Twins' Radke expected to announce retirement soon...

Originally Posted by ESPN

Brad Radke reportedly will officially retire at a news conference in Minneapolis on Tuesday, ending his 12-year career with the Twins.



Brad Radke
Starting Pitcher
Minnesota Twins

Profile
2006 SEASON STATISTICS
GM W L BB K ERA
28 12 9 32 83 4.32


According to the Star Tribune, the 34-year-old Radke will offically end his major league career at a news conference at the Metrodome on Tuesday.

"It'll be a sad day because he's not going to be pitching for us anymore," manager Ron Gardenhire told The Tribune. "And it's also going to be a great day because he's done so much for our organization. He started with us, and he never left us. That's something our organization is very, very proud of."

A Twins spokesman declined to say to The Associated Press what Radke would announce at the news conference. Radke was to be joined by general manager Terry Ryan, manager Ron Gardenhire and team President Dave St. Peter.

Radke went 12-9 with a 4.32 ERA in 28 starts this past year. He suffered a stress fracture of the glenoid in his throwing shoulder in late August but returned to the AL Central champions in the final weeks of the regular season.

The Twins were holding out hope they could convince Radke to delay his retirement for one more season.

"I gave him one last pitch a couple days after the season," Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson told The Tribune. "My last thing was, 'Hey, Rad, don't announce anything. Why don't you see how you feel? And come January or February, if you get the urge to do it again, maybe come on down [to spring training] and see what you've got.'

"He said, 'You know, I've made up my mind.'"

A 20-game winner in 1997 and an All-Star the following year, the right-hander owns a career record of 148-139 with a 4.22 ERA in 378 games, all but one as a starter. He has pitched at least 200 innings in nine of his 12 seasons with the Twins.

Information from SportsTicker and The Associated Press was used in this report.