All is not lost

 

I haven't written hardly anything about the passing of Willie Mays, except for a single tweet.

Like everyone else, I marvel at his career, as best as I can for someone who saw none of it. He was on the wrong side of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry, too, so the best I can do is some version of "wow, look at those stats."

But there were plenty of other people willing to pay tribute on social media. One of the off-shoot discussions that comes from such a significant player dying is "who is now the greatest living ballplayer?" Unlike many fans, I am not interested in talking about that. It's impossible to come to a conclusion. So maybe start another topic when we're sitting on the bar stool. Like who has the best pizza.

The other topic was Mays being the last star of the '50s to leave the earth, the passing of an era. I don't know if I'm totally in agreement with that thinking. There are still plenty of big names who touched the 1950s still around. Maybe they didn't reach their height in that decade, but I felt like a lot of people were dismissing some big names in that conversation.

 

And now, at the risk of this post being completely out of date a year from now, here are some big names who are over 80 and still ticking.

 

 

Luis Aparicio is 90. He was in the 1956 Topps set and he's still here now. I feel like Aparicio doesn't get a lot of play -- certainly very little respect in the hobby outside of his rookie card.

 

Rocky Colavito is also 90. He's not on the same dais as Willie, Mickey and the Duke but he had some really good years and was a star in the Midwest where stars are often ignored.

Sandy Koufax is 88. His name was the one that I saw mentioned as the last-remaining '50s notable still living. Koufax was still an uncertainty in the '50s so I'm not sure I buy that.

Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal are both 86 and played on the same teams for several years. Cepeda's big league career began in 1958 and Marichal in 1960. (EDIT: Orlando Cepeda died June 28, 2024, seven days after this post published).

Billy Williams is also 86. Another Hall of Famer, you guys.

 

 

Tony Oliva keeps the Hall of Fame train running at age 85. Some of the players we're getting to now appeared in the first sets I collected. They seemed like old men to me then and here I am middle-aged and they're still going. Inspiration.

Carl Yastrzemski is 84. The former Triple Crown winner was mentioned as a possible winner of the Greatest Living Ballplayer honor. Again, you won't get any argument from me. I don't really care. I bet Yaz doesn't either.

Pete Rose is 83. We're done featuring players who stepped in a major league batters box in the 1960s, although Jim Kaat, at 85, is still around and he pitched in 1959.

Joe Torre is also 83. He's been a visible baseball name my entire rooting life -- 50 years. Things will no longer seem right when Torre moves on.

There are plenty of other notable names of guys over age 80: Luis Tiant, Tony Perez, Mickey Lolich, Fergie Jenkins and others. In the broadcast booth Bob Uecker and Bill White are both 90 and Tony Kubek is 88!

And how about this?

Former Pirates Elroy Face is 96, Vern Law is 94 and Bob Skinner is 92! They were all teammates on the 1960 World Series championship team. You can add Bill Mazeroski, at age 87, too. (A couple other Pirates from that team passed at advanced ages, such as Bill Virdon (90) and Bob Friend (88)).

So, there are still notable MLB players from the grand old days to be celebrated while on this earth and while I couldn't tell you which one of these is the greatest of them all, I do know they were all great for an extended period and it's very cool that I have their cards.