Dear Ryan Howard: Please, let this be the end of your playing career | Marcus Hayes

Dear Ryan:

Please, be done.

Please, let that Triple-A oh-fer with the Gwinnett Braves in Charlotte on Saturday be the last time you're paid to play.

The Braves released you Monday. In truth, they set you free.

Please say goodbye to the game that gave you so much, and let you give so much to us. If some American League team comes knocking in August looking for a designated hitter, just say you've gone fishin'.

You like fishin'.

You say you have more in the tank. Well, everybody does. It's just that when the gauge starts ticking toward "empty," the ride gets rough.

It's rough watching you hang on. It's rough watching you strike out against pitching you used to destroy. It's rough watching you shuffle around the bases like a faded Babe Ruth.

Because that's what you are to Philadelphia. You're the closest thing to Ruthian that Philly ever had; bigger than life and a little doughy and possessed of terrifying power. You got walked more than a diarrheic Rottweiler.

Adjusting for PED-tainted players, you led the league in intentional walks in 2006 and 2007. That's another wonderful aspect of your career: You played clean.

For anyone lucky enough to have met you, they can tell their friends that it wasn't your broad shoulders or your barrel chest or your brilliant smile that left the biggest impression. It was your hands; your huge, yuge hands; hands that snapped your bat through the hitting zone as if you were snapping a towel.

Today, your hands look like you're hitting in mayonnaise.

You say there's more in the tank, Ryan, and it might feel like it, but there's nothing left to prove. Most players don't come close to Rookie of the Year, MVP or a World Series ring, and you won them all in your first four seasons. It wasn't your fault God gave you Tinker Toy feet and your Achilles snapped in 2011 and you spent your last five seasons swinging on one normal leg and one bowling pin.

Even the way your end began was a thing of legend. The Achilles gave way as you made the final out of the National League division series, the last out of the last playoff game of the club's Golden Era. It was like watching Big John go down in the mine one last time.

You made $190 million from the Phillies and you didn't steal a dime. You were worth $1 billion to the brand. You helped set the longest sellout streak in National League history. Sure, the fans loved Chase and Jimmy, but seriously, you were the Big Piece. Connoisseurs appreciate hustle and guile, but everybody understands dingers. During the sellout streak, you hit 93 homers with 314 RBI. Chase and Jimmy hit 96 homers with 347 RBI combined.

That's not a knock on them; rather, it's just an indication of what you were. Forty-five thousand people didn't show up every cold spring night and every hot summer day to see them. Not them alone. They came to witness greatness.

You were the greatness.

You homered in the first game of that sellout streak. Chase homered in the last one. That's excellent closure.

Let this be closure, too.