Hall of Famers that retired at the top of their game.

Coinstartled

I'll start. Barry Sanders!

perkdog

I will second Barry Sanders

Coinstartled

Bobby Jones.

1951WheatiesPremium

Michael Jordan: The Retiring Part 1

perkdog

Two non HOF’ers that immediately come to mind is Robert Smith ( Vikes RB ) and Calvin Johnson

bronco2078

MGLICKER !!

he " retired " from the PCGS forum like a year ago sure miss that guy

Darin

Will 'the thrill' Clark

Would have been an easy HOF'er if he had played two or three more years. Still a HOF'er in my opinion.

grote15

Sanders for sure.

Jim Brown comes to mind also.

keets

Jim Brown, who decided that it would be better to make movies with hot actresses instead of being tackled by Dick Butkus.think about any comparisons with him, he played 10 years and never missed a down due to injury!! if he had stretched his career like most modern players and gone 15 seasons he likely would have set a record no one would match.

stevek

Jim Brown is the best example for a multitude of reasons.

jay0791

Mussina had a great last year and could have player a few more years.

Darin

You could even say Roberto Clemente, as his last year at age 37 he hit .312
He was getting better with age, as his age 34-36 seasons were absolutely monster years.
Look at his stats if you get a chance, they're fascinating.

Skin2

Michael Jordan

JoeBanzai

If Koufax qualifies I will add Kirby Puckett to to the list.

Hallco

Justify(not in the Hall of fame now but will be!)

SDSportsFan

John Elway - back-to-back Super Bowl wins! Only player ever to do that.

Dave Kingman - 442 lifetime HRs, and he's done at 37. Over his last three years, he hit 35, 30 and 35 HRs, with 118, 91 and 94 RBIs. He was the A's team leader in HRs all three years, and led them in RBIs in '84 and '85; finishing second to Jose Canseco in 1986.

The A's replaced Kingman, with Reggie Jackson in 1987, and Reggie hit .220 (roughly the same as Kingman had), but Reggie only had 15 HRs and 43 RBIs.

Steve

Coinstartled

Rocky Balboa. His 6 fights in 30 years kept him agile and hungry.

Justacommeman

My brother is a table tennis savant. I must have lost 500+ consecutive games to him. One Saturday night in 1977 at around 3am I hit every edge, won every net bounce, made zero unforced errors and beat him 23-31. I declared my self family champ and skipped around the block in utter bliss with paddle in hand. Like Apollo Creed said to Rocky there will be no rematch. I haven’t played him since that beautiful summer night. He claims he hasn’t lost since to all comers so I’m the answer to his trivia question. He remains not amused when I remind him who’s champ

m

bronco2078

@SDSportsFan said:
John Elway - back-to-back Super Bowl wins! Only player ever to do that.

??

SDSportsFan

@bronco2078 said:

@SDSportsFan said:
John Elway - back-to-back Super Bowl wins! Only player ever to do that.

??

What are you questioning?

John Elway is the only player to retire as a back-to-back Super Bowl champion.

Steve

bronco2078

He did stop after the 2 super bowl wins , I guess I was thinking it wasn't the top of his career as far as the prime of his ability . I guess retired at the top could mean a number of things.

stevek

I don't think that Koufax qualifies because in my view the topic implies retiring at the top of your game when you could have stayed at the top of your game for some years afterwards.

Koufax's arm was shot. If he had tried to pitch the next season, he may have at some point not been able to pickup a baseball let alone throw it.

Coinstartled

@Justacommeman said:
My brother is a table tennis savant. I must have lost 500+ consecutive games to him. One Saturday night in 1977 at around 3am I hit every edge, won every net bounce, made zero unforced errors and beat him 23-31. I declared my self family champ and skipped around the block in utter bliss with paddle in hand. Like Apollo Creed said to Rocky there will be no rematch. I haven’t played him since that beautiful summer night. He claims he hasn’t lost since to all comers so I’m the answer to his trivia question. He remains not amused when I remind him who’s champ

m

Great story. Something like that happened to me in high school dodge ball. Ahh the memories.

ernie11

@stevek said:
I don't think that Koufax qualifies because in my view the topic implies retiring at the top of your game when you could have stayed at the top of your game for some years afterwards.

Koufax's arm was shot. If he had tried to pitch the next season, he may have at some point not been able to pickup a baseball let alone throw it.

Or...he might've thrown the ball and his arm would've arrived at the plate first.

perkdog

@SDSportsFan said:

@bronco2078 said:

@SDSportsFan said:
John Elway - back-to-back Super Bowl wins! Only player ever to do that.

