In baseball, the absolute greatest compliment a fan can give to a member of an opposing team is that they ‘hate’ them. Obviously, this has nothing to do with them personally or away from the game. It simply means that they, for the most part, owned your favorite team. (Okay, maybe except for confirmed cheater Barry Bonds, who everyone hates).

As a veteran (i.e., old) Dodgers fan, I absolutely hated guys named Mickey Mantle, Juan Marichal, and even the greatest player of my generation, Henry Aaron. But here again, this had nothing to do with who they were as people or off the field. Instead, it had everything to do with the fact that they – on a seemingly regular basis – flat out kicked the Dodgers’ butts.

On Wednesday morning, it was announced that 38-year-old left-hander Jon Lester was retiring from the game after 16 major league seasons – nine with the Boston Red Sox, who selected him in the second round of the 2002 MLB Draft out of Bellarmine High School in Tacoma, WA, six with the Chicago Cubs, and one each with the Washington Nationals, St. Louis Cardinals, and Oakland A’s.

Lester leaves the game with a career record of 200-117 (.631) and a career ERA of 3.66. He also owns three World Series rings, two with Boston and one with Chicago, with whom he and his Cubs teammates eliminated the Dodgers from the 2016 postseason, and for which he was named 2016 NLCS co-MVP along with Cubs second baseman Javy Báez.

I hated Jon Lester.

“It’s kind of run its course,” Lester told ESPN’s Jesse Rogers on Wednesday. “It’s getting harder for me physically. The little things that come up throughout the year turned into bigger things that hinder your performance. I’d like to think I’m a halfway decent self-evaluator. I don’t want someone else telling me I can’t do this anymore. I want to be able to hand my jersey over and say,’ thank you, it’s been fun.’ That’s probably the biggest deciding factor.”

Keep in mind that the extremely popular southpaw had – and overcame – anaplastic large cell lymphoma late in his rookie (2006) season, which required chemotherapy treatments. Amazingly, he returned to action the following (2007) season, posting a remarkable 4-0 record and 4.57 ERA in 12 games (11 starts) over 63.0 innings pitched.

Lester ends his 16-year MLB career having tossed a combined 2,740 innings, during which he walked 892 batters while striking out 2,688 – 61 of whom were wearing a Dodgers uniform. He held the Dodgers to a .235 batting average in 11 games against them.

I hated Jon Lester.

But for as much as I hated Jon Lester whenever he took the mound against the Dodgers (especially in 2016), I did so because he was that good against them.

The entire staff at ThinkBlueLA.com wishes Jon and his family nothing but the very best in his well-deserved retirement.

You are hated – and loved – by all of us, Jon.

Play Ball!

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