Goodbye, Mr. Chips

From a Feb 15 press release from the Oakland A’s:

The Oakland A’s today announced that they have agreed to terms with free agent catcher Matt LeCroy on a minor league contract. LeCroy will be a non-roster invitee to spring training. The A’s also announced that non-roster invitee catcher Jeremy Brown announced his retirement….Brown was a non-roster invitee with the A’s this spring after batting .276 with 14 home runs and 58 RBI with Triple-A Sacramento last year. He made his ML debut with the A’s in 2006 and went 3 for 10 (.300) in five games.

No biggy. Players retire all the time.
Except in this case, Jeremy Brown has a unique place in the game’s history. He was a source of inspiration for Michael Lewis’ neo-classic, Moneyball.
From MVN.com:

There have been plenty of above-average catchers that just couldn’t make it stick in The Show before being forced into retirement. There have been very, very few people that had a book written about how they played a part in a shift in the way an entire sport works. Moneyball, like it or not, has been an incredibly influential book — likely the biggest baseball book since Jim Bouton’s watershed tome “Ball Four.”