I Live For This
An honest look at the love-hate relationship every ballplayer knows but few will admit
The dog days of summer are here, and there is nothing quite like playing in 100-degree heat after more than 100 games to remind baseball players of the little phrases that keep us grateful for our place in the game.
A 2004 Major League Baseball campaign from my playing days captured it perfectly, featuring player vignettes that all ended with the same line:
“I live for this!”
Ken Caminiti, a former MVP with the Padres, once told me and my teammate Randy Wolf, “This is a great game. The greatest in the world……when you’re doing well.”
That line has always stuck with me. Because there is truth in it. This game can give you everything. And then humble you in a heartbeat.
And yet, we still say it. Sometimes sarcastically, sometimes bitterly, sometimes in awe.
I live for this.
Take Angels infielder Anthony Rendon. Since signing a $245 million deal with the Angels in 2019, it has been a tough road. Injuries have derailed him year after year. He was supposed to be part of a transformation alongside Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani to give the Angels a chance at being perennial playoff contenders. Instead, Ohtani has gone to the Dodgers, Trout has battled his own injuries, and the Angels still have yet to see the postseason.
But we must not forget how dominant Rendon was in 2019.
.319/.412/.598 – 117 runs, 126 RBIs, 34 HRs, 80 BB. Pure production.
Still, his time in Anaheim has become synonymous with frustration. Fans see the injuries, hear the eyebrow-raising comments delivered with raw transparency, and are left wondering if it is all just indifference.
I have been accused of not caring enough during my early playing days, so I understand that players express passion differently. There is no single way to show you care. At one point, frustration bubbled over for Rendon and he grabbed a heckling fan in Oakland, an emotional response that, while inappropriate, does not come from someone completely indifferent. And while some of his comments, yawning during an at-bat (which he explained with scientific reasoning), acknowledging that baseball is not a priority, and openly saying he does not watch the game rub people the wrong way, he clearly has no issues speaking plainly.
He once spelled it out:
“It’s never been a top priority for me. This is a job. I do this to make a living. My faith, my family come first before this job. So if those things come before it, I’m leaving.”
Reasonable, if we take a deep breath. Could I look at my wife and four kids and say, “Hey, baseball comes first. You know that!”?
It raises a deeper question: When does baseball truly come first?
Is that priority imposed by others, or does it come from within? I am not sure a clean, honest ranking of priorities is even possible, especially when it comes to work. There is too much overlap, too much shifting between them. And as a professional athlete, it is not just personal, it is contractual. A major deal does not just reflect value; it carries expectations. It shapes how you prioritize, whether you admit it or not.
And it is certainly easier to stand on principle once you have made enough money to retire many times over. When the “have to” no longer factors into the equation.
The game provides life-changing compensation, and with it, understandably, come high expectations and responsibilities, packed into an intense, seven-month grind. It consumes everything in its path.
Maybe Rendon is just bold enough to say what others will not: Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Or maybe his unfiltered honesty is just a mirror for the truth we all dodge: most of us do put family before everything else. After 9/11, when I was with the Phillies, no one was thinking about the next game. We just wanted to get home to our loved ones.
That thought came back to me when I read Rendon’s response to a follow-up question about his priorities:
“Oh, it’s a priority for sure,” Rendon said. “Because it’s my job. I’m here, aren’t I?”
It did not sound like love. It sounded like obligation. But showing up is not nothing. Sometimes that is the whole thing.
Obligation can be an extension of love, or it can stand alone. It blends with responsibility, like being a parent, anchoring you where you need to be. If your love for the game is just a feeling, then when that feeling fades, and it will, it becomes much easier to walk away.
But that is a different kind of commitment. The kind that gets you out of bed, into your uniform, and through the grind. The kind that keeps you going when your body hurts, your confidence is shot, or the game feels like it is slipping away from you. And we know. We signed up for this. We signed contracts that codified that commitment, complete with rewards.
So maybe Rendon’s answer was not a dismissal. It could be just a version of commitment, not one rooted in love, but one that still shows up. Because this game asks for everything, and it does not always reward you on your timeline. It is not always fireworks and passion. Sometimes, it is just punching the clock.
I have played well in all kinds of emotional states. I have also played poorly in those same states.
That is the thing about this game. It does not always care how you feel. And how you feel does not always predict how you will perform.
