After 10 seasons in Major League Baseball, Chicago White Sox great Tim Anderson has called it a career.
Anderson was selected 17th overall by the Chicago White Sox in the 2013 MLB Draft. After being called up in 2016, the shortstop went on to play for the team for eight seasons.
In Chicago, he was an American League All-Star twice (2021, 2022), led the major leagues in 2019 after batting .335 and batted over .300 for four consecutive seasons between 2019 and 2022.
In 2024, Anderson played with the Marlins, appearing in 65 games. A year later, he moved back to the American League and played with the Angels for 31 games before being released in May of that year.
Now, after a ten year MLB career with a .276 batting average, 98 home runs, 350 RBIs, 122 stolen bases and a Silver Slugger award, Anderson has decided to hang up his cleats.
“I’m getting emotional now because we’re talking about something that I worked my whole life to get there,” Anderson said in a call with reporters. “I never knew the route, I never knew which turn, I never had [any] guidance. I kept going.
“As you know, that was my saying, just keep going. I know I came to the ballpark every day ready to compete, just ready to play for the logo that’s on the front of that jersey, and that’s what I did. Nobody knows what I sacrificed and what the body felt [like] every day, what I was leaving at home from my kids to my wife, through some of the decisions I made. I still kept going, and I had my moments where it bothered me.
“But I couldn’t show it, and it got to a point where it started showing out loud, and I couldn’t control it,” he added. “It was just one of those moments where the time is now where I can enjoy life. I’m kind of happier, waking up and being able to be around my kids and really living a real life. Because life is bigger than trying to make people happier with a bat and a ball, you know what I mean?”
And Anderson did just that, particularly through his efforts to bring the game to Black kids in Chicago, his hometown of Tuscaloosa, AL and beyond. That’s especially significant as many times, Anderson was the lone Black player on the White Sox, which isn’t surprising as the league’s Black representation hovered between 6-8% during his career.
But he stood up for racial equality, kneeling during the anthem, speaking out after George Floyd’s murder and always trying to keep it 100%.
“I just be as open as I can and try to tell people what I’m feeling,” Anderson said back in 2020. “You can never turn away from the real. The realer that you be, I think that’s the right way to be. So I just try to give people 100 percent me, try not to sugarcoat anything.”
The White Sox plan on honoring Anderson before a game on Sept. 17.
Congrats to Tim on a great career!
