At 69, This Is Still My Happy Place

What happens when the sports you loved are no longer an option?

In his first solo episode, Randy shares how life changed after professional baseball, aging, arthritis, and oxygen therapy—and why one unexpected hobby has stayed with him through it all. This isn't really a story about golf. It's about friendship, purpose, resilience, and finding something that still gets you excited to get out of the house.

Whether it's golf, gardening, dancing, fishing, or simply spending time with people you love, we all need something that reminds us we're still living.

Join us for this honest conversation about growing older, adapting to change, and discovering that retirement isn't the end of the story—it's just the beginning of a new chapter.

If you enjoyed this episode, follow Retirement with Sheri & Randy and share it with someone who's looking for their own "happy place" in retirement.

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Theme music by: Sheri Todd and MakeBestMusic

Written & hosted by: Sheri Todd

 Recorded somewhere between healing and humor.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I played football, basketball, and even professional baseball. But today there's only one sport I can still play. At 69, this is still my happy place. Hey everybody, it's Randy. Good to see you. So today we're going to talk about growing up with sports. And for me it was pretty simple. My grandparents raised me. My grandfather got me every sport he can think of. And I remember watching my uncles taking golf clubs out and playing. And I thought, no, I wonder how that is. Even though back in my day, if you're an athlete, you're not looking at playing golf. So I played Pro Bowl for the Baltimore Orioles. And that was pretty interesting. That's what got me started on loving golf, was when I signed with the Orioles and did road trips. Which the guys would bring their sticks and want to play, with golf clubs and didn't want to play. We play in different towns and play golf. And it was great. I really enjoyed it. So when I got home from playing Pro Ball, shortly after that I got married and had a kid. And, you know, I worked and everything and trying to do things, trying to give time for me. I kind of went back to something I learned when I wasn't playing baseball. So I didn't couldn't find something to do. I went and played with my best bud, Brad. And me and Brad would go out once, two times a week, and we'd play ball. Golf, not well, but we taught ourselves and everything got pretty good, you know? Tell a funny story of you and Brad playing golf. Uh well, me and Brad one day got to the golf course. This is the first time we started playing. And he just uh said, you know, we still want to play because it was raining. It wasn't raining hard. It's kind of raining. And he said, I said, yeah, I'll still play, you want to play. So we didn't know much what's going on. We're gonna play golf in the rain. Well, it got worse and worse, but we didn't quit. We kept playing. And we played that whole 18 holes, and at the end it was pouring down rain. We were soaked. No umbrellas, no nothing, but we stayed and played in that rain. We did. A couple other guys did too, but we did. We stayed probably that game. So so me and Brad kept on playing uh until he moved. And then um, God bless him, he he passed away. I think the thing we're getting too is that I played book ball all my life, baseball, and basketball. And you can't do it no more when you get a certain age. So, you know, I met a lot of good people through playing golf. And I think what I found out it was good for me mentally and physically to play golf because you can do it anytime you want. Talk about how you miss playing the other sports. Yeah, I miss basketball more than anything. I grew up and played till I was 50 years old. You know, football I gave up for years after I quit in high school, but I still follow it and love it. I just love it. But you can't play it. So in basketball you can't play no more. So golf gave me that release and that mental being on a golf course is like um my reference. It's my where I go to, it's where I think, it's where I love to be, it's my salvation here on the golf course. And that's good because you can do whatever you want, how old as you want. I mean, we all need to find something that we can do that we enjoy and take it up and do it and have fun with it. I'm on oxygen, I have bad arthritis, and I still play this game. What it does for me, it makes me for my health a lot better. Uh let's make it my exercise. It's mentally good for me. And uh I get to see the guys, we have a really good time. I wish I'd work on my wife a little more, she has more to do, but I try to get her to play golf, and she's kind of dangerous. She's really dangerous. So you got a hole in one of your. Yeah, and uh I had a uh, yeah, remember that I had a hole in one. I was uh about two years ago, 67 years old. I made a hole in one on a part three, 147-yard right corner flag, and it rolled in. I never saw it, everybody else saw it. I never saw it. My group, my friend Macy, went up there and grabbed it out of the hole like this and waved at me like that. I'm just like, oh my god. I still got the ball actually, and I got a certificate, and everything that was really cool. So there are rewards from this game too. So it's a it's just a great game, and it saved me a lot. I just hope all of you guys can find the wealth I've found in playing golf and something that even if it's not golf, anything that you love to do, do it as much as you can because it's great. I mean, I I love it. Stay true to yourself, just keep going forward, find what makes you happy, and do it. And do it 100%. That's what I do. I hope you all got a message out of this today. And uh, we love you all, and please subscribe. Very important. Thank you, everybody. Have a good night. Bye. Hey, thanks for hanging out with us for a bit. If this felt like your kind of conversation, go ahead and subscribe and follow. We'd love to have you back.