Kingery: Baseball retirements can be well-played

As professional baseball careers go, Joe Mauer and Mike Kingery lived markedly different existences. But they likely share a common emotion: contentment.

Given Sunday's emotional farewell in the Minnesota Twins' 2018 finale, it's almost a given that Mauer will call it a career in the coming days.

And what a career it has been.

Mauer was a highly sought talent who passed up a shot in NCAA Division I football to become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2001 Major League Baseball Draft.

In his 15-year career, Mauer played 1,858 games-all for one team-collected 2,133 hits, won a league MVP award, won three batting titles and was a six-time All-Star.

Many believe Mauer should be a future Hall of Famer, and, if he is indeed done, leaves the game with earnings in excess of $218 million.

On the other hand, Kingery, an Atwater graduate, didn't even get a Division I scholarship offer and he signed with the Kansas City Royals after the 1979 American Legion state tournament.

Kingery bootstrapped a 17-year pro career that included 10 years with six MLB teams between 1986 and 1996. Almost always the 24th or 25th man on a team's 25-man roster, Kingery played 819 MLB games, hit .268 and drove in 219 runs. While not shabby, his career earnings were decidedly not Mauer-esque.

Mauer's classy send-off on Sunday indicates he will be OK as a retiree. And when Kingery left the game after the 1996 season, he also was, in a word, satisfied.

"When it was time, I knew it was time," said Kingery, who also was 35 when he hung up his spikes. "Most guys have a reasonably firm grip on that. I knew it was time. I never once questioned that."

There's a sense that Mauer shares a mindset with Kingery and that it will help him make a smooth transition out of pro sports.

Kingery, who operates the Solid Foundation Baseball School, said he tells his players that he never competed against a team without first competing against himself.

"Your goal needs to be, 'be as good as you can be,' " Kingery said. "If they give everything they have, when their careers are over, they will be satisfied with whatever they accomplished."

Kingery got through his career with the support of a strong wife, family, church and community. They are the reasons he returned to Atwater during off-seasons, even if his teammates questioned his desire to winter in Minnesota.

Kingery and his wife since February 1982, Chris, added up 54 moves they made during Mike's professional baseball career. By June 1983, the Kingerys also had a newborn.

"Our family moved to every home location I was at," Kingery said.

He has many fond memories of his time in the bigs, especially when he was third in the National League hitting .349 in 105 games with Colorado before the season was truncated by a strike.

But on the way home from his stint in Pittsburgh in 1996, Mike and Chris concluded that he was done.

Mike had been released with a year left on a two-year contract. He had a couple minor league feelers but it was time to settle in.

"Every (player) goes through it: Do you want to go out on top or be the struggling vet," Mike said. "I knew I'd never have the chance to be a struggling vet. I'd been released, so we talked and prayed about it and we felt like it was time to be done."

Star players in Mauer's position have earned the chance to hang in there at the tail end of their careers as a solid if not spectacular performer. That isn't a luxury for a large number of major leaguers, Kingery said.

"The vast majority don't retire, they get retired," Kingery said. "I was more like that than I just got done with a $23 million (per year) contract."

But the money and maybe a shot at a championship probably aren't Mauer's overriding concerns as he contemplates his post-baseball life, Kingery said.

"He's had concussion issues and other things," Kingery said. "When it's all over, when you're 60 years old, you want to be able to function well and enjoy life."

Fame and money rarely factor into a life-changing decision when you're playing for the right reasons, Kingery said.

"People used to always ask me, 'Aren't you jealous, making $65,000, $66,000 when George Brett is making $3 million?' " Kingery said, noting that only a select few players were in Brett's pay range and that he was well-compensated compared to what people in his hometown were making. "I knew what my job was. I was very content being on a major league roster."

It's why Kingery felt much the same when the day came that he wasn't.