While it doesn’t rank near the game’s well-known achievements, being the last player to wear the uniform of a relocated (and sometimes renamed) team has given 11 men since 1953 a certain claim to fame. A single at-bat at the end of the1956 season, for example, made Bob Aspromonte the last man to have played for the Brooklyn Dodgers when he retired after the 1971 season.
Were it not for Aspromonte’s ’56 pinch-hit appearance, a man who appeared in 35 games for the Dodgers in 1957, their last year in Brooklyn, would be the guy who ended his career with the Washington Senators in 1970: catcher John Roseboro, who enjoyed a long career in Los Angeles.
Likewise, Roy Sievers, noted slugger for the original A.L. Senators, was the last man who had played for the St. Louis Browns, for more than a year after his release by the expansion Senators in May 1965. Sievers had been the first rookie of the year for the American League with the Browns in 1949.
However, Don Larsen, released by the Orioles in April 1965, was signed by the Cubs after spending all of 1966 in the minors. The Cubs called up the 37-year-old pitcher from AAA in July 1967. The three games in which he appeared that month made Larsen the last former St. Louis Brown to retire.
At least Sievers was the last position player for the Browns to hang up his spikes. Because Aspromonte never played the field in 1956, the same could be said of Roseboro, even if it’s perhaps splitting hairs. Aspromonte batted for Brooklyn in 1956 only because of the so-called Bonus Baby rule. Although he later had a decent career with Houston, he didn’t make it back to the majors until 1960.
The last of the expansion Senators to retire was Toby Harrah, the topic of his own post on this site. Jim Kaat, the last of the original A.L. Senators to retire, also has a post here. Kaat is now one of five Hall-of-Famers among the 11 men who were the last to play for franchises that have moved since 1953. The others are Willie Mays (New York Giants), Eddie Mathews (Boston Braves), Phil Niekro (Milwaukee Braves) and Reggie Jackson (Kansas City Athletics).
What about the Montreal Expos, until 2025 the last team to move? Nobody who played for Montreal in its final two seasons before the team became the 2005 Washington Nationals made it past 2014. However, a future Cy Young Award winner pitched half a season for the Expos in 2002 and pitched in the majors in 2018 at age 45. That made Bartolo Colon the last man to have worn a Montreal uniform.
The other two names on the list of last retirees: Vic Power, a six-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove first baseman, was the last of the Philadelphia Athletics to retire after finishing his career in 1965. Journeyman backup infielder Fred Stanley, a rookie with the 1969 Seattle Pilots in their lone season, lasted through 1982.
When the Athletics complete their move to Las Vegas, it’s likely to be at least 10 years before the last former Oakland player retires.
A version of this appeared in the September 2023 Squibber, the online newsletter of SABR’s Bob Davids Chapter.
Washington baseball history 