Today, Jamie Moyer starts for the Colorado Rockies and Fred Couples tees off, tied for the lead at the Masters. At the age of 49, Moyer would be the oldest Major League Baseball winner of all time and, if Couples continues to prevail tomorrow, well... He last won the Masters golf tournament twenty years ago at the age of 32. Yes, he is 52 and 8 strokes ahead of Tiger Woods.
Jamie Moyer throws his fastball at 80 MPH. A mediocre college pitcher throws at least 85 MPH. As power is the cube of the velocity, a 100 MPH pitcher throws with just about twice the power of Moyer. There are at least a dozen capable of reaching this speed. Arnoldis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds has been timed at 105.1 MPH, so that would be about a factor of 2.25. So why is Moyer still effective? Batters miss time the ball, expecting to get a slow ball, and getting one even slower. His location is also uncanny. A big plus is that he doesn't wear out his arm by slowing so deliberately.
Knuckle ball pitchers (which Moyer is not) also are known for longevity. Literally, the inside knuckles are contacting the ball at release to impart "no" spin, resulting in a path that flutters, at 70-75 MPH. Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox would have been 45 if he returned this year.
Satchel Paige, because of the color barrier, finally became a rookie in 1948 at the age of 42, but played for only five years. In his prime, his fastball might have reached 100 MPH
Moyer last year actually threw a 9-inning shutout and had a good Spring. He currently has 267 wins and wants to get to 300. Three eleven win years would get him there. He would then only be as old as Fred Couples.
To give Couples some encouragement, Sam Snead won the Greater Greensboro Open in 1965 within two months of turning 53, but that was his eighth win of that tournament, the current record. Snead is also on record as being the oldest golