Long-time MLB outfielder Garret Anderson passed away earlier this week after suffering a heart attack. He was 53.
Anderson played 17 seasons in the big leagues, spending 15 seasons becoming a franchise icon for the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels before ended his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In his penultimate campaign, he was a member of the 2009 Atlanta Braves.
Anderson was a three-time All-Star, a two-time Silver Slugger and won a World Series championship with the 2002 Angels. He was also runner-up in the 1995 American League Rookie of the Year award and earned votes for the American League Most Valuable Player three times – including a career best fourth-place finish in 2002 when he paced the A.L. with 56 doubles, the first of two seasons he led the league in that category,
For his career, Anderson compiled 2,529 hits, 287 home runs, 522 doubles and drove in 1,365 runs. He retired after the 2010 season with 23.9 fWAR and a 100 wRC+.
While Anderson, who debuted in 1994, wasn’t a Hall of Fame player, he was a solid big leaguer for more than a decade with several seasons of high-level offensive output. In five consecutive seasons from 1999 through 2004, he connected on 20-or-more home runs with no less than 80 RBI – including four seasons with more than 116.
He wasn’t the star of those Angels teams that also included Jim Edmunds, Troy Glaus, Tim Salmon and Darin Erstad, but he was a floor-raising professional who lengthened the team’s line-up while playing in 150-or-more games from 1996 through 2003 and exceeding 141 games played in nine-out-of-10 seasons from 1996 through 2006.
The left-handed hitter is still the Angels all-time leader in games played, hits, doubles, extra-base hits, and RBI, among other statistics. He was also selected the Angels’ team MVP four times.
His lone season in Atlanta was a later-career pit-stop, playing in 135 games – 124 of which came in left field as part of a loose platoon with Matt Diaz. He hit 13 home runs and 27 doubles for the Braves that season while slashing .268/.303/.401 good for only a 83 wRC+ in his first season playing outside of the Angels organization.
It wasn’t the year that many hoped Anderson would have provided Atlanta when the Braves signed him after the organization’s failed courtship of free agent outfielder and future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey, Jr. – a deal that multiple baseball writers across the country had said was happening – only for Atlanta to be spurned by Griffey, Jr. when he opted to return to the Seattle Mariners – his original franchise – for the final two seasons of his playing career.
The highlight of Anderson’s time with the Braves came on October 1, 2009 when a seeing-eye single made its way through the infield for his 2,500 career hit in Atlanta against the Washington Nationals.
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Anderson, who was also the MVP of the 2003 All-Star Game and 2003 Home Run Derby winner, would go on to broadcast Angels game after his playing career concluded.
He was inducted into the Angels Hall of Fame in 2016.
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