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.

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.

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."

You don't need to have a perfect ending to be happy.

I thought it might be a cool thing [food show] to do when I retired a few years later. Then retirement came slightly prematurely.

Miguel and Justin, the two biggest guys on the team, welcomed me right away and once the cool kids in school like you, it's easy to get along.

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 in a softball league, I would never miss anything about baseball. I don't miss the crowds or the travel or even being in the big leagues. I just miss being able to take batting practice and being able to swing as hard as I can. That's all I miss.