Long Beach State Dirtbags legend Troy Tulowitzki announced his retirement today after 13 years in Major League Baseball. He was the highest LBSU draft pick ever when the Colorado Rockies took him seventh overall in 2005.
“I will always look back with tremendous gratitude for having the privilege of playing as long as I did,” Tulowitzki said in a statement released through the team on Thursday. “There is no way to truly express my gratitude to the fans of Colorado, Toronto and New York. They always made my family and I feel so welcome.”
Tulowitzki, 34, is a five-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner with a .290 career batting average, 225 home runs, 1,391 hits, 762 runs and 780 RBIs.
He started at shortstop for the Dirtbags from 2003-05 and was an All-American as a junior. He hit .310 at LBSU with 20 home runs.
After helping Colorado reach the World Series, the Rockies resigned Tulowitzki to a $157.75 million 10-year contract in 2010.
Tulowitzki was traded in July 2015 to the Toronto Blue Jays for shortstop Jose Reyes. He helped the Blue Jays reach the American League Championship Series that year, but slumped in 2016 and was again hampered by injuries.
The New York Yankees inked Tulowitzki to a one-year contract after he was released by the Toronto Blue Jays in December, but he only was able to play five games this season because of injury.
Tulowitzki was induced into the LBSU Hall Of Fame in 2013 where he donated $1 million to built the new batting cages at Bohl Diamond at Blair Field. He also returned to Blair last year to rehab before signing with the Yankees.
