Dodgers' Mookie Betts sets one condition to retire

All great things come to an end, and Mookie Betts' legendary career won't be the exception to that rule.

The Los Angeles Dodgers star is no longer in his prime, and while he still has plenty of baseball left in the tank, he's probably inching closer to the end than to the beginning.

As such, he's reached that point in any athlete's career where people — and himself — wonder how much longer he can keep this up.

In an interview with DJ Siddiqi of R.org, the former Boston Red Sox star weighed in on his future in the league, sharing that he'll only walk away from the game when he can still do it on his own terms.

Mookie Betts will retire before someone else takes his spot

“It seems like it gets longer and longer every year,” Betts said. “It seems like I’ve signed another five-year deal every year I play. But no, I don’t have a target age or anything. I will just take the jersey off when I feel like it’s time. I don’t want to go. I want to go out on my own terms and not because somebody else took it off.”

That's all a pro athlete can ask for, but that's not always the case, not even for future first-ballot Hall of Famers like Betts.

He's clearly not getting any younger, but he also said he has five or six good years left in him, and at 33, it's not far-fetched to think he could play in his 40s.

That said, some don't settle for just playing; they want to play at a high level and contribute to winning championships, and Betts would rather leave with his head held high, not as a shell of the player he once was.

According to Baseball Reference, he's slashing .235/.293/.416 with 11 home runs, 31 RBI, 1 stolen base and 1.6 WAR. Those aren't the numbers he's used to, but most teams would still take this version of Mookie Betts over the average player.