Self-narratives of ex-professional baseball players

for the goal of relieving the "role residual" of professional baseball player

Abstract

This paper determined the typology of the self-narratives of two professional baseball players' stories of retirement, told five years after they had retired as active players. They had no careers to pursue at the time of their retirement. The findings were as follows: They said little about their time as professional baseball players; they both stated: "I didn't want to become a professional baseball player, but somehow I became one" and "When I look back, I think that every single thing that happened or every feeling that I had was for my own good." These findings suggest that the stories they told can be understood as an act in the goal of relieving their "residual role" (Ebaugh, 1988) as professional baseball players.