Farewell Prince

I was a little surprised to see Prince Fielder call it quits this week, but after two serious neck operations I cannot really blame him for walking away.  During his career Prince almost made $130 million dollars, plus insurance and the Detroit Tigers are going to pay him a whole lot more money over the coming years.

The last few years have been rough for Prince since he left the Brewers to sign with the Tigers after the 2011 season.  My in-laws are from Michigan and big Tigers fans, so I took a little more favorable interest in Prince the last few years of his career and managed to pick up a sweet cards of his along the way.

This Five Star Autograph might be my favorite recent card of Prince....

In my mind, my best memories of Prince will always be as a Brewer.  I didn't mind him as a player, I know a lot of Cardinals fans knock on the Brewers players, but Prince was always worthy of respect in my opinion.  Sure, he did things that my fellow Cardinals fans stupidly complained about like the year Mike Cameron all had them untuck their shirts after they won a game.....

but Prince hit a lot of home runs for the Brewers during his time in the National League Central.  Honestly, as a Cardinals fan I have always felt a little bit grateful for Prince Fielder the past few years.  Really, the team should have probably given him a World Series ring, or a share of the team's bonus money after he hit a go ahead home run for the National League in the All-Star Game to give the Cardinals home field advantage for games 6 and 7.

Without this.....

It's probably a little bit doubtful that Cardinals fans would have experienced this home run hit by David Freese to win Game 6 of the World Series.....

or David Murphy's fly out to Allen Craig to end Game 7 giving the Cardinals their 11th World Series title.....

Prince was a fun baseball player.  There were aspects of his game that were imperfect, but he always looked like he enjoyed playing the game.  This often translated into him having some really cool cards, especially while he was on the Brewers.  The best of them all is somewhat predictable, but it has to be one of the better first cards in the history of the Topps sets.....

Just an awesome card.  Call him whatever you want, again, the guy had fun playing the game.  A tip of the cap and a thank you.  It was a good ride Prince.