightning in a bottle" would be insulting to the brightness of lightning. If only that gorgeous span of power-hitting could've come in the ALCS against the Houston Astros rather than the middle of the summer.

Carpenter was a Yankee, playing the "forgotten Cardinal" role Matt Holliday once did, in 2022, immediately bursting onto the scene with a home run in a 2-0 win in Tampa in his second game with the team on May 27. At the time, he said he was willing to carry the team's bags off the airplane if that's what it took for him to earn another big-league shot. Apparently, that service was not necessary; his bat did the carrying.

Between 2021 and 2022, Carpenter traveled across America, attempting to get back to his roots and rebuild his swing from its elements. Whatever it took to get back to a surprisingly potent clutch demon, he intended to do it. Quickly, the year's worth of toil paid off in the Bronx; he mashed 15 homers and hit .305 in just 47 games. The short porch was certainly his friend, but it didn't dictate his dominance. More often than not, he'd send an absolute moonshot in that direction so casually you wondered how he ever missed.

Carpenter's final surge with the Yankees, essentially, ended up being his retirement tour. He played with the Padres in 2023 and the Cardinals, one last time, in 2024, but failed to recapture the magic of his remarkable summer sprint. On Wednesday, that sense of finality became official, as Carpenter left the game for greener pastures.

Former Yankees folk hero Matt Carpenter officially retires after 2024 season with Cardinals

The ending to Carpenter's summer is almost too depressing to wallow in. He broke a bone in his foot with a poorly-placed foul ball in Seattle, then returned for October and wasn't the same, going 1-for-10 with seven strikeouts against Houston in a four-game ALCS sweep. Again, it was a lot like Holliday: essential to a very fun team, then completely gone when it mattered most.

We choose to remember Carpenter — as he deserves to be remembered — for the smiles he gave us in one of the most unexpected stretches of our baseball watching lives, when he arrived and got off the mat in the same motion, accomplishing the impossible routinely.