It's kind of glorious to say, "Oh man, this guy had his career cut short." I'm not calling myself Sandy Koufax by any means. I'm not in that caliber at all, but sometimes it has to end different.
I saw [ that I and my father, Cecil end our careers with 319 home runs] after I retired. It was just weird. With all the games we played, neither one of us could hit one more home run? Obviously, it was supposed to go that way. It's a pretty cool thing, I guess.
I'm not really in a hurry to ever wear a neck brace. That's why I'm kind of positive about it, because I'm healthy.
It's nice to finally be able to wake up and tie my shoes without feeling like I'm about to tip over, or walk a straight line without feeling dizzy, or be able to feel my left arm. That means a lot more to me.
Once I started getting multiple days off in a row, it was a long year for me. That had never happened, and everybody knew I didn't like it.
Obviously I wasn't playing well at the time. But as a player, you lie to yourself. You say, "There's nothing wrong. I'm just not on time [at the plate]." You make something else up because pain is not an option.
Honestly, right now, I don't want to be around baseball. Not that I don't like it. But I'm having fun right here, hanging around my family and watching my kids' games.
I'd like to help out in any way I can, especially with the younger guys in the minor leagues. But as far as setting something up, we haven't really talked about it.
It's easier for me to accept that I can't play anymore because I literally gave it all I got. That allows me to be a little bit more at peace.
A lot of people probably say I'm stupid, and they're probably right, because there are people who take days off who are still in the league, and I'm not.
Obviously, I think this [162 games a year four times] caused my early retirement, but I couldn't do it any other way. Just for the record, I never asked for any of the days off in my career.
I guess you need days off, but I just didn't want them.
I stick to safe, controlled movement. If it's not safe, I just won't do it.
I definitely don't want to run any 5K races anytime soon. I can work out pretty hard as far as intensity. But as far as playing basketball or anything high impact, it's probably not smart for me to do.
There are maybe one or two hours a day when I think I can play, but I get over that real quick once I realize the risk and my wife tells me, "Just take a seat."
We took a family trip to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia over Christmas and New Year's. Three weeks was a long time, but it was cool, man. We were on the ocean, so that was kind of intense. After a couple of days you realize how far out you are.
When I was playing, my wife and kids would go on the road with me, and we would go to different lunch spots that we saw on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."
It was pretty hard to actually have to say the words with my teammates, my wife and my boys there. I realized it was going to happen before that day [I announce retirement], but to have to announce it and talk about in front of a lot of people was tougher than I expected. I'm glad that feeling has kind of gone away. That sadness hasn't lingered.
I've always said, "You make a lot of money in Major League Baseball, and it's all guaranteed, so what do you have to lose by going all out?" .
I was a guy who came to work every day. I was there. When my manager got to the field at 12, I felt like there was no reason for him to ever wonder if I was playing. For me, that's a big deal. I teach that to my kids.
I miss the guys, and I miss playing baseball. Just being able to swing the bat, or run, or dive for a ball, or slide into second.
If I could even do that [playing] in a softball league, I would never miss anything about baseball.
I thought it might be a cool thing [food show] to do when I retired a few years later. Then retirement came slightly prematurely.
I have a food show.It's not just baseball people. It's a mixture of baseball people, actors, musicians, chefs and whatnot. They bring out different dishes, and at the end of the show, I give the one I like the most the "Fielder's choice." It's good TV.
A friend of mine asked me a question at the end of 2015. We were going over my finances and setting things up for the future when she said, "What do you want to do when you retire?" I said, "I always wanted to do a food show."
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