Eric Thames (37, USA, photo), who played an active role in the Korean professional baseball NC, announced his retirement from active play and said goodbye to Korean fans.
Thames said on Instagram on the 16th, “Finally, the day has come. I have been blessed to be able to say baseball is my job for 14 years,” he said, “I went through ups and downs as a player, but I am grateful to the fans who supported me.
Then, in Korean, “From the moment I considered retirement to signing with NC, everything happened within a few days in 2013. I never thought I would fall in love with Korea so quickly. When I visit Korea, please do not hesitate to say hello.”
Thames, who made his MLB debut wearing a Toronto uniform in 2011, was an ordinary hitter with a career batting average of only 0.244 for the next two years. In 2013, while thinking about retirement without getting a 슬롯사이트chance to play in the big leagues, he received an offer from NC and stepped on the Korean professional baseball stage the following year.
Thames left a career batting average of 0.349, 124 homers, 382 RBIs, and 64 stolen bases during the three seasons from 2014 to 2016 in the domestic league. In particular, in 2015, he recorded 47 home runs and 40 stolen bases, and so far succeeded in opening the 40 home run-40 stolen base club, which is only once in the history of domestic professional baseball, and was selected as the league’s best player (MVP).
After that, even after returning to MLB wearing a Milwaukee uniform, he was consistently mentioned as a candidate for a foreign batter in the domestic league, but there was no second chance. Instead, Thames, who joined Yomiuri in Nippon Professional Baseball in 2021, suffered a torn Achilles tendon injury in his first-team debut and immediately returned to the United States. Last season, he played for an Oakland minor league team, and this season he couldn’t find a team.