Former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Joe Kelly announced he was retiring on a recent edition of the ‘Baseball Isn’t Boring‘ podcast with host Rob Bradford.

MLBTradeRumors helped provide a humorous transcription of Kelly’s comments:

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“Retiring is like, something that my grandmother did….I’m sorry all you people out there watching this that work a real job. You guys deserve to retire, athletes don’t,” Kelly said. “We just stop [expletive] playing, okay? Let’s cancel the word ’retirement.’ It’s used for people who [expletive] served in the military, used for people who worked until 65…When athletes are done playing, just say ’congratulations, they’re no longer playing.’ ”

Drafted in the third round of the 2009 MLB Draft by the Cardinals, Kelly made his debut in 2012. Though he eventually ended up as exclusively a reliever, he was a starter and reliever in St. Louis, and he tossed five innings of one-run ball in his debut against the Cleveland Guardians (Indians) on June 10. He struck out four.

In parts of three seasons, he went 17-14 with the Redbirds, pitching to a 3.25 ERA. He made 68 appearances, including 38 starts. He had 3.4 WAR (Baseball Reference), more than with any other team.

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He helped the Cardinals get to the 2013 World Series, throwing 5.1 innings of two run ball against the Boston Red Sox in that Fall Classic. He appeared in both the 2012 and 2013 playoffs with the Cardinals.

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Kelly was traded at the 2014 deadline, along with Allen Craig to the Red Sox for John Lackey, Corey Littrell and cash.

Lackey went 3-3 after the deal with the Cardinals, pitching to a 4.30 ERA. He went 13-10 with a 2.77 ERA in 2015 before ending his career with the Chicago Cubs.

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He spent 13 total years in the big leagues, including five with the Red Sox and five with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also spent part of two with the Chicago White Sox. He won the World Series with Boston in 2018, Los Angeles in 2020 and Los Angeles again in 2024. He did not pitch in the 2024 playoffs, however.

Lifetime, he was 54-38 with a 3.98 ERA. An extremely hard-thrower, he had 767 strikeouts in 839.0 innings. He also provided some memorable moments, including a brawl with Yankees’ first baseman Tyler Austin and a mocking of the Houston Astros in the wake of the 2017 trash can scandal.

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