After 14 years in the majors, Barry Zito has walked off the mound for the final time.
Zito, who pitched for multiple years for both Bay Area teams, announced his retirement Monday in a post on The Players' Tribune.
"My baseball career has been a mirror to my life off the field, full of euphoric highs and devastating lows," Zito wrote. "I've been at the top of a rotation and the 25th man on a roster. I've started Game 1 of a World Series in one year, and I've been left off of a postseason roster in another. I've been labeled as both drastically underpaid and severely overpaid. I've been praised as a savior and deemed a curse."
Zito was a three-time All-Star and 2002 American League Cy Young Award winner with the Oakland Athletics. He parlayed that success into a seven-year, $126 million deal with the San Francisco Giants -- a contract many said he never quite lived up to, though he did start Game 1 of the Giants' 2012 World Series win.
When his Giants contract ended after the 2013 season, Zito took 2014 off to prepare for a comeback effort.
The 37-year-old Zito said last month when called up to the Athletics following a season in Triple-A that he planned to retire and turn his attention to his other love, music, and spending more time with his family.
He leaves baseball with a record of 165-143 and a 4.04 ERA.
"Beyond all of the achievements, the single thing that fulfills me today is the acceptance of myself as a worthy and valuable person, regardless of what my stature or position in the world was on a given day of my career," Zito wrote.
Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.
