The St. Louis Cardinals will be without one franchise legend in 2024 after Adam Wainwright announced his retirement from baseball. Waino spent his entire career in the big leagues with the organization, playing 18 years and becoming a true fan favorite.

No words can express how grateful Wainwright is for the Cardinals franchise and all the coaches and players who helped him along the way. So, in order to thank everyone, Waino wrote a heartfelt Players' Tribune article. This message will resonate the most with St. Louis fans:

“Jokes aside, it was perfect — 200 in my last start and in front of y’all. I won’t bore you with a play-by-play, since it was so recent. But instead I’ll tell you about the two guys who I hugged first after: Adam Olsen and Jason Shutt. Adam rehabbed me from my Tommy John and my Achilles. Now he’s our head athletic trainer. And Jason, another of our trainers, literally made it his mission to see me finish strong. Neither of those guys is someone you hear much about … yet they each saved parts of my career. And what’s crazy is, St. Louis is FULL of those types of people. Maybe not people who saved me, in the way Adam and Jason did.

But people who touched a specific aspect of my career, or moment in it, and left their mark on me for the better. And when I think of all those people — when I think of teammates like mine, and fans like ours, and where I’d be without them, and why this connection runs so deep?? I remember my single favorite thing about being a Cardinal: How every time I stepped on the field, I was helping write a story. Not my story, but bigger than mine. Bigger than anyone’s.”

Adam Wainwright will go down as one of the best Cardinals ever, compiling a 3.53 ERA and of course, reaching the 200-win mark in the 2023 season.