Happy Trails, Mike Mussina -- Calling It A Career

It looks like former Oriole and Yankee Mike Mussina is pushing towards retirement. No matter you feel about him, you cannot deny the career he's had. He will more than likely be a Hall of Famer for sure.

From all appearances, the venerable Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com just broke the news about a 1/2 an hour ago.

Fox Sports: Yankees right-hander Mike Mussina is retiring.

Mussina will make his decision official later this week, major-league sources say.

The Yankees, who are aggressively pursuing free-agent starting pitchers, were not expecting Mussina to return.

Mussina, who turns 40 on Dec. 8, is coming off the first 20-win season of his 18-year career. He is selling his home in Bedford, N.Y., according to one source, and planning to spend more time with his family in Montoursville, Pa.

Mussina held off his announcement until the completion of baseball's award cycle. He recently won his seventh Gold Glove, tied for sixth in the American League Cy Young award voting and even received one eighth-place vote for Most Valuable Player.

A first-round pick of the Orioles in 1990, he finishes his career with a 270-153 record and 3.68 ERA.

His victory total falls short of the unofficial Hall of Fame standard of 300 wins, but his candidacy for the Hall will be enhanced by the fact that he pitched in the Steroid Era and spent his entire career in the offensively oriented AL East.

Like I said, he's had one hell of a career. I'm sure at this point, his family commitments are tugging at him, and baseball has been very good to him.

Happy trails, Mike.

A tip of the hat to Cheryl of Bottom Feeder Baseball for emailing me with the news...