Senior slugger
You probably think these guys are graybeards. Greg Maddux is 4-0 the same month he turned 40. Curt Schilling is 4-0 at 39. Randy Johnson is still occasionally blowing away hitters at 42.
Imagine what Julio Franco might have to say about them: “Yeah, the kids are doing just fine.”
They’re almost all kids to Franco. Players, managers, umpires, ushers.
Matter of fact, major leaguers come in three ages. Young, old and Julio.
In case you missed it, the most remarkable home run of the season was struck last Thursday in San Diego by a pinch hitter for the New York Mets – Julio Franco, age 47. The last senior citizen to hit a homer in the major leagues did it 76 years ago: Jack Quinn of the Philadelphia Athletics, at the time just a week or so short of 47.
Forty-seven? Isn’t that when a guy is supposed to be making appointments for his first colonoscopy and stress test? Franco is playing for the first-place team in the N.l East. Says he wants to hit a homer at 50, when he could become the only man ever to drive in a major league run the same day he uses his AARP card.
Speaking for all baby boomers who creak, crackle and show signs of falling apart … Our Hero! Raise your prune juice glasses in a toast.
As of Monday, 60 players on active major league rosters had not been born the day Franco played in his first game for Philadelphia in 1982.
Scott Linebrink, the San Diego pitcher who gave up Franco’s 171st major league homer, was 6 years old the day Franco hit his first.
In 1983, Franco finished second in voting for American League rookie of the year. The man who beat him, Ron Kittle, has been out of baseball for 15 years.
Franco won the 1991 A.L. batting title. The hitter who finished third, Willie Randolph, is his manager.
Franco is older than seven managers and his own general manager. His career predates 20 of the 30 ballparks now in use.
He is older than Ryne Sandberg, a professional rookie teammate with Franco in 1978. Sandberg is already in the Hall of Fame.
When he played his first game, Bowie Kuhn was the commissioner. Cal Ripken had not even begun his record-breaking streak of 2,632 consecutively-played games. The Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays did not exist.
When he became a starter at shortstop in Cleveland, his first baseman was Mike Hargrove. Hargrove is now on his third major league team as manager.
Franco works hard, eats right, smiles a lot, goes to bed early. So he’s had time to land in more places than a FedEx plane. Philadelphia, Cleveland (twice), Texas, the Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee, Tampa Bay, Atlanta and the Mets. Also Japan, Korea and Mexico.
His body shows less wear than my tires, and he has a two-year contract with the Mets, who were not born until 1962. They’re not as old as Julio Franco.
But then, who in baseball is?