Short of baseball and my family, it was gaming. And gaming is a $20-million to $200-million multi-year effort. It's an insane, stupid and utterly irresponsible act. But I did it.

I played on teams with 24 guys pulling the rope one way and one guy pulling the other. I've seen how destructive it can be. I tell them, 'If 13 of you are insanely successful and one fails, we all lose.'

My father left me with a saying that I've carried my entire life and tried to pass on to our kids: 'Tough times don't last, tough people do,'

Before I pitch any game, from spring training to Game 7 of the World Series, I'm scared to death.

There's not a long track record of people leaving professional sports to become a software developer.

Every dollar I can't commit to my company that's paid in taxes is paying a government that I believe is too big and doing way too much that I don't want done.

The things I was allowed to experience, the people I was able to call friends, teammates, mentors, coaches and opponents, the travel, all of it, are far more than anything I ever thought possible in my lifetime.