CLEARWATER He needed to heal.

After a Major League Baseball career, Aaron Ledesma's body needed a break from hunching and swinging, from the then-Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Colorado Rockies and the Baltimore Orioles, from hitting streaks and hitting slumps.

It couldn't take the tenseness. He played his last game in the bigs and underwent back surgery in 2001. He turned to yoga to relieve his muscles and learn to stand up straight again.

But was this the end of baseball? Part of him wanted it all back. And in 2003, even as his back still hurt, he got an invitation to spring training.

"I had a choice to make," Ledesma said. Should he keep destroying his body to pursue the only life he knew, or should he try to move on?

"Nobody trains you for life after baseball."

The former infielder already had his place in baseball history. Drafted in November 1997 as a member of the original Rays expansion team, he earned one of Tampa Bay's longest hitting streaks with a 16-game run from 1998 to 1999 before he was traded at the end of the season.

So, given the choice, Ledesma left baseball behind. He skipped spring training and trained instead as an instructor of Bikram yoga yes, that's the hot, sweaty kind in Los Angeles.

"The heat is always something I've been attracted to," Ledesma said. "My body feels like I need it."

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