Former Milwaukee outfielder/first baseman Corey Hart announced today that he will officially retire from Major League Baseball as a member of the Brewers. On Friday, the club plans to honor Hart with induction into the "Milwaukee Brewers Wall of Honor," commemorating his career with a plaque permanently installed at Miller Park and recognizing him during a ceremony before that night’s game against the Miami Marlins.
Hart will become the 60th member of the Wall of Honor since its inaugural class in 2014. The lanky, bearded power hitter was a two-time All-Star – in 2008, when he was voted in by fans, and in 2010, when he also participated in the Home Run Derby – who spent nine of his 11 major-league seasons with Milwaukee. During that time, he batted .276 with 154 homers, 508 RBI and 83 stolen bases in 945 games.
Hart had five 20-homer seasons with the Brewers, and among the 38 players in franchise history who had at least 2,000 plate appearances, his .491 slugging percentage ranks sixth all-time.
Hart was one of the Brewers’ much-hyped and highly successful position players that came up through their system in the mid-2000s, along with Prince Fielder, J.J. Hardy, Rickie Weeks and Ryan Braun. Hart played in Milwaukee from 2004 to 2012, before missing the entire 2013 season following knee surgery. He played a couple more years, for Seattle and Pittsburgh, before retiring from the game.
Unusually fast for such a tall player (6-foot-6), I’ll always remember Hart as a smiling, autograph-signing fan favorite whose at-bat music was a Christian rock song.
The Wall of Honor commemorates Brewers players and broadcasters that meet a set criteria based on service to the club. It is a permanent display outside of Miller Park on the north side of the stadium adjacent to the Hot Corner entrance. Honorees on the Wall have a plaque with their picture and a brief synopsis of their career. The plaques are designed by Matthews International, designers of the plaques for the National Baseball Hall of Fame. There is also a Milwaukee Braves Wall of Honor at the site.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
