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March 11, 2005

Prospectus Matchups

A Look at Longevity

by Jim Baker

To date, the playing careers of 17 major leaguers have touched on four decades. Who among those active today will -- five and 15 years from now -- join them?

First of all, a point of order: Most lists of four-decade players you see will include 25 men. I have taken it upon myself to excise eight players from this list:

Minnie Minoso, Deacon McGuire, Jack Ryan, Nick Altrock, Kid Gleason Jack O'Connor,Jim O'Rourke, and Dan Brouthers.

I did this because the appearances that got them to their fourth and – in the cases of Minoso and Altrock – fifth decades were either stunts or cameos. To me, to truly qualify for the designation of four-decade career one must be at least a bench player in the years leading up to the changing of the final decade of one’s career and, ideally, have a definite role in the year (or subsequent year) that allows one to get one’s fourth decade. A number of the players listed above hadn’t seen the light of the major leagues in over five years when they reappeared to claim a fourth decade. In Altrock’s case, most of the appearances he made to claim his third decade were of the novelty variety.

In fact, if you combine the appearances that gained the banished eight their fourth decades, you get 18 games played, 31 at bats (with seven hits), and two innings pitched (0 runs allowed). To my way of thinking, to qualify for this baseball novelty, one cannot have taken in part in baseball novelties. One could argue that Tim McCarver got his fourth decade in much the same way. He joined the Phillies after the rosters expanded in September of 1980 and made six appearances, one of which was a start. The difference between McCarver and those listed above, though, is that he had a major league job in the last year of the previous decade (1979 in this case).

The same might be said of Eddie Collins in that he only had two at bats in 1930 and a handful more than that in 1929. Again, though, there was at least some continuity. Jerry Reuss pitched in just four games in his swansong year of 1990, but, again, he started 26 games the year before. Mickey Vernon had only eight at bats in 1960, but was active in ’59 and a semi-regular in ’58.