By Andrew Nowel, Sports Reporter
Former MLB reliever John Axford will be inducted into the Milwaukee Brewers Wall of Honor during the 2025 season, announced on Jan. 27.Â
Axford attended The University of Notre Dame from 2002 until he was picked 42nd overall in 2005. At Notre Dame, he posted a career record of 14–6 with 137 strikeouts and a 4.48 ERA. Axford made huge impacts in the Irish’s 2002 College World Series team his freshman year. Then, he started his sophomore season with a perfect 9–0 record and a 2.21 ERA. During the summers of 2002 and 2003, Axford pitched in the Cape Cod League.
Though he was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds in 2005, Axford chose to play his final season of collegiate eligibility at Canisius in 2006, when he went 3–8 with a 5.01 earned run average in fourteen starts.
In 2007, Axford would make his minor league debut in Wilkes-Barre, PA with the minor league affiliate of the New York Yankees before making his way to the Brewers minor league affiliate in 2008. Axford made his MLB debut on Sept. 15 against the Chicago Cubs, pitching an inning with an earned run, but he earned his first career strikeout.
Axford’s next two seasons were extremely successful, as he helped the Brewers reach the NLCS in 2011 with an ERA of 1.95. He was the closer throughout the season and set the Brewers single-season save record with 46. Axford received the NL Rolaids Reliever Man of the Year award for this and helped the Brewers with three more saves in the postseason. The Brewers fell to the Saint Louis Cardinals in the NLCS that year, but Axford would never forget 2011.
He was traded from the Brewers in 2013 to the Cardinals, where he left for Cleveland in the offseason. From there, Axford bounced around the league, but still maintained a sub-four ERA. He would only start one game in his career, but he cherished that start with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2018.Â
He pitched in the minors in 2019 and didn’t pitch during their shortened COVID season in 2020, but returned to Milwaukee for one final time in 2021. He would only pitch 0.1 of an inning, but he would finish his major-league career in the place where he made his name known. Axford finished out his baseball career pitching as a reliever for team Canada in the 2023 World Baseball Classic before announcing his retirement.
Photo courtesy of @Brewers on Twitter/X