Everyone sees the excitement and obvious benefits that go with my profession: good salary, playing a game you love, and having the ability to travel around the country all summer long enjoying great cities and unbelievable ballparks.

It still amazes me that I can go to Safeco Field or Fenway Park five hours before the gates open and they let me in. I just show my ID and can go pretty much anywhere in the stadium. Today I walked across the outfield in Yankee Stadium and toured the monuments without a single person in sight (except security guards).

In two weeks I’ll be on top of the green monster making phone calls and admiring the view. I need to take it all in and enjoy the moment because you know what ... it just will not last as long as I’d like it to.

The profession is great, but you can’t do it forever, and there is so much uncertainty. I have no idea what next year will bring, who I’ll play for or in what league. I can’t tell my wife anything about next year except I’m going to play as hard as I can when I get in there and we’ll see what happens.

The uncertainty is hard to think about, especially for her. This morning my daughter woke up and my wife went to get her out of the crib. My wife told me my daughter kept staring at the door waiting for me to walk in behind her. After my daughter was out of the crib she went around our apartment looking for me, which stinks because I am in New York and they are in Toronto.

The benefits outweigh the tough times and we are so grateful of the opportunities that we have because of baseball, but there are things we miss as players: 4th of July barbecues, friends’ weddings, and any holiday or family gathering from February through September.

So remember when you are trying to get that autograph and you can’t understand why the players aren’t all on the fence signing, some are trying to talk to their kids or wife on the phone for five minutes, because by the time the game is over they’ll be asleep. While others need to get in the batting cage to get their swing right because of the thousands of players trying to pry our jobs from us.

This is my life and I love it!

Responses to previous blogs:

To Heater in Eugene: The advantage of using two hands is to secure the ball in the glove more easily on a fly ball or popup, or to make the transfer from the ball to hand on a ground ball. The closer your hands are together the easier it is to make adjustments.

To Eric from Ledyard: Our coaches do an unbelievable amount of preparation leading up to each series, watching video and studying how we should play every hitter and attack every pitcher. But it’s the player’s job to do their own homework as well as take our coaches advice to devise the best game plan.