A’s Eric Chavez knows baseball days could be over

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP)—Eric Chavez(notes) acknowledged yet again his career very well could be over. His season most definitely is.
Despite all the injuries and missed games in recent years, the countless hours of nfl jerseys
rehab and time away from the Oakland Athletics, he’s not ready to utter the word retire.
Not just yet. The 32-year-old Chavez loves baseball too much to walk away if there’s still any chance—however slim—that he could get healthy enough again and return to his former productive self.

The six-time Gold Glove third baseman was recently playing rehab games in the Arizona Rookie League when he had to stop because two bulging disks in his neck became too bothersome each time he batted. It also affected his surgically repaired right shoulder.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever play baseball again,” Chavez said Friday. “I’m not going to make a formal statement about (retiring). I’m not going to give up on it that I might (come back) but I’m not going to say I’m going to either. I’m going to kind of let time be the answer.”
Chavez returned to the Bay Area from his home in Arizona for this nine-game homestand to visit with teammates and others at the Coliseum, knowing it could be goodbye after 13 years in the big leagues with the franchise. He’s the longest-tenured member of the A’s.
“Whoo hoo, Eric!” Angels star Torii Hunter(notes) hollered on his way to the indoor batting cage. The two embraced and shared a few words.
A designated hitter of late because of all his injuries, Chavez has played in only 33 games this season.
He played only eight games last season. That’s after he played in just 23 games in 2008, and 90 in ’07. He has undergone five operations since Sept. 5, 2007, including two microdiscectomy surgeries in different spots in his back. He also has undergone three shoulder surgeries.
He said before this year began that if he sustains another serious injury, it likely would be time to walk away from baseball. Chavez is in the final season of a $66 million, six-year contract extension he signed in March 2004 that includes a 2011 club Super Bowl XLIV jersey
option.
“At some point you just have to realize what you’re dealing with is what it is. I don’t even know what my options would be going into next year, if I’d have any at all,” Chavez said before Oakland opened a weekend series with the AL West-rival Los Angeles Angels. “Obviously I’ve spent a lot of time in rehab, in therapy, and I’m just kind of over that point. I think I’ve done everything I can to try to be healthy and it hasn’t worked out.”
Earlier this season, he said he had been experiencing spasms on both sides of his neck since getting hurt during a spring training drill in which a minor leaguer collided with his right shoulder. The impact jerked his neck to the left in what Chavez described as a “whiplash” motion.
And it hasn’t fully healed. Chavez, who is considering a future career in broadcasting or coaching, said he could no longer play at the level he needed to and that “my head was barely above water” when he was playing this season.
“He was playing a few games in Arizona and it didn’t go well,” A’s manager Bob Geren said. “He was playing and had to stop.”
Chavez had hoped to be coming back to play this weekend. Instead, he planned to be in the dugout—just not on the active roster.
“When I left here I kind of knew the outcome, what the percentages were,” Chavez said. “I figured I’d take a few months off. I tried to play in the Rookie League about a week and a half ago and I was working out and workouts were going good. I got in a game situation and it was kind of the same thing again. It’s just one of those things I was kind of battling all year. I just knew it wasn’t going to happen. …
“Even though I wanted to really bad, I wanted to come back, even if I didn’t really play a lot, just be with the team, be in uniform and maybe get some at-bats here and there, it just wasn’t going to happen.”
If this is it, Chavez appreciates that those around him have noticed how hard he plays. For the last few years, he’s done it through pain.
Chavez won six straight Gold Gloves at third base from 2001-06. He is a career .267 hitter with 230 home runs and 787 RBIs in Super Bowl XLIII jersey
1,320 games.
“People come up to me and say, ‘I’m a Yankee fan, I’m a Red Sox fan, I’m a so-and-so fan, but I love the way you play the game,”’ Chavez said. “That’s been one of the coolest things for me to hear. Oakland’s been a big part of who I am and what I’ve become the last 12 years. So it’s important for me to close out that chapter.”