Late Career
It looked like McGriff would be allowed to finish out his career in his hometown of Tampa. He batted .278, but with only 19 home runs. However, McGriff's career experienced a minor renaissance in 1999 when he hit a career-high .310 with 32 home runs. The season rejuvenated McGriff's career and gave hope of him reaching the coveted 500 home run mark. After another solid season in 2000, McGriff got off to a good start in 2001. He was heavily pursued by the contending Chicago Cubs around the trade deadline, and the soft-spoken McGriff waived his no-trade clause to allow himself to be dealt to Chicago on July 27, 2001. He hit a respectable .282 with 12 homers in 49 games with the Cubs, but the team did not reach the postseason.
McGriff had 30 home runs during a strong 2002 campaign, which earned him a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 2003 season. He was 22 homers shy of 500 for his career, but the forty-year-old McGriff could only muster 13 with a .249 batting average and spent a significant amount of time on the disabled list.
During spring training in 2004, the Devil Rays re-signed McGriff in hopes of letting the veteran ballplayer hit 500 home runs. Unfortunately, he ended up with a .181 average and had hit just two home runs in his sporadic play from the end of May until mid-July. The Devil Rays released McGriff on July 28, 2004, seven home runs shy of 500. Despite the fact that McGriff only played in Tampa Bay late in his career, he collected 66 win shares as a Devil Ray, the team's all-time record.
While McGriff hoped to catch on with another team after being released by the Devil Rays, he officially declared his retirement during spring training of 2005 when he received no calls from any teams requesting his services. He retired with 493 home runs, tied with baseball legend Lou Gehrig, and became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2010. He received 21.5% of the vote in his first year of eligibility. In 2011, McGriff received 104 votes (17.9 percent of total votes cast) for induction.
McGriff ended his career having 10 seasons with at least 30 home runs. He and Gary Sheffield are the only players ever to hit at least 30 home runs in one season for 5 different teams (Toronto ; San Diego ; Atlanta ; Tampa Bay ; Chicago Cubs ).
Read more about this topic: Fred McGriff
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