I am so tired of this whole evolving trend in sports of faux retirements. This has become a virtual epidemic in North American sports. Great players who string the world along for months while they decide whether they will make a return to their respective teams. We’ve had Mario Lemieux and Michael Jordan make multiple returns to their sports in the last decade. But these 3 guys I’m about to mention seem to have this down to a science.

Roger Clemens
This guy has become the absolute king of the faux retirement in recent years. In 2003 he originally retired at age 41 to much fanfare from the New York Yankees. There were the curtain calls, all the talk about how the 2003 playoffs would be his curtain call. Everyone bought in to it. The Yankees in fact gave him the proverbial gold watch in the form of a brand new Hummer H2. That lasted all of 2 months before the rumblings started about playing for the hometown Houston Astros, who had recently signed his former Yankee teammate and buddy Andy Pettitte. He dragged out the drama for awhile before signing a lucrative contract to play in Houston. That season he collected his 7th Cy Young award and helped the Astros to the National League Championship series before losing to the Cardinals. He then dragged out the decision before the 2005 season before deciding to sign an $18 million / 1 year contract with the Astros. Again he had a great year and the Astros and they this time made it to the World Series before losing to the Chicago White Sox. The 2006 offseason he decided to play in the inaugural World Baseball Classic for Team USA and claimed he would retire afterwards. Fat chance. He signed a mid-season deal, again with the Astros for a record $22 million a year($12.25 million of which he received for the shortened season) . 2007 rolls around and yet another year where the retirement topic is bandied around until May when he made an announcement that he was making a return to the New York Yankees for a shocking $28 million a year. He was less the sensational for the Yankees in 2007, so he may actually be done this time around.

Brett Favre
This guy has never actually retired, but he definitely has been thinking about it for a long time. The guy is 38 and it feels like it’s been a decade so far that we’ve heard rumours that he was pondering retirement. If my memory serves I believe Favre started talking retirement around 30-31. At that point he had already been a 3 time league MVP and won a Super Bowl, so essentially his Hall Of Fame ticket was already punched. I’ve always marveled at the guys who can walk away from the game when they were still the best. When these initial rumblings about retirement started it sounded like Brett wanted to go out while his health was good and his legacy was set. That was 7 seasons ago. Since then the last few games of every season has all the football analysis shows hyping up whether Brett might be taking the final snaps of his career. Given Brett is having a good season this year I figure he’ll hum and haw about it again this off-season before coming back again.

Scott Niedermayer
This guy has done it all. He’s won championships at every level of hockey, including 4 Stanley Cups with 2 teams, an Olympic gold medal, World Championships and World Junior Championships. So when the Ducks won the Cup in the spring there started some rumblings that he was pondering going out on top at age 34. He had accomplished what he signed in Anaheim to do, win a championship along side his brother Rob, so what was left? Over the summer he pondered his future while never actually committing one way or the other. The Ducks made moves in the off-season to compensate for the expected hole in their roster and attempted to move on. Yet Scott still was non-committal on the whole thing. Now comes word that he has begun skating and won’t make a decision on his future until December. It is quite obvious that he will be coming back, even though he hasn’t verbalized it.

Now all three guys mentioned here are first ballot Hall Of Famers and have had great careers. I don’t begrudge them for that, even though they have pretty much always played for teams I loathe(aside from Clemens who played on the Jays for 2 years). I can respect their talent. What I don’t respect is the glory pandering. Saying that you are going to retire only makes the whole sports media focus on you more with video tributes and career highlight packages. This is all well and good if you actually retire. But if you keep coming back it’s just irritating. I find the part that irks me the most is the dishonesty, especially on Clemens and Favre’s part. Dragging the whole process out only hurts the players team and teammates with their indecisiveness and it comes off as selfish, working to tarnish your Hall Of Fame image. If you want to play until your 60 and set every record in the book, go for it. I never begrudged Nolan Ryan for playing into his late 40′s. I think it’s great Julio Franco aspires to play baseball into his 50′s. More power to him. If Clemens wants to catch Nolan Ryan on the all-time strikeout list and play until he’s 55, do it, just don’t fake retire after every season. There are lots of players who play into their 40′s nowadays. And Favre, don’t claim you’re not interested in records when that’s clearly what you’ve been angling for the last 5 years on bad Packer teams. In a way I feel bad about lumping Niedermayer in with these 2 notorious culprits, but if he feigns that he wants to retire at 34, then proceeds to play until he’s 39 that is not cool.