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Offseason Retirements

There was really only one big retirement this offseason: second baseman Jimmy Wood, a 39-year-old veteran who played in 1881 for the Troy Trojans. Wood has been a base ball player since the early 1860s, when he broke in with the Eckford club of Brooklyn. After nearly a decade with this pre-Association powerhouse, he joined the Chicago White Stockings as their player-manager in 1870, and immediately came up with the interesting innovation of having the team practice in New Orleans prior to the start of the season.

However, the team's future was cut short by the tragic Chicago Fire of 1871. In its aftermath, the team suspended operations for two seasons, leaving its players in need of a new home. Wood first found his place in the Forest City of Cleveland, where he hit .360 for the Cleveland club in 1872.

Once again, though, Wood's team folded underneath him following the 1872 season. After these two seasons of frustration, Wood returned to Brooklyn, this time to play for the Atlantic club. For the remainder of the Association era, Wood would star at second for the Atlantics, who were often close to an Association championship but never quite achieved that pinnacle.

In 1874, Jimmy Wood suffered a near-tragedy in the offseason. He developed an abscess on his left leg, and lanced it himself with a pocketknife. This led to an infection, and for a time doctors thought they would need to amputate Wood's leg. However, he managed to recover, and in fact did not even miss any in-season time due to the injury.

When the National League formed and the Brooklyn Atlantics did not join the new organization, Wood found himself a new home out west with the St. Louis Brown Stockings. In two seasons there, he hit .304 and .251 respectively, but the team found little success and dropped out of the NL prior to the 1878 season.

By this point, Wood was a bit long in the tooth. He managed to get a spot on Harry Wright's Boston Red Caps for the 1878 campaign, but he was projected to be reserve there. When he batted .198 in limited duty in 1878, it seemed the end was near for Jimmy Wood.

However, early in the 1879 season, Boston found that they were having trouble filling the shortstop position. Although Wood was considered too old to learn a new position, they started playing star second baseman Ross Barnes at short for some games and starting Wood at second. Given this second chance at age 36, Wood thrived, hitting .287 and helping Boston achieve a National League pennant - Wood's first professional championship.

In 1880, Wood reprised his role as Boston's part-time second baseman, but his batting average fell to .244. Although the team won its second consecutive pennant, Wood was allowed to leave as a free agent after the season, and signed with the Troy Trojans to start at second base. He batted only .215 in 1881, and gradually was eased out of regular playing time. Knowing the end was near, he asked the club to let him finish out the year before retiring.

On the whole, Wood's career has been an excellent one, spanning the pre-professional era of athletic clubs, the National Association years, and now the National League. Although he hasn't been a first-tier star, he's still been a very productive player for a long time.

Wood retires at 36th on the all-time list in batting (.281), 29th in OBP (.301), 27th in slugging (.373), 27th in OPS (.673), 20th in VORP (69.54), 21st in games played (552), 20th in at-bats (2,239), 17th in runs scored (423), 20th in hits (628), 17th in total bases (834), 23th in singles (468), 14th in doubles (120), tied for 9th in triples (34), tied for 20th in home runs (6), 18th in RBI (310), 6th in steals (73), and 11th in walks (75).