If this had happened when I was 11 or 12, a couple of years after “my” World Series victory, my head would have popped off, too, so I understand. But now, 10 years beyond my career, I look at it another way.

Inevitably, there will be a day when our favorite players have to walk away from the game, not just from a particular team. It might be a tearful goodbye from a podium, like that of my favorite player, Mike Schmidt (another Phillie). It could be an early-season reckoning like that of my mentor Garry Maddox (yet another Phillie), who admitted he’d had a moment in center field that made “Damn Yankees” real to him: One day, his mind went after a fly ball, but his body stayed put. Or it could be my story: I was cut by the Yankees during the last week of spring training, thwarting my plan to propose to my girlfriend on our first day off during the season.

But it’s going to happen, like it or not.

When it does, fans’ reactions seem to vary according to one’s generation, and one’s understanding of transition. The teens are horrified, the 20-somethings are in denial and rant about the conspiracy of business, the 30-somethings realize that their childhood has just ended, the 40-somethings see it as a microcosm of life, and those who are considerably older than the people involved marvel at how these players are not rookies any more.

But we have a choice, whether we lose a favorite player to retirement or to, say, the Dodgers. We can focus on the uniforms, or we can focus on the players themselves and our shared histories. Maybe in their new place they can still give us moments that remind us of when they carried our team on their backs and brought home a championship, or inspired an indelible memory.

Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley were just kids when they were my teammates. I watched Jimmy grow to be an M.V.P., an All-Star, a husband, a father. I watched Chase silently destroy his opponents, head down, but head up at the same time. Now I watch them fight the war that time wages on athletes’ bodies, and I know they sense a question mark looming over what was once certain about their talent and their time left.