BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. _ Your dad brought you, and your precious Tiger-striped Zubaz pants, into a baseball clubhouse when you were eight. You have lived virtually your entire life since inside one. You grew up there, both figuratively and literally. You belonged there. You were entrenched there.
What do you do when suddenly it's gone?
You live a little.
Or if you are Prince Fielder, around whom everything seems a little larger than life, you live a lot.
You take your family on a three-week expedition of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. You visit Angkor Wat. You see elephants, one of which may poop in your general direction. You go to your kids' baseball games almost every weekend and sit in your car in center field, quietly watching one whose swing resembles yours and another whose swing resembles that of your dad's. You dip one toe into a film career and another into becoming a Guy Fieri-esque bon vivant.
And you punctuate nearly everything you say with a staccato machine-gun laugh that makes everyone around you take notice.
"You don't have to have a perfect ending to be happy," you say. "Happy is what you make it."
From all appearances, almost one year to the date of his last major league game and the squibber that once and for all signaled to him that something was very wrong, Prince Fielder is very happy.
He is here in Los Angeles to film an episode of the new streaming dining and lifestyle show he's shooting for Amazon. It is called "Fielder's Choice."
"Why should I not be happy? Because I'm not playing?" he said. "It sucks that happened, but things happen every day. It doesn't mean you have to be sad for the rest of your life. ... If somebody handles something ending with grace, if somebody tries to enjoy their life afterward, people gravitate towards that and it becomes a success story."
