This wasn’t the news I wanted to hear today, unfortunately, but it seems that former Stanford player and Mets farmhand Sean Ratliff has retired from baseball after his struggles to recover from his facial injuries last season.

Ratliff has one semester left at Stanford, and after that he’s got his whole life in front of him. He’ll be armed with a wonderful degree, so he’ll definitely be able to conquer the world, but it’s always really depressing when a player’s Major League dreams are cut short.

Godspeed, Sean. We still believe in you and we’re very, very proud.

The last time I was in Binghamton for a game, which was about a year ago, I bought a game-used Sean Ratliff bat. I am now even more glad that I was impulsive and did.

I'm going to treasure this forever.

Photo from NY Future Stars, I'm positive.

In “Things that make me scream ‘NO!’ at my computer” news, Sean Ratliff is apparently out for the year with that eye injury he ended up with after being hit in the face by a foul ball whilst in the on-deck circle. Although he’s been recovering fairly well, it’s sounding like he’s going to be missing the season, and that breaks my heart because he’s not only one of my favorite Mets prospects but, well, he went here.

Fortunately, the injury isn’t as bad as it could have been, and Ratliff’s already had two surgeries to correct his bone structure in his face already. He’s going to definitely recover from this, although the fact that the incident happened right after the Luis Salazar injury that cost the latter the use of one of his eyes, it was very scary. Thankfully, it seems that all is well and he’s going to be just fine. We’ll see him play baseball again.

Ratliff’s aware that he’s still lucky:

I’m very blessed that it didn’t happen that way. That was the first thing that went through my mind. I wasn’t knocked out or anything. I was on the ground. I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me, this is going to happen to me too?”

You don’t wish something like what happened to Luis Salazar happening to anybody. I was scared for a little while there that I wasn’t going to be able to see, or I wasn’t going to play again. I’m still not completely out of the woods yet with returning, or being able to play. But God has blessed me with hopefully a second chance here.

Mets fans who like Stanford can also keep tabs on Joey August, who’s still playing this season. …oh, never mind that, he’s been released. So there’s that, too. I guess I should go remove the pride of South Salem High School from the pros list unless he’s signed somewhere.

If you know where Joey August is, contact Unsolved Mysteries so I can yell UPDATE at you in a deep, mock-dramatic voice and post where he’s playing, if he’s playing anywhere. For now, his claim to fame will still be North Salem High School senior Jed Lowrie hitting a homer on the varsity field and hitting him in the leg on the JV field.

I took this photo of Ratliff back last June in Binghamton.

Thanks to @AdamRubinESPN and @A_AmberC for the tip on this one.

Ratliff was hit in the on-deck circle by a foul ball. Although he’s okay and is in stable condition, he needed fifteen stitches in his face and will require reconstructive surgery to fix six broken bones in his face. The team is unsure if he’ll need a plate inserted or not.

Ratliff’s vision is fine and his pain is under control – he’ll live. But we’re definitely wishing him a speedy recovery here. According to @A_AmberC on Twitter, “Ratliff is indeed in really good spirits considering how much pain he’s in.” That’s really encouraging to hear.

Amongst his other accomplishments, Ratliff helped to lead the Cardinal to the College World Series semifinals in 2008.

Steph writes a prospect blog as well as working on this website, and she decided to do a post on Sean Ratliff today because she still loves him to death. Not as much as she loves Jed Lowrie, but still.

Her Ratliff post is right here if you actually deign to read it. She uploaded a video of Ratliff homering in Binghamton that she’s actually pretty proud of.

Now she will go and nudge Mac into uploading her pictures from the Santa Clara game yesterday so a post can be written. Because the Card won 9-1 and Ragira hit for the cycle and that’s pretty rad, yo.