If Ryan Zimmerman is done with his major league career, the 37-year-old, 16-year veteran will finish his time with the Washington Nationals who drafted him 4th overall in 2005, and for whom he played all of his 1,799 big league games, with a .277/.341/.475 line, 417 doubles, and 284 home runs in 7,402 plate appearances. Though he (still) hasn’t decided if he’ll be back for a 17th season in the nation’s capital, Zimmerman decided he wanted to thank the fans in D.C. during the regular season finale in Nationals Park this past October.
“Because I’m not sure really I didn’t want to make a big deal out of something,” the veteran infielder explained of his previous reluctance to acknowledge he might have reached the end of his playing days, “but the last couple days with the pinch hits, when the fans would stand up every time, and you know just kind of — the energy and the feeling in the park I think it was good to do that more for I would say them than me is I guess the best answer.