And that can be hard to swallow. Not the honesty itself, but the idea that players can be so gifted, so rewarded by the game, and still feel detached from it. What happens when appreciation gets lost, or at the very least, buried behind other important priorities? When the grind overshadows the gratitude. Because for all its demands, this game gives a lot in return.
You are not required to love it everyday, or love everything about life inside it. But from the outside, especially as a fan, it is hard to reconcile loving the game so deeply while wondering if the players do too.
I know you can hate a game you love. I have had many moments that tested that love. Times that made me question it. Sometimes it was because of people. Bad teammates, racist coaches, favoritism, politics. Other times it was the game itself. Its sheer unconquerability. A 110-mph line drive hit right at the shortstop, a ball lost in the sun, disgruntled fans turning you into a target. The relentless, soul-draining unfairness of it all can push your patience, and your passion, to the edge.
Todd Jones, one of my funniest teammates, used to parody MLB’s “I Live For This” campaign. After our teammate David Bell once collapsed to one knee on home plate from a bad back after an aggressive swing, Jonesy said:
“When you take a full swing and blow out your back at Dodger Stadium... I live for this!”
We were in tears.
And then we started seeing those “I live for this” moments everywhere:
When you are red-hot at the plate, and then take a 95-mph fastball off your thigh… I live for this!
When your dad has a stroke on the last day of spring training, and you have to face Randy Johnson on Opening Day... I live for this!
When Brian Cashman and Joe Torre call you into the office to cut you after a rough stretch in Yankees spring training camp... I live for this!
When you are 0 for your last 19, finally hit a line drive and it ricochets off of the pitcher right into the first baseman’s glove. 0 for 20... I live for this!
The game spins in ways we cannot always see. And yes, sometimes that spin makes you sick.
The game tests you. You miss weddings, funerals, your kid’s first steps. We prepare, we grind, we visualize, and some days, none of it goes according to plan. I used to scrape together 24 hours of non-baseball time just to feel like I had a day off. Night game after a day game? Woohoo! Everyone, teammates and opponents alike, is locked in a persistent tug-of-war at the highest level. And most days, it feels like a compromise.
When you are running to first, feel a tug in your leg, and learn you have torn a hamstring. Two months out… I live for this!
When you are playing clean and realize the game is not always on a level playing field. … I live for this!
But when you are hot, you tend to forget about it all. Amnesia. You chase the next good day. And when you are slumping? You feel the panic bubbling up. Is this the end? Or just a cold stretch?
It is okay to admit that there is a love-hate relationship with this game, even at the top. At times, that tension fuels us.
I can almost picture Rendon’s version of the “I Live for This” campaign:
When a fan is screaming in your face and you cannot say or do anything back... I live for this!
When you land on the IL for the umpteenth time and you cannot pick up your child because of the pain... I live for this!
This is the rhythm of it. The daily life. Everything is documented. Stats, highlights, lowlights. We obsess over the highs, hide from the lows, and forget that much of the game lives in the middle. The repetition, the ritual. The mundaneness required for excellence.
Still, it is a gift to play this game and turn it into a job, a profession, even a love. At times, it feels like an obligation. But that appreciation deepens with age, especially once your playing days are behind you. The pressure to perform is real. Yet compared to what so many others face, it is a privilege.
The real pressure? It is not always the game itself. It is what we give up for it.
And still, somehow, we keep coming back. Sometimes bitter, sometimes grateful, sometimes just showing up.
We say it to survive. We say it to remind ourselves. We say it because we love the game.
I live for this.
Rendon may not say it the way others do. He may not say it at all. But that is the point.
Loving this game does not always look like joy. Sometimes, it looks like grit. Like staying in the fight, even when you have the resources to walk away.
And maybe that is the real measure. Not how loudly you say you love it, but how long you keep coming back.
Share your thoughts!
Have you ever hated something you truly love? How did that tension shape your relationship with it?
Rendon said, “This is a job.” Does that statement diminish the spirit of the game—or does it ground it in reality?
I like that idea! We could have made guesses for each one separately. Maybe snuck two guesses for each one. I think for the pitchers we needed three to get to Nola. :)
Doug, I had a recent exchange with a friend of mine who was shocked when I posed this thought to him: "To the players who play baseball at the elite level, it is not a game. It is work. They are charged with succeeding when the best in the world are charged with preventing them from doing so. Under these circumstances, it's difficult to see how those who are involved can feel like they're playing a game. Certainly in its aftermath they can look back on it as such. But in the moment . . . I don't see how they can feel that way." Would be very interested if you might share your insights.