Earlier today, Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees announced during a press conference Rodriguez would be playing in his final game on Friday.

There’s bound to be an emotional attachment to anything that you’ve done for a long enough time. In baseball’s case, that attachment is almost always positive. Sure enough, Rodriguez broke down when he talked about how he never expected to play this long — rather, he just wanted to make the team as an 18-year-old:

Rodriguez, of course, did make the Mariners as an 18-year-old, debuting in July 1994, just weeks before his 19th birthday. He’s since played in parts of 22 additional seasons, meaning that, yes, he’s spent more than half his life playing big-league baseball.

Rodriguez has caught a lot of flack over the years for coming across as odd or difficult to relate to. Here? This is as human as it gets.