One of the greatest Canadian baseball players of all-time is calling it a career as New Westminster, BC native Justin Morneau is set to announce his retirement today at a news conference at Target Field in Minnesota.
Morneau will now join the Minnesota Twins front office as a special assistant, continuing a relationship with the squad that drafted him in 1999 and where he spent 11 of his 14 big league seasons.
After reaching the big leagues in 2003, Morneau soon became one of the top sluggers in the game winning the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2006 and being named to four consecutive All-Star Games from 2007-2010. He would later add a National League batting title to his resume as a member of the Colorado Rockies in 2014.
He finishes his career near the top of many offensive categories among Canadian-born MLB players including second in hits (1603), doubles (349) and RBI (983), trailing only Larry Walker, third in games played (1545) and fourth in home runs (247). He is the only Canadian to win an American League MVP Award and one of just three Canadians (Larry Walker and Joey Votto) to win a Most Valuable Player Award.
Morneau has a special connection with Baseball Canada first joining the Junior National Team program as a 17 year-old in 1999 before representing Canada at the 2001 IBAF Baseball World Cup and the 2003 Olympic Qualifier in Panama where he helped the Canucks qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics. He is one of a handful of players, including Canadian Pete Orr, to have participated in all four World Baseball Classic events. He was also a guest coach at Junior National Team Spring Training in 2016 before signing with the Chicago White Sox later that year. Fittingly, his final appearance as a player came with a Canadian jersey on at the 2017 WBC last March.
“Since the moment he put on a Canadian uniform, Justin has had a tremendous impact on our National Teams program. Through representing Canada in international competition, his generous support of our programs and National Teams Banquet to lending a hand as a guest coach with our Junior National Team, we are forever grateful for his kindness,” said Greg Hamilton, Baseball Canada’s Director of National Teams. “We’d like to congratulate Justin on an amazing 14-year career in the big leagues and wish him and his family the best in their next chapter of their lives.”
Justin Morneau timeline:
