Adam LaRoche addresses retirement, has no regrets about decision

"I never took it for granted," he says. "One, I get to play a game. Two, I get paid an absurd amount of money to play a game. Three, I can have my son with me while I'm doing it. I was pinching myself all the time, wondering, 'What did I do to deserve this?' And I always knew it could get shut down at any point. You could have a manager who just flat doesn't like it. You can have players complain -- Hey, we're tired of having a kid around. There's a chance we could have other guys see Drake and think, 'I'll bring my kid too.' Obviously we can't turn this into a day care. I get it."

Here's another part you need to get: The more he became immersed in the game, the less of a hold it had on him. "A lot of times I've wanted to say, 'Honestly, baseball is not that important to me,'" he says. "And I could never figure out a way that didn't sound like I took it for granted or didn't want to be there. But if I had blown out a couple of years ago, or got released, I think I would have gotten over it really quick. I love it. It's a passion. But I think every one of us is put here for a bigger purpose."

When it came time to board a flight back home, LaRoche hesitated. "I was sick," he says. "I was thinking about my kids and then thinking about the hundreds of thousands of parents who are searching for their 12-year-old daughters."

As they waited for their plane, LaRoche asked Boyer, "What are we doing? We're going back to play a game for the next eight months?"