One of the things about independent baseball is that oftentimes players find new opportunities outside of baseball and decide to end their playing career...Remembering back to 2008, R.C. Dickerson and Curtis Ledbetter both retired before the start of the season after initially having agreed to return for the 2008 campaign...
Two players from the 2008 Beach Bums announced their retirement yesterday...Ted Gjeldum and Jeff Brown have both decided to hang up the spikes and pursue other opportunities...The Beach Bums are extremely grateful for the time they spent in a uniform...
Brown played in Traverse City for two seasons and was willing to help the team in any way possible...He even spent some time behind the plate during the 2007 campaign...In 2008 Brown assumed the role of starting third baseman for a time and also made starts in right field, left field, shortstop and second base...He played in 71 games and hit .211 for the Beach Bums with 29 RBI last year...Brown drove in a season high three runs in a May 30 game against Kalamazoo at Wuerfel Park...During 2007, Brown batted .207 with five homers and 37 RBI in 92 games...
Gjeldum was one of two left-handed relievers for the Beach Bums last season...He set a franchise record for appearances with 46 and sported a 3.60 ERA with 55 strikeouts in 50 innings...Gjeldum's season highlight occurred on July 27 at Wuerfel Park against Washington when he struck out a season high five batters in two innings of perfect relief...Gjeldum struck out more than one batter in 15 of his mound visits...
Both Brown and Gjeldum were going to be LS-1's by the Frontier League's classification system for 2009...
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