ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Adam Wainwright had a few reasons to hang up the cleats for good after 2018: Injuries were mounting, he's already a World Series champion and he's a for sure St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer with more career strikeouts as a Cardinals than every pitcher not named Bob Gibson.
But there were also a few big reasons why he came back.
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"Well one answer is obvious and blunt, that they pay me very well to go out and perform. And so I owed it to the team and to the organization to do that, so I needed to do that," Wainwright says. "The other thing is, I've done this my whole life. I've always wanted to be a Major League Baseball player and when I've been given the opportunity to live out my dream it would be really sad for me to not put everything I can possibly put into being out there every fifth day."
Related: Adam Wainwright explains his decision not to retire in 2018
Wainwright signed a one-year, incentive-driven deal to return for possibly his finaly year in the show (although, we've heard that before). But if it wasn't for his last month and a half of the 2018 season, with an incredible run of rehab starts and resurgent finish in the big leagues, he says he was already thinking retirement.
"I was one month from retirement," Wainwright says. "If I hadn't of healed so miraculously in August and started feeling good, really for the first time all year, at the start of September, I would have retired. I would have at least sat out a year to try to get better."
You can listen to the full conversation Wainwright had with our Chris Hrabe in the audio below.