??

What are you questioning?

John Elway is the only player to retire as a back-to-back Super Bowl champion.

Steve

I was confused how you worded that too. I’m actually surprised that Elway is the only one to do that, no other HOF’er huh?

craig44

I agree that retiring due to injury would disqualify for this discussion.

it seems I remember Boomer Esaison having a really good final year before hanging them up.

Justacommeman

Barry Sanders rushed for 1470 yards and 14 tds in his final season.

m

JoeBanzai

Sanders and Brown would seem to be the top two.

Jay Berwanger?

stevek

I agree Sanders is also a good choice.

I didn't follow it that closely at all, but I think Sanders retired because he was hissed about a contract dispute of some sort. and that hassle persuaded him to retire as he lost interest in playing.

I think Jim Brown went thru something like that as well. But he also had his eyes on Hollywood in which Brown has had a very successful acting career.

I think his first job in Hollywood was in the film The Dirty Dozen which is a very entertaining WW2 genre movie. He did a nice acting job in that role.

JRR300

@Darin said:
You could even say Roberto Clemente, as his last year at age 37 he hit .312
He was getting better with age, as his age 34-36 seasons were absolutely monster years.
Look at his stats if you get a chance, they're fascinating.

Clemente didn't retire. He was taken at a very young age.
Sanders and Brown are the two that come to mind, and Calvin Johnson was also mentioned.
Didn't Puckett hand em up because he had vision problems; I remember him going blind in one eye from the diabetes.

Darin

True about Clemente, I was just thinking along the lines of it was his last year and
it was a very good year. That was a sad day in my childhood, I was watching TV when the news bulletin
came on that Clemente's plane was missing and they suspected it went down.

orioles93

Calvin Johnson
(he will be a hall of famer)

JoeBanzai

@JRR300 said:

@Darin said:
You could even say Roberto Clemente, as his last year at age 37 he hit .312
He was getting better with age, as his age 34-36 seasons were absolutely monster years.
Look at his stats if you get a chance, they're fascinating.

Clemente didn't retire. He was taken at a very young age.
Sanders and Brown are the two that come to mind, and Calvin Johnson was also mentioned.
Didn't Puckett hand em up because he had vision problems; I remember him going blind in one eye from the diabetes.

Glaucoma I think. Qualified it by comparing to Koufax. It was said that Puckett's good eye might adjust so he could see well enough to hit, but he said I'm done.

I doubt that he would have been good enough to play even if his depth perception returned.

JRR300

hard to believe that his good eye could adjust enough to be able to hit a 90+ mph fastball. The depth perception is tough to overcome. It's rare that glaucoma affects someone that young. Did he suffer from another illness that might have brought on the glaucoma? I just don't recall.

keets

I read the OP to mean players who retired with a lot of gas left in the tank and still able to compete at a high level. from that perspective, many players mentioned just don't qualify. the ones I noticed most were Clemente, Koufax and Pucket. they were great players to be sure but two retired due to injury(could no longer play) and the third died.

I think Jim Brown went thru something like that as well. But he also had his eyes on Hollywood in which Brown has had a very successful acting career
Jim Brown had received "teasers" from Hollywood and the new Browns owner, Art Modell, clashed with him over a few things. at that time, in the mid-1960's, there was some racial tension on the Team that centered around John Wooten. Jim Brown held to his principles and pretty much told Modell to "stick it where the sun don't shine." he was probably the Teams best potential Ambassador, yet he would have nothing to do with them, rejecting invitations and staying in sunny California. is it any surprise that after Modell hijacked the franchise that Brown has been available as a matter of routine with the New Cleveland Browns?? he roams the sidelines and gives motivational talks to the Team along with other involvement.

all because Art Modell is gone.

craig44

@JRR300 said:
hard to believe that his good eye could adjust enough to be able to hit a 90+ mph fastball. The depth perception is tough to overcome. It's rare that glaucoma affects someone that young. Did he suffer from another illness that might have brought on the glaucoma? I just don't recall.

there are two schools of thought.

1. In september of the previous season Kirby was beaned in his jaw.

2. there are also suspicions,
   "Among the ocular side effects, cataract and glaucoma are common. Steroid-induced ocular hypertension was reported in 1950, when long-term use of systemic steroid was shown to increase the intraocular pressure (IOP). Chronic administration of steroids in any form with raised IOP can cause optic neuropathy resulting in steroid-induced glaucoma."

JoeBanzai

@JRR300 said:
hard to believe that his good eye could adjust enough to be able to hit a 90+ mph fastball. The depth perception is tough to overcome. It's rare that glaucoma affects someone that young. Did he suffer from another illness that might have brought on the glaucoma? I just don't recall.

I agree. Not only was there TONS of stories on Puckett and his vision, I had a dog who was born with vision in only one eye. He could catch anything you threw to him with ease. I always wondered how he could do that without depth perception and was told that the good eye can compensate. This was also said about Puckett.

Now, I am certainly not claiming Puckett could have regained the ability to hit MLB pitching. I really brought him up rather "tongue in cheek" because Koufax was absolutely unable to pitch any longer with his arthritis.

I also mentioned Jay Berwanger the first Heisman trophy winner (wasn't even called the Heisman yet) not a HOFer, but a guy who despite being drafted first overall declined to even play pro football.

bronco2078

@craig44 said:

@JRR300 said:
hard to believe that his good eye could adjust enough to be able to hit a 90+ mph fastball. The depth perception is tough to overcome. It's rare that glaucoma affects someone that young. Did he suffer from another illness that might have brought on the glaucoma? I just don't recall.

there are two schools of thought.

1. In september of the previous season Kirby was beaned in his jaw.

2. there are also suspicions,
   "Among the ocular side effects, cataract and glaucoma are common. Steroid-induced ocular hypertension was reported in 1950, when long-term use of systemic steroid was shown to increase the intraocular pressure (IOP). Chronic administration of steroids in any form with raised IOP can cause optic neuropathy resulting in steroid-induced glaucoma."

Flonase does that , he was probably on flonase

JoeBanzai

@bronco2078 said:

@craig44 said:

@JRR300 said:
hard to believe that his good eye could adjust enough to be able to hit a 90+ mph fastball. The depth perception is tough to overcome. It's rare that glaucoma affects someone that young. Did he suffer from another illness that might have brought on the glaucoma? I just don't recall.

there are two schools of thought.

1. In september of the previous season Kirby was beaned in his jaw.

2. there are also suspicions,
   "Among the ocular side effects, cataract and glaucoma are common. Steroid-induced ocular hypertension was reported in 1950, when long-term use of systemic steroid was shown to increase the intraocular pressure (IOP). Chronic administration of steroids in any form with raised IOP can cause optic neuropathy resulting in steroid-induced glaucoma."

Flonase does that , he was probably on flonase

Kirby was muscularly HUGE, it was hard to tell because he had a good sized layer of fat covering his body.

I was watching a Twins tribute show about Puckett and saw a photo of him in the classic pose flexing his biceps, they were gigantic and his triceps were huge too. Bodybuilder huge.

I have often wondered if he might have been a juicer.

Tabe

@stevek said:
I agree Sanders is also a good choice.

I didn't follow it that closely at all, but I think Sanders retired because he was hissed about a contract dispute of some sort. and that hassle persuaded him to retire as he lost interest in playing.

He didn't like the head coach and was upset with the direction of the team. Wasn't a contract dispute. Was a bitter divorce with the Lions as they went after him for a chunk of his signing bonus. Sanders, for his part, intentionally retired late so the team would have no chance to draft or trade for a replacement.

It's all been forgiven, however, and he's now an employee of the team.

bronco2078

Bernie Sanders doesn't have the stats to get into the hall he probably should retire though he's like 80

Darin

Colonel (pronounced kernel for some reason) Sanders should retire as well.

JoeBanzai

Mr. Whipple had some good years left as well.

Justacommeman

Mr Clean always tested steroid free and he was fit as a whistle and squeaky clean when he rung it, I mean hung it up

m

Brick

He was simply a good cheater. No one has a body like that from simply working out and eating right. Just take a good look ay him.

bronco2078

@Brick said:
He was simply a good cheater. No one has a body like that from simply working out and eating right. Just take a good look ay him.

Mr Clean by definition is clean other wise he'd be mr dirty .

Or did you mean mr whipple ? True story years later he tracked Rosie down and hacked her to pieces

88horsepower

Bjorn Borg comes to mind.

Coinstartled

The Michelin Man was a hell of a Sumo wrestler. Unblemished record aside from the take down by the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

keets

Why did the Pillsbury Doughboy break up with Raggady Ann?? she had a yeast infection.

cecropiamoth

Paul Molitor came to my mind. He may have slipped a little bit in his last season, but he hit .341, .305 and .281 in his last three seasons (age 39 - 41 seasons) in Minnesota. He was a guy that got better and more durable as he aged and while he was outstanding in his early career, look at his age 34 and up seasons.

Jeff

garnettstyle

Bjorn Borg