Before I played a single game of professional baseball, I was a fan. If my brother and I weren’t chipping the paint off our parents’ garage door with wayward pitches during an extra-inning session of Wiffle ball, we were playing simulated games like Strat-O-Matic or baseball on our then popular ’80s Intellivision video game system.
I do not claim to know what my playing career meant in the grand scheme of baseball. All I know for sure is that I found a passion I could express on a diamond. For this I am eternally grateful. Yet after my career was over, I found myself adrift from the game. A post-retirement stasis of sorts. In a way, it also kept my new family from embracing baseball.
Former MLB Analyst for ESPN and ESPN.com, Doug Glanville's ESPN content from Baseball Tonight, SportsCenter, ESPN.com, and ESPN radio can be found HERE at ESPN.com.
Doug has also presented and written content for ESPN Virtual Pitch, ESPN's partnership with Sony for their popular PlayStation 3 baseball game, MLB the Show.
Most major leaguers begin their baseball lives head and shoulders above other players. They may have dominated Little League; at school, they might have stood tall even as freshmen among seniors; later, maybe they were a very high draft pick. Even so, there’s always a moment when they realize there is, and always will be, someone better.
It is the end of the regular season, and time for goodbyes. I remember walking off the field in 2002, after we played our last game. One of my Phillies teammates said it was “a sad time” because you will never play with this same group again. So we gave out big hugs, knowing this nuclear family would forever be dispersed.