From the Associated Press :

Rafael Palmeiro has been sent home to Texas, where he will likely ponder the possibility of returning next year while rehabilitating knee and ankle injuries that have further ruined what was once a rewarding season.

“Everything just kind of crumbled, unexpectedly really,” the Baltimore Orioles first baseman said Monday. “I never expected that anything would happen to me, not at this stage of my career anyway.”

He is 2-for-26 with one RBI since coming back from suspension, and has been bothered the past two weeks by injuries to his left ankle and right knee. The Orioles still expect him to play this month, but decided Monday that it would best for him to recover at home.

This isn’t the way Palmeiro, 40, wanted to go out. For that reason he’s still considering coming back next season.

“Obviously, I would love to play and come back and finish and hopefully to prove to everyone that I can still play at a high level, that I can still be productive and do it the right way, which I’ve always done,” he said. “I just don’t know. I can’t look that far ahead and predict what’s going to happen. I would love to have that opportunity, but I have a lot of things to think about and a lot of things to weigh.”

In the not-so-unlikely event there isn’t a team willing to take a flyer on a 41 year old DH with diminshed skills and a shattered reputation, perhaps a barnstorming tour with other, not quite middle aged players is in order? You could assemble a fairly glittering roster : Bret Boone, Raffy, Brady Anderson, Mike Lowell, Sammy Sosa, Nomar Garciaparra, Mike Piazza, etc. The reclusive Mark McGwire has the makings of a terrific strength and conditioning coach. Kevin Kennedy likes being called “Skipper”despite not having managed in eons, so perhaps he’ll come on board.

Even K-Squared’s band of Travelling All-Stars need pitching, however, but we’ll have to wait a few months to see if Roger Clemens is available.