Retirement
| Willie Horton's number 23 was retired by the Detroit Tigers in 2000. |
In an 18-season career, Horton posted a .273 batting average and .457 slugging average with 1993 hits, 284 doubles, 1163 RBI, 873 runs and 20 stolen bases in 2028 games. His 325 home runs in the AL placed him behind only Harmon Killebrew (573), Jimmie Foxx (524), teammate Al Kaline (399), Rocky Colavito (371) and Joe DiMaggio (361) among right-handed hitters.
Horton played two more years in the Pacific Coast League and another season in Mexican baseball. In 1978, he became the manager of Venezuelan team Navegantes del Magallanes, whom he had guided to the Championship of 1979 Caribbean Series with a 5–1 record. Among his baseball superstitions was his use of the same batting helmet throughout his career; he repainted it when he changed teams. After retiring, he coached for the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox. On July 15, 2000 Horton became just the sixth former player given the ultimate honor by the Detroit Tigers; a statue of Horton was placed in Comerica Park and his number 23 was retired, joining a select group that includes former Tigers players Ty Cobb (who didn't wear a number), Charlie Gehringer (number 2), Hank Greenberg (number 5), Al Kaline (number 6), and Hal Newhouser (number 16). While Horton's career body of work was solid and workmanlike, it wasn't quite of the same caliber as that of his Tiger brethren enshrined in Cooperstown; nevertheless, the statue is a testament to the crucial role he played in restoring peace and quelling eruptions during the 1967 riot, and to this day endures as an important symbol of peace and harmony in a hardscrabble city often beset by racial tension.
Since 2003, Horton has served as a Special Assistant to Tigers President/CEO/General Manager Dave Dombrowski. Former Tigers teammate Al Kaline also holds this position, and the two threw out the first pitch of the 2006 World Series at Comerica Park.
Read more about this topic: Willie Horton (baseball)
Famous quotes containing the word retirement:
“Adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envy of another man’s enclosed pleasures: and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)
“Douglas. Now remains a sweet reversion—
We may boldly spend, upon the hope
Of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hotspur. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)