I have been thinking about the Dodgers this week signing left-hander Rich Hill, who will be 37 ahead of the 2017 season, to a three-year, $48 million contract.

I endorsed the decision. The Dodgers need a strong No. 2 and the Rich Hill baseball saw the past year-and-change looks like he can handle the job.

But I cannot get out of my head a couple of points made by the Los Angeles Times reporter who attended the Dodgers press conference announcing Hill’s new contract.

The first: “Hill opened his mouth to begin his remarks, only for his voice to catch in his throat. For nine seconds, he collected his thoughts. … ‘There is a lot of emotion up here,’ Hill said. ‘I kept telling myself I wouldn’t do this. It’s something that’s been an incredible journey to get here, but never did I think that I would pack it in. I never thought I was done’.”

The second: “Four hundred and ninety-six days after he left affiliated baseball, Hill celebrated the consummation of a life-changing pact with the Dodgers.”

We get it, that the contract represented an affirmation of Hill’s long struggle to be pursued by several of baseball’s biggest teams, especially considering that he began the 2015 season out of organized baseball, prompting him to sign with the Long Island Ducks of the unaffiliated Atlantic League.

And perhaps it is the reporter, who certainly makes less than six figures in salary annually, just projecting his own thoughts when he described it as a “life-changing pact”.

The undertow to that phrase suggests that Hill never really got paid, by modern baseball standards, during his 17, injury-racked years in baseball.

It is perhaps ungenerous to suggest Hill was thinking about that, too, but forty-eight million dollars is a lot of money, even after the federal and state governments seize their share of the deal, via taxes.

In theory, a man married and with two children will never again have to worry about money — as long as he doesn’t take on the destructive spendthrift behavior more common to players a decade younger than is Hill.

What sort of situation had Hill been in, before the enormous paycheck this week?

You be the judge.

After checking with a couple of sites that track reported salary levels, we have numbers for most of the years Hill has been pitching since signing, right out of high school, with the Chicago Cubs in 2002.

Baseballreference.com gives us these numbers, leaving out whatever Hill made in 2005 and 2006, when he appeared in 27 big league games, 20 as a starting pitcher, with the Cubs.

2007: $400,000

2008: $445,000

2009: $445,000

2010: Unknown

2011: Unknown

Now we shift to the spotrac.com site.

2012: $725,000

2013: $1 million

2014: $840,000

2015: Unknown

2016: $1 million

That adds up to just over $3 million over those 10 seasons. Not taking into account whatever he got as a signing bonus, back in 2002, or what he made in his first two seasons with the Cubs, or in 2015, when he signed with Washington after starting the year with the Atlantic League club.

How many people do you know who make an average annual income of $300,000 (which is $3 million divided by 10 years)?

Do you believe you could live on that? You could?

But what if I told you that because you are so good at your job, or potentially so good at your job, that an organization will pay you $48 million — guaranteed — over the next three years?

Perhaps your voice might “catch” in your throat, too.

It wasn’t like Hill and his family were living on Tuna Helper and living in his parents’ basement, especially after the first of his two $1 million seasons.

To experience the industry validation of the contract and the size of it … well, it can make a guy emotional.

Unless he screws up his finances royally, he will never have to worry about the cost of sending the kids to college, or paying the mortgage on time. Nor will he have to concern himself unduly with what might happen if he is injured again, or even if he never signs another contract.

So, what was going through Hill’s mind at the press conference? Validation or dollar signs?

It might be 50-50, or maybe even 60-40 in favor of the former, but only a naif would suggest Hill did not once think “$48 million!!!” during that presser. And it reminds us of how far removed the rest of us are from the astronomical amounts of money made by many of our favorite athletes.