Jeff Conine told the press in Cincy today that he's consider retiring at the end of the 2007 season. This news won't get nearly the same coverage as Craig Biggio's retirement announcement will, but it took me aback just as much, maybe more. I'm not exactly sure why that is, probably because Conine is just the type of guy that has seemingly always been there. Anyways, from the Cincy Enquirer: "Physically, I feel great," he said. "There's no issues I'm battling right now. It's just mentally and with the family, it's getting tougher every year."Conine is now 41 years old (amazing, I know) and has played parts of 17 years in the big leagues. He's never been a great player, but if you check his Baseball-Reference page, you can see a sprinkling of appearances on the leaderboards over his career. He was there when the Marlins started, he was there when they won the World Series in 1997, he was there again in 2003, and he's still going at it. He's one of those never great but always good enough to have a job type guys. You know guys like Biggio will retire because you watch them decline in the spotlight. Guys like Conine melt into the background and you never realize you're going to miss them until they're almost gone.Conine has three children, ages 11, 10 and 7.
"I'm missing a lot of stuff," he said. "You miss things that you're never going to get back."
