I heard some news just now that greatly saddened me – Keith Foulke is finished with baseball. Apparently, Foulke recently experienced pain in his elbow in recent days and decided to retire rather than struggle through a third consecutive injury-plagued year. Those injuries all cropped up after his sensational 2004 campaign for the Red Sox, and I will never forget what Keith Foulke did for us in 2004. Ever. In my opinion, he had the greatest relief season in Red Sox history in 2004. Take a ride back in history to October 2004 and read this article that I wrote. (It looks like the table got stripped out in the conversion to MVN.com: you can find his 2004 postseason statistics (along with all his other ones) here. “In the 2004 postseason, Foulke appeared in 11 of 14 games, throwing 257 pitches over 14 innings. He would rack up 19 strikeouts, and over the entire stretch, allow exactly one earned run.”)
Happy trails in retirement, Keith. I don’t think of 2005 or 2006 when I see your name. I think of 2004.
