(un)Graceful Exits: Roll Call on 1-Team Star Endings

OK...it is done. We went the whole Summer without a Star vs Team basharama in public. But Fran Blinebury had to get it out of Hakeem.

So, let's not talk about Hakeem here, but I want to know all the superstars who left in the end of their career with(out) a bash session with the franchise.

I'll start with the notables, and you correct me. What we are looking for is stars or organizations who claimed the other lied or was disloyal and otherwise did not negotiate in good faith. This is not about the star wanting to stay but settling for leaving, rather, this is about how graceful you did it....did the owner/player have to childishly get their jabs in afterwards.

Remember, this is a business. Not everyone feels like it is necessary to bash on handling of a 1-team star's retirement yrs.

Try to stick to one-franchise players who were considered on the very twilight of their careers...not Pippen in Chicago or Drexler or Oscar Robertson who left to win a title with Jabbar, rather players who left for one last hurray or who got pushed.

Joe Montana (don't think there was bashing)
Ewing (there was bashing, right?)
Phil Neikro (left 20 yrs of Braves to chase 300 wins)
Hank Aaron??
Willie Mays
Wayne Gretzky
George Gervin (12 yrs Spurs, 1 yr Bulls, never wanted to quit and retired in the CBA 2yrs later)
Can anyone say how 1-team Soccer Stars handled it

there's got to be many more.

 

AJ,

Clemens? not really. He played many years after with more rings and a Cy Young. That isn't twilight. The ones in my list played for only a few more weak years, maybe Gretzky doesn't belong.

I'm not talking about contract negotiations in your prime.

Anyhow, did Namath have a bash session?

That's what I want to know. Who remembers whether Hank Aaron, Gervin, Phil Neikro and Willie Mays went public with vitriol like Hakeem just did?

Jerry Rice didn't
Joe Montana didn't

 

not Barkley. He was not a 1-team player and he left the 76'rs on his first contract.

Who left their ONLY team in the diminishing, final few yrs of their career rather than retiring as a one-team player? And was it a graceful or ungraceful exit.

Montana, Rice, and Gervin all knew they were diminishing, but still wanted to start and have a role. Neikro is a good example, he wasn't ready to retire, and the Braves were changing their rotation.

Aaron probably isn't the best example, because he was just chasing records or extending them, so his team helped him find a better chance. What was Mays thinking, just retire a Giant...sheesh.