Recently in the sports world there have been a plethora of retirement announcements: in baseball alone there's been Prince Fielder (forced to retire due to a neck injury), Adam LaRoche (earlier in the year due to not being allowed to bring his son into the locker room), and possibly the most hated athlete in the universe, Alex Rodriguez (released by the Yankees). In the Olympics, the immortal Michael Phelps retired at 31 years old this past weekend after 16 years of dominance in swimming, records set and probably set forever, never to be broken. Highlight reels of an athlete's various accomplishments and best plays are all well and good, but retirement speeches are pretty excruciating, probably for both the player involved as well as those watching: it's like a funeral, and the deceased is giving a speech about himself. A bit morbid, but in a sense it is a burial of a big part of an athlete's life: their main purpose in life, their career, their stardom, all put to rest, signifying the end of their relevancy in professional sports where they ride off into the sunset, not to be heard of again (if they're lucky and avoid serious debilitating injury or some kind of scandal) until their actual death. Nothing says "this is the end" more than a retirement speech.
I've played it out in mind before, my theoretical retirement: flashbulbs popping, everybody gathered around a media room, I'm dressed in a suit, surrounded by family and friends, my organization (fantasy baseball, dodgeball, or whatever) introduced me: "Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of introducing the 15- year veteran, all-star player, member of the community, great teammate and winner of the Sportsman of the Year for 5 years, Robert Yan." (applause, general excitement and buzz as I walk to the podium."
I, Robert Yan, the first of his name, (borrowing from Game of Thrones) hereby announce my retirement and departure of the game. I wish I had many more years to give to the game and more importantly to delude my own ego into thinking I'm still at the top of my game, but honestly my performance has been going downhill for quite a while now and it's really embarrassing for me to watching myself play (fantasy baseball/dodgeball) and compare it to videos taken during the peak of my powers. There's really no comparison. I'm a shell of my former self. At least I have my wonderful girlfriend and family here with me, otherwise this would be a total loss and I'd have nothing to fall back on and my life would be a wreck. I'm gonna miss playing with my teammates, with my coaches, and I know I'm gonna miss them a hell of a lot more than they're going to miss me: they're gonna just keep playing with no players, no fresh young talent that's better than I was and they'll be grateful to have me gone. It's a weird thing, time: when you're young and trying to get better you can't wait for the next tournament to get there so you can show the world your talents, but when you're done and out of the game you want for all the world just to go back to that time you were so desperate to jump forward in time. When you're old and you're fat, that's the only thing you can fall back on: the old days. (line from Charles Barkley) In closing I'd like to just thank everybody for being there with me the whole time during my career from the start, even though it was probably not the best decision because I wasn't very good and took a miracle to actually be half decent at this game, but I'm glad you guys took a chance on me and I really hope you guys don't just run off to embrace the new young talent and forget about me. Thanks (in tears now),
Robert Yan
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