You've got to have some fun before games or you make the season too long. We don't start work until seven o'clock. If you're game-ready at three, it's not good for you. This is the only way I know how to do it.

I'm just living a normal life - a regular life, as people would call it. I'm enjoying it.

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.

I have nothing left to prove. I've already done enough to my neck.

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.

If I could even do that [playing] in a softball league, I would never miss anything about baseball.