Longtime Baltimore center fielder Adam Jones will return to the franchise Sept. 15 to retire as an Oriole, the team announced Friday morning on social media.
Jones, 37, played for the Orioles from 2008 to 2018 and ranks among Baltimore’s statistical leaders in several categories. He last appeared in the majors in 2019 with the Arizona Diamondbacks before spending the next two seasons playing in Japan.
The Orioles will have a pregame ceremony for Jones ahead of their Sept. 15 home game against the Tampa Bay Rays. The American League East matchup, broadcast nationally on Apple TV+, includes a Jones T-shirt giveaway for the first 15,000 fans.
The team announced Jones’ retirement by in which a server brings out a pie, places it next to a Jones bobblehead and puts down a note announcing Jones’ Sept. 15 retirement. During much of Jones’ tenure in Baltimore, postgame celebrations for wins featured Jones smashing a pie into the face of that night’s player of the game.
“I heard a lot about him when I got here, positive things from the guys that were in the clubhouse from year’s past,” manager Brandon Hyde said before Friday night’s game. “A lot of the guys said a lot of great things about him. I’ve gotten to know him a little bit this past year, really the first time I’ve ever met him. He seems like a wonderful guy, and he was a big fan of our club. We appreciate the support, so that’s a really cool thing that we’re doing, and it’ll be nice to see him at the ballpark.”
Acquired as part of the February 2008 trade that sent starting pitcher Erik Bedard to the Seattle Mariners, Jones soon became a cornerstone of Baltimore’s most successful stretch in decades. He was a first-time All-Star in 2009 and also made the team each year from 2012 to 2015, winning four Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger with three top-15 finishes in American League Most Valuable Player voting along the way. From 2012 to 2016, Jones appeared in all but 40 of the Orioles’ 810 games during a stretch in which they were the AL’s winningest team. That span featured the organization’s only three playoff appearances in the past 25 years, though the 2023 team is positioned to secure another.
Amid the 2012 season, Jones signed a six-year, $85.5 million contract extension that at the time was the largest deal in club history. He ended his decade in Baltimore ranked fifth among Orioles with 263 home runs. Of those, 146 came at Camden Yards, the most of any player in the ballpark’s three decades. Jones is also among the top five franchise leaders in hits, doubles, RBIs and total bases. His 1,613 games as an Oriole are the eighth most since the club moved to Baltimore in 1954 and the third most among primary outfielders behind Brady Anderson’s 1,759 and Paul Blair’s 1,700.
With Jones a pending free agent in 2018 amid a disastrous Orioles season, the club agreed to a trade to send him to the Philadelphia Phillies, but Jones exercised his 10-and-5 rights — granted to players with more than 10 years of major league service time with at least five of those coming for their current club — to decline the swap and stay with Baltimore. Jones later said he wanted to remain an everyday center fielder with the Orioles rather than a part-time right fielder in Philadelphia as he approached free agency, but Baltimore soon moved him into that undesired role regardless, giving young outfielders more playing time as the organization’s rebuild began. He signed with Arizona that offseason before ending his career with two years in Japan.
The upcoming retirement is another sign of a repaired relationship between Jones and the Orioles. Despite his place in franchise history, Jones was not among the attendees to the Orioles’ festivities last year to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of Camden Yards, telling 105.7 The Fan . In past years, Orioles broadcasters and employees were discouraged from mentioning Jones on air or on social media.
Jones returned to Camden Yards last month to serve as a “guest splasher” of . Wearing a No. 10 City Connect jersey with “CAPT SPLASH” across the back, Jones doused fans in the splash zone with water.
On Sept. 15, fans around the stadium figure to return the favor with applause.
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