Without much fanfare, Jason Kendall retired from baseball this past week.

He deserved so much more.

The guy was old-school.

He played for the Pirates during the thick of the team’s dark days, from 1996-2004. He went from being the team’s most popular player in his early years to the Pirates’ fan base cheering triumphantly when Kendall’s multi-million dollar contract was “dumped” on the Oakland Athletics.

Kendall was never a power hitter. He hit only 75 home runs. But he was a rugged, down and dirty, hard-nosed ballplayer who gave every ounce of what he had every time he put a uniform on.

How many of those guys remain in the game these days?

My first and only trip to spring training in Bradenton was during Kendall’s rookie season. During a conversation while sitting on a picnic bench beyond the right field wall at McKechnie Field, Kendall wasn’t shy about his goals in the big leagues.

None of those goals were personal. He wanted to win a championship with the team that drafted him. Period.

Sadly, he never experienced a winning season in Pittsburgh.

This is a man who leaped over San Diego catcher Carlos Hernandez to score a run in 1998 when virtually any other player in baseball would have either gotten into a rundown or just given himself up.

This is a man who played 11 more seasons in the big leagues after suffering a horrifying ankle injury while trying to beat out a bunt July 4, 1999, at Three Rivers Stadium. Kendall’s fibula broke through his skin, it was fractured and dislocated so badly.

Kendall stole more than 20 bases for the Pirates in three consecutive seasons. No other catcher has done that in major league history.

Kendall became the first catcher in baseball history to catch more than 140 games in a season eight times. And he did so while enduring 10 surgeries during his career.

Major shoulder surgery caused Kendall to miss all of the 2011 season with Kansas City. At his request, the Royals gave him an opportunity for a comeback when he recently signed a minor league contract with Class AA Northwest Arkansas.

But after two games, and feeling a twinge in his shoulder when he threw to second base, Kendall called it quits.

“I’d like to have a shoulder and be able to play catch with my kids,” he said of making the decision to end his 15-year career.

Good for him.

A career .288 hitter, Kendall made the most of his abilities. He never took a single game or at bat in the major leagues for granted.

Some Pirates to don the uniform after him — Jose Guillen, Derek Bell and Jose Tabata come to mind — could have learned from that guy.

Jason Kendall plans to stay in baseball as a coach at some capacity, somewhere. Whatever team gets him?

Good for them.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle