A Lot of Retirements at Baseball Games -- Another Definition of "Retirement"

Watching Retired Guys At the Ballgame

In the city where I live we have a minor league baseball team.  I have loved baseball since I was a boy and I really enjoy going to the games.  While at the games we see a lot of retirements taking place.

In those games when a pitcher retires the side, it means that the team being retired has ended their turn at bat.

Being retired, ending a turn at bat does not mean leaving the game however.  Instead it means going into the field, and the field is a very good place to perform at a high level.

Before your team is retired your role is to perform as a batter, the same as everyone else on the team.  But when your team has retired and is in the field, you are able to perform at your individual position.  When your team is “at bat” everyone on the team has a batting assignment, but when your team has been retired there are many individual positions to be covered in the field. 

The analogy occurred to me while watching a game last season that being retired opens up more possibilities as to what position we may play in life, just like being retired on the team “at bat” opens many position possibilities in the field of positions to play. 

That is not to say that being a good batter is not important.  After all hitting the ball may lead to scores being made and games being won.  But being in the field after your team has been retired opens up a whole gamut of opportunities for utilizing skills and executing strategies that make the game interesting.  It has been my experience while attending baseball games that the fans applaud more often when a fielder makes a difficult play than they do when a batter hits a difficult pitch.  In fact, the fans of both sides applaud a difficult play in the field; but only the fans of the batting team seem to applaud when the batter hits a difficult pitch.

Possible Definition of "Retirement":  To Retreat or Withdraw

It may be time to retreat!

I thought I would look in a dictionary for the definition of the word retire and I found the following possibilities having to do withdrawal or retreat: 

a)    retreat -- to march (a military force) away from the enemy;

b)    to withdraw from circulation or from the market

c)    to withdraw from usual use or service

At first thought, withdrawal or retreat did not seem like a positive move.  It sounded like a move backward.  But then I realized that in our lives it very well may be a positive move if it allows us to do something that we otherwise could not do.  It is not a disgrace to retreat if we are able to regroup and win other victories because of it.

Consider the following scenario.  Maybe there is something a person really feels called to do.  It is their passion.  But the day to day rat race they find themselves in is the enemy of their being able to pursue their passion.  Maybe it is time for them to retreat from that enemy so that they can regroup and pursue that passion.

Many people achieve great things in retirement after they have "retreated from the rat race."  In fact in retiring we may not be retreating from the rat race as much as we are retreating to our passion.

Trying To Figure It Out.

I am trying to figure out just what it means to be retired.

I don't mean that I am trying to figure it out in any kind of negative sense.  I am not having trouble figuring out things to do in retirement.  I also don’t feel any pressure to figure out what retirement means quickly.  If I do not figure it out until the end of retirement that would be OK, and if I never figure it out that would be OK too.  It is the journey of trying to figure it out that I find interesting.

About a year before retiring I read the following statement in a book called The New Retirement* by Dan Benson, "Someday, like it or not, either your company or your inner clock will tell you it's time to close the shutters on the work you've pursued all your adult life.  Suddenly, you will be on your own for the next twenty to thirty years.  And twenty to thirty years is a long time."  Mr. Benson goes on in the book to ask a very pertinent question:  "How will you make the most of the rest of your life?"  This question has stuck in my mind ever since I read that and it has been one of my motivators for writing this collection of thoughts.

If you are retired or are plan to be some day you may be thinking about how you will you make the most of the rest of your life after retirement.  In this blog I will try to put some of my thoughts here that may make you think seriously and maybe not so seriously about how you will make the most of your life.  Some of the thoughts here will be original with me and some are thoughts that were put in my head by others.  It is my hope that you will find these thoughts interesting. 

*Benson, Dan. The New Retirement. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000.