Player Journal: Passing up life to play ball

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You end up missing a lot of life if you want to be a ballplayer.

We've all basically pledged our lives to it and have done so happily, based on the notion that it's the best "job" in the world. And it may be, for an individual.

But as we consider ourselves extended in family circles, we're reminded just how self-centered you have to be to not just to show up but to play at a high level. Honestly, it's one of the most self-indulgent professions you could choose.

Every time you see one of those "behind the glory" segments about any pro athlete, they'll show the athlete's obsession with greatness (which makes them so good), which is often proceeded by a minute or two about how his family life suffered through it all.

The athlete belongs to the world to a certain extent, and in some extreme cases of superstars -- which I won't have to deal with -- the athlete belongs more to the world of fans than to his wife and children or to his parents.

I've missed weddings, graduations and other special occasions and have sensed some resentment for doing so. Whether you're selfish or not, it always gets construed as though you're so egocentric that you can't extend support. My cousin calls me "Mr. President" because of how flaky I've gotten with the phone. When she likes to chat, we're still in the seventh inning, so I can't answer her calls.

In a sense, you're hardly a friend or a family member anymore since you're so often absent. To all of these people, you're just this little celebrity. I'm always uncomfortable with the situation of the "special occasion" of my being home, and that the toasts over big family dinners are usually to these huge superlatives like: family, health and America -- and then someone lumps my career into it, as if it belongs.

This job is the anti-monotony. Kids grow up and leave the house bent on adventure to look for whatever it is my friends are looking for in Laos and Mongolia. And their parents are torn between wishing they were around and wishing they see and do more.

For the second season in a row, my father has been hospitalized for some belly trouble, and I'm playing baseball games while he and my mother listen to them on the radio. And get this: they love it.

My teammate, Derek Feldkamp, has had his head in Michigan each second he's off the mound, as his sister endures a series of brain surgeries. It's an odd sense to be running around a field, absent, with the rest of your family going through rough times without your help.

We aren't off fighting a war or building houses in New Orleans, we're playing ball. It's the best job in the world and I run like a madman as my way of holding on tight so it doesn't push me out and make me have to live real life.

The Minor Leagues can really accentuate the self-indulgence of it all, when at the primeval stages of your career you appear to be a dreamer who's out for kicks, all about yourself. We wouldn't give it up for anything. It's difficult to communicate, but between us, why we're here is just understood.

We're playing, not yet earning any money to give away, and providing entertainment not for our families and friends but for a few thousand strangers in some corner of the country, to whom we now also belong.