Five Reasons Why It's So Hard For MLB Players To Retire

I've had some great discussions lately with guys whose careers ended, from their points of view, prematurely.  When a baseball career ends, there are two ways to look at it.  The player is the one who doesn't want it to end.  He can be 50 and tell people, "I can still get people out."   Hell, Jamie Moyer could finish his new 2-year extension at 49 years old and say he wasn't done.  Julio Franco was telling people the same thing in '07 when he was 49 and not ready to leave.  For these guys, and any player, the inevitable end always comes too soon.

Now from a fan's perspective, some guys hang around too long.  A "premature" end to a baseball career doesn't exist for most players, if you ask most fans.  Tell any guy or gal watching the MLB Network right at this moment to run down his favorite team's 25-man roster.  How many guys does he/she think should never grace the sacred grounds of their coveted stadiums again?  3?  5?  10?  Yet ask any of those 3, 5 or 10 players and they'll say they won't be done playing for another 20 years.

Why?  Why is it so hard to leave the game if you're a player?

The guys I've spoken to have given me these reasons:

1.  The Money - There isn't a man alive who doesn't like to earn MLB money.  The minimum is great.  The opportunity for more is greater.  If you can make the kind of dough available in the big leagues, would you want to leave? 

2.  Notoriety - Guys who play in the Major Leagues have egos.  Duh.  Like I've stated recently, they are also extremely narcissistic.  So what?  That's the way we're made.  We like the attention; some of us crave it.  Again, if you had the opportunity to have 50,000 people cheer for you and shout your name (in a good way), would you walk away from it?

3.  It's Something To Do - This isn't as glamorous as the first two, but it's just as true.  Say you've played baseball since you were 6, seriously played since you were 12.  At 37, you can't get a job on a ballfield anymore.  That's 25 years of doing one thing and doing it well enough to earn a living at it.  Then you're retired.  But you're only 37 years old.  What do you do with the remaining 50+ years of your life?  Ahh, the million dollar question.  Keep tuning in to Jimmy Scott's High & Tight to listen to what other MLB players say to that.

4.  Love Of The Competition - Many, if not most, MLB players are Type-A personalities.  They enjoy the competition; the feeling, the adrenaline rush of laying their bodies and souls on the line to win a ballgame.  Take that rush away and they're just regular people.  I've heard wives tell me, when referring to their retired husbands, that this is the toughest habit for their husbands to break, just being a normal person without the crowds and the headlines and the power to make something big happen.  Why do you think so many marriages break up after retirement?  Boredom.

5.  Love Of The Game - Yeah, this is part of it too.  Watch Field of Dreams (or For Love Of The Game, but it's not nearly as good) to understand why baseball is so important to people.  I still say it reaches into your soul deeper and more profoundly than any of the other major sports.  But I'm biased.  Still, it's hard to walk away from something you love.  That's why player hardly ever do.  Hence the term "premature."

6.  BONUS REASON: It's Hard To Get Old - We all have to face a point in our lives when we realize we're just not as young as we used to be.  Maybe it's a member of the opposite sex who tells you, "You remind me of my father."  Or maybe it's the soreness that's there now, a soreness that used to not be there 2 or 3 years ago after doing something strenuous.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's the gray hair, the questioning of others if they've ever thought about Viagra, or losing touch with pop culture trash you used to know by heart (i.e. names of today's supermodels).  It's hard to face getting old.  It's hard to face change.  But it is what it is.  We move on.

We all have our heroes who stuck around baseball a year or three too long; a great example being Steve Carlton.  But if you think about it from the player's perspective, you might understand why they do it.  If you were them, would you want to walk away from this?