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57 BAY AREA NEWS GROUP PLAY BALL waswarmingupthepitcherto start the game. And up there we are playing at about 6,000 feet. So I ran down real quick, and when I got there, I was out of breath. And my national anthem was actually atrocious. I was trying to catch my breath the whole time in the mid - dle of it. And I screwed it up pretty good. But then my buddy and I, he sang harmony and I sang the melody, and we sang it a couple of days later, and it was really good. Whathaveyouhadtogive up to play baseball? You give up a lot, actually. You give up your summers. I think that's the main thing. Obviously we get time off, and it's great. But you give up the Fourth of July. You give up family camping trips and some of the things people outside of the baseball world get on a day-to-day basis. Skiing, water skiing, a lot of those types of activities — the kind of things a regular nonbaseball person wouldn't think twice about. What makes it a good trade, and what makes it a bad trade? I think I'm still playing the game I love most on this planet, and getting to put on a uniform every single day is an honor. Any job you have, and I like to think of it as a job, because it puts it into perspective as what it is, because when you think of it as a game, it makes it into this fantasy world. And for three hours a day I get to feel like a Little Leaguer. I get to put on a uniform and go out on the field and play hard, and I play the same way I play when I was 10 years old. But for 21 hours a day, I'm a father, I'm a husband and I'm providing for my family. And when your job is baseball, obviously, you love what you do. Everybody's goal is to love what they do. If they don't love it, we're going to be miserable and not want to come to work. I love putting my uniform on every day. I love the feeling of putting the catcher's gear on, getting my hands dirty, sliding clean in the dirt. I'm 31 years old, but I feel like I'm still a 12-year-old kid who wants to get his uniform dirty. At one point, you did think of walking away. What would you have done if you had actually re - tired when you were with Tampa? If I had walked away early, I probably would have tried as hard as I could to get into the coaching world. Whether if it was at the professional level, college, high school, any of those, I don't know, but it's what I wanted to do. I love this game, and I feel like learning from so many great coaches in my life in this game, from my dad to my college coach to my brother — they taught me so much about the game and about giving back. It's something I definitely want to do later on in life. The things you've talked about giving up — will you go back to them? I don't know. I hope not for a while. But once I'm done playing, I'd love go and sing in the church choir and do the Christmas theater production and do some community theater. Those are things I really enjoy that I haven't done for 13 years. I'd love to go back and do (them). Many people know you from your referee gig and other skits and impressions in a comical vein that have played on ESPN and MLB Network. Those started with doing them for teammates in the clubhouse. Have you ever thought about the next time crossing them up and breaking into singing? Yeah, I've definitely thought of that. Everybody thinks you're go - ing to do comedy and to break out in something musical, sing some show tune or something, but we'll have to see. I don't want to give away all my tricks. The first time you did it for teammates, how did that go? We had a talent show with the Tampa Bay Rays in spring train- ing of 2009. All of my buddies said, 'You've got to do your impressions.' I had impressions of everyone from farm director Mitch Lukevics down to coordi - nators, coaches, even teammates. I felt I had to ask Mitch, but he said, 'Go for it,' and he laughed as much as anybody. I did imperson - ations of eight or nine guys in the organization and actually won the talent show and had a great time. What did you win? I won it two years in a row, in 2009 and 2010. I won $4,200, and for an A-baller, that was an absurd amount of money. It still is an absurd amount of money, but especially when you're in the low minor leagues, that's about your yearly salary, and just like that you double up. That was pretty nice. JHICKEY@BAYAREANEWSGROUP.COM Vogt is a power player for the A's when at bat. Vogt started the first half of the 2015 season with an impressive 14 homers and 56 RBIs. GETTYIMAGES;OPPOSITE:JOSIELEPE THE A'S