Bengie Molina will always be remembered fondly by San Francisco Giants fans. Ironically, he may be best remembered for being traded to the Texas Rangers and opening up the starting catcher job for Buster Posey in 2010, which of course led to the Giants winning the World Series that year. Andrew Baggarly of CSN Bay Area reports that the veteran catcher, who did not play in 2011, announced his retirement on Saturday. He then celebrated in the appropriate way.
According to Baggarly, Molina's wife threw him a surprise retirement party on Saturda in Scottsdale. Attendees included Matt Cain, Barry Zito, Jeremy Affeldt, Travis Ishikawa, Ramon Ortiz, Ervin Santana, Ramon Hernandez, Miguel Montero and even Albert Pujols. The star-studded affair was a delight and an honor for Molina and a lovely and touching way to wrap up a fine career.
It is also responsible for adding "surprise retirement party" to the lexicon. Hopefully this will join other little-practiced but always-awesome events like "flash mob annulment," "Haley's Comet hoedown" and "Molina brothers staring contest."
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