Beltre, Colon Mark the End of an Era
The 20th century is about to yield to the 21st in Major League Baseball.
In dedicating his album Scarecrow to his recently departed grandfather, John Mellencamp wrote “There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.” And, whether we realize it or not, such a change is taking place right now in baseball.
Baseball in the 20th century, or at least the 25 years of it that I was able to see, was an enormous part of my life. The game first grabbed hold of me in July of 1975, when my father drove his seven-year-old son to St. Louis to watch Tom Seaver pitch against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The excitement of the crowd at watching players like Lou Brock, Ted Simmons, Bake McBride and Al Hrabosky overwhelmed me, and left me wanting more. A few months later came the searing experience of the 1975 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine.
That led directly to Reggie Jackson in the 1977 World Series;
to Bucky Dent and the Green Monster in Fenway Park;
to the first players’ strike in 1981; to the heartbreak of the 1984 Cubs;
to bowing down before Andre Dawson in the bleachers at Wrigley Field;
to the magic of Kirk Gibson‘s walk-off homer in the 1988 World Series;
to the futility of the 1994 players’ strike;
to the chasing of Roger Maris and 62 homers in 1998;
and to a million other points in between.
In 2018 I’m a long way from the baseball-crazed kid that I once was, but I still love the game. Nearly all of the players from that quarter-century – Pete Rose and Rod Carew, Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux, to name just a few – have left the stage. In fact, all that remains of 20th century baseball is two players who began their careers decades ago. And coincidentally enough, both of those players – the record-chasing Bartolo Colon and Adrian Beltre – are currently on the roster of the Texas Rangers.
Colon made his debut in 1997 with the Cleveland Indians and Beltre broke in with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1998. As incredible as this sounds, no other players on any active 25-man roster appeared in a Major League game prior to 2001. Colon is holding on in the Rangers bullpen at the age of 44. Beltre is turning back the clock as a starting third baseman at age 39. But after these two players leave the game for good, that’s it for the century that brought me into the baseball fold.
As we await this final goodbye – and it won’t happen this year, because Beltre is still performing above average on offense and defense – we can start preparing for the next big hello, from MLB players born in the 21st century.
That, too, won’t happen this year, because the last 18 year-old to play in the majors was Alex Rodriguez back in 1994. For anyone who might be curious, the youngest player currently on an active MLB roster is Ozzie Albies of the Atlanta Braves, who was born in the first week of 1997.
This season’s September call-ups will bring us closer to the first 21st-Century born player, leaving the 20th century for the history books. And in two or three years’ time the older generation of MLB players will all have faded away, making room for the next generation to take its place.
It appears that John Mellencamp’s album dedication is playing itself out right before our eyes. So, to borrow a phrase from one of his songs, let’s all check it out.
