B-Ref Top Ten: Life After 40
One of the best ways to waste time online is by digging around on Baseball-Reference. This series explores the top ten B-Ref pages in a given category for the purpose of gawking in amazement, curiosity, and wonder. These are not necessarily the ten best ever, but they are the ten most fascinating.
“Old” is a relative concept. A young person can still be an old athlete. The incredible power, speed, and precision required to play professional baseball render even the greatest of players obsolete by middle-age. Even Mickey Mantle retired at 37. It’s nearly impossible to keep going strong into your forties.
There are exceptions, of course. A select few rare specimens are able to not just exist on a roster but thrive past the age of 40.
10. Julio Franco
Just by looking at his stat page, Julio Franco‘s career should have ceased at least four times before it finally finished. At age 33, he played only 35 games, almost entirely at DH. That’s usually a sign of the end times, but he popped right back up the next season, slashing .289/.360/.438 over 607 plate appearances. At age 36, he plied his wares in Japan- usually a one way trip for older ballplayers- but came back for 499 plate appearances in 1996, batting .322. He went back to Japan at 39, played mostly in Mexico at age 40 (save for one at bat for the Devil Rays), followed by Korea at 41, then back to Mexico for most of age-42. After all the world traveling, he inexplicably played five more full years in MLB from ages 43-48, during which he achieved a nearly league-average 99 OPS+.
9. Jack Quinn
By the end of his twenties, Jack Quinn was a thoroughly unremarkable pitcher. He had failed to establish much of a role with the New York Highlanders (now known as the Yankees) and Boston Braves. He jumped to the Federal League from 1914-15, then slunk back to the minors where he polished up his spitball. The newly mastered pitch proved a valuable weapon. He re-established himself in the major leagues, becoming an everyday starting pitcher for the first time at age-35. Making up for lost time (and then some), he remained a reliable starter into his mid-forties, finally retiring at the age of 50. To this day, he remains the oldest pitcher to start a World Series game, taking the ball for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1929 Fall Classic at 46-years-old.
8. Carlton Fisk
Of the few hitters who remain active into their forties, there isn’t much positional variety. Regardless of where they lined up in their younger days, they’re almost all moved over to first base, an outfield corner, or (if available) designated hitter. The most physically demanding of all positions is catcher, and backstops tend to have shorter shelf lives than other players. This makes Carlton Fisk that much more special. He remained primarily a catcher through age-45, winning the Silver Slugger at 40, garnering down-ballot MVP votes at 42, and making the All-Star team at 43.
7. Minnie Miñoso
Unlike everyone else on this list, Minnie Miñoso did not play at all in his forties- at least not in the United States. After a borderline Hall of Fame career from 1949-1964- his age-38 season- Miñoso spent nearly a decade tearing up the Mexican leagues. Then, largely as a publicity stunt, he returned for MLB cameos in 1976 (age 50) and 1980 (age 54), becoming the only player in MLB history to play in five different decades.
6. Phil Niekro
Jack Quinn was one of the last legal spitballers. Phil Niekro was not, yet he found a way to skirt the rules long enough to reach the Hall of Fame. His career lasted until the age of 48, and his 1,977 innings pitched after 40 are an MLB record. His age-40 season is one of the most unique in baseball history. He led the league in both wins and losses, as well as innings pitched, complete games, games started, batters faced, hits, home runs, walks, and hit by pitches.
5. Barry Bonds & Roger Clemens
We could write endless volumes about the artificially-enhanced careers and statistics of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. Even by focusing just on the post-40 sections, they were anomalous. Bonds posted on base percentages of .454 and .480 at ages 41 and 42, both of which led the NL. He was intentionally walked 43 times in his final season. (For comparison, Derek Jeter walked intentionally 39 times in his entire career.) Clemens won the Cy Young award at 41, then posted the lowest ERA of his career at 42 (1.87).
4. Rickey Henderson
Just as Carlton Fisk remained a catcher long after he should have been physically incapable, Rickey Henderson put his stolen base record even further out of reach in his forties. After leading the league in steals with 66 at age 39, stole 37 more the next year, then 36 the year after that, followed by another 25 at age 42. With another ten swipes in partial seasons through age 44, he accumulated 109 stolen bases in his forties. No one else in modern history has more than 74 (Davey Lopes).
3. Hoyt Wilhelm
If you ignore the listed ages, Hoyt Wilhelm‘s career makes a little more sense. The first reliever elected to the Hall of Fame debuted in 1952, pitched 21 years, then retired after 1972. The most unusual part of his journey was that he didn’t reach the major leagues until age 29! Even more unbelievable is that his best work came after 40. From 1964-69, he posted a 1.79 ERA over 358 games and 617.1 innings from ages 41-46. He accumulated 20.2 WAR in his forties, all as a reliever (except for three starts). While other pitchers have thrived after 40, he is likely the only player in history who wouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame at all had he retired at 39.
2. Nolan Ryan
Since the end of the Roaring 20s, only two pitchers in history have led the league in strikeouts per nine innings for five consecutive seasons, and they both came up with the Mets in the late 60s. Tom Seaver accomplished the feat from 1970-74, ages 25-29. Nolan Ryan led the league from 1987-91, ages 40-44. During this streak, he also led the league in overall strikeouts four times and hits per nine innings four times. He fanned 301 batters in 1989 at the age of 42, and his 1,437 strikeouts in his forties are more than 17 Hall of Fame pitchers achieved in their entire careers.
1. Satchel Paige
It’s intellectually dishonest to simply state that Satchel Paige made his MLB debut at 41. He was the best player in Negro League history (and possibly all of baseball history), as well as the most captivating, quotable, and influential. He was a spectacle to behold wherever he pitched, and his biography is well worth your time. Of course, due to segregation, very little of his splendor is captured by his Baseball-Reference landing page, as he “debuted” at age 41 in 1948. (At least we think so. Part of Paige’s legend is that he claimed he didn’t know exactly how old he was! In his own words, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”)
Paige enjoyed his greatest MLB success in 1952 and 1953, earning All-Star nods each year at ages 45 and 46. That alone would be enough to make this list, but the season below it has an even more incredible story. At the end of the 1965 season, the moribund Kansas City Athletics brought Paige back to start a game at the advanced age of 59. He took the hill against the eventual AL champion Red Sox on September 25- and threw three nearly perfect innings! His only blemish was a double by that season’s MVP Carl Yastrzemski. The man who made his Negro National League debut in 1927 recorded his final major league out 38 years later.
