Taylor, who retired from baseball after the 2004 season and now lives in Miami: "It happened exactly like that. I was very surprised. I said, 'No, no, don't do it.' I was more than surprised. I was shocked. I never expected him to do that. I knew he was still a great player."
After the game, as the rest of the team was getting ready to fly to San Diego for the next series, Schmidt called his wife, Donna, and his agent. Manager Nick Leyva found out at the airport, before the charter flight took off.
Schmidt: "I asked Nick Leyva if I could speak to him. We walked back down the stairs of the plane and onto the tarmac. I told him I wanted to retire. He was a little shocked. He said all the things you would expect. 'Are you sure? It's a big step.' That sort of thing."
Leyva, now third-base coach for the Toronto Blue Jays: "I had no idea. We had kind of speculated about it. He didn't look like he was enjoying himself. He was a proud man and he wasn't playing up to his capabilities.
"I was sitting on the plane. He came up and said, 'I need to talk to you.' He said, 'I've made up my mind . . . ' I said, 'Are you sure?' I mean, when you're the manager of a player the caliber of Mike Schmidt, you want to talk him out of it."
After the plane leveled off at its cruising altitude, Schmidt asked to address his teammates. He took the microphone and told the rest of the traveling party, which included outfielder/first baseman Von Hayes, that he planned to retire.
Hayes, now in his second year as manager of the Lancaster Barnstormers of the independent Atlantic League: "It came as quite a surprise. He didn't go around announcing it to everybody that he was going to do it. We knew he was struggling. We knew there was a possibility he might retire at the end of the year. But nobody expected it in the middle of the season.
