When spring training gets under way with pitchers and catchers reporting for duty in mid-February, Jeff Francis will not be among their number.

The lanky lefty began 2016 as a retired pitcher after calling time on an 11-year pro career late last year.

Retirement is something the Vancouver native is still getting accustomed to.

“I’m not training every day,” Francis told TSN.ca of his new normal. “Nothing’s taken me into the gym. Sometimes I feel I should be doing it. I’ve been waiting for that moment where I break down and cry and it’s all over, but I haven’t had that yet.”

For Francis, retirement wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision.

“I’d known for a long time,” he said of the choice to call it a career after 254 games pitched. “It was the summer and it’d been going through my head a while. I think I don’t pitch at the same level that I used to and I weigh that against what’s pulling me to play baseball, weighing that with family things, and I think it’s just that time. I’ve known for a long time and I think I just told enough people that it got around and it somehow became a story.”

As it turns out, 2015 would make for a fine capper to Francis’s career. After becoming the first Canadian pitcher to win a postseason game and reaching the World Series with the Colorado Rockies in 2007 – he also had stints with the Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds, Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees – Francis finally returned to the Great White North last year, both as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays and of Team Canada.

He appeared in 14 games with the Blue Jays last season and competed in July’s Pan Am Games in Toronto, where he was a member of the Canada’s baseball entry. The team would win a gold medal after an epic 10-inning game with the United States.

The Pan Am appearance and capturing that gold medal helped solidify Francis’s decision to retire.

“My goal for the year was to play in the Pan Ams. I think the way that went down with us winning it the way we did, it just felt like that was the right way to end it,” said Francis. “I finished out the year. I felt like I pitched well in Buffalo, which I did. Whether or not I earned a call-up wasn’t in my mind, but I got called up and I got to ride that wave with the Blue Jays. That was icing on the cake.”

Francis relished being part of the team’s run to the American League East title and its first trip to the postseason in over two decades.

“It was fantastic,” said Francis. “It’s why we all play – for that kind of atmosphere and just to be a part of that. I wasn’t pitching much. Sometimes, I felt like a spectator with inside access. It was one of my career highlights.”

Though Francis was used sparingly by the Jays, he was able to make history with the club. When he appeared in the fifth inning of a 5-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves on April 19, Francis combined with Russell Martin to form the Jays’ first-ever all-Canadian battery.

What does Francis think of the view from some circles that the momentum built up from last season has been curbed by front-office upheaval and the departure of David Price? People are always going to fret.

“That’s what fans do,” said Francis. “They want it. If the Blue Jays (won) every year it wouldn’t have been as exciting. I think when you go through dark times as an organization, as a fan base, when what happened this year happens, it’s all the more exciting. Fans are going to worry. It might happen, it might not. That’s why it’s fun to be a Jays fan.”

Francis was among those same Jays fans last weekend when he was honoured at Baseball Canada’s annual gala in Toronto. He was feted at the event with his name added to the RBC Wall of Excellence alongside the likes of Martin, Joey Votto and Larry Walker.

The dinner could very well have been the former UBC Thunderbirds’ final contact with the world of baseball that he called home for the better part of the last decade and a half as he embraces his life after the game.

And that’s okay with Francis…probably.

“I saw across the ticker that pitchers and catchers report in such and such a time and it had been out of my mind for a while, then I remembered, ‘Oh, yeah. I used to play baseball.’ I don’t know. We’ll see. The spring might be difficult. “