“For this fan, one of the compelling traits about baseball at its top level is its insatiable difficulty, which shows itself most ferociously to arriving rookies and to older players, no matter how celebrated, on their way out. The rest of us, coming or going, need not face six-foot-seven pitchers throwing ninety-five-mile-an-hour heat and diving two-seamers, or the din of crowds or the terrifying silence of R.I.S.P. statistics while we try to separate who we are from who we think we are. Pride and status matter to ballplayers more than money, which makes them more like us than perhaps we’re ready to admit.”
90-year-old Roger Angell, The Sporting Scene: Time Out: The New Yorker, discussing Jorge Posada.
Growing old is a bitch, whatever age you are.
Posada is Thirty-nine Years of Age. Under no circumstances is he old. He has played baseball, a children’s and young person’s game for a good, long time. NMK and most of those of us who read this little slice of delight each day know that, at 39, Jorge Posada is just finding his place in life, even if he is soon leaving the game he loves. The twenties and early thirties are the years that we learn the ropes of work, parenting, relationships, and all the other things that really matter in life. The forties are years of actually feeling that you might be getting “the hang of it.” With luck, during your early fifties you are at the top of your game, knowledgeable, in your field, solid with your family and friends before the inevitable decline takes its toll. Sorry you have outgrown your game, Jorge, but welcome to Middle Age, the Good Years.
I disagree in a way, Wally. Retiring — at any age — especially involuntary retirement — can be as devastating for some as death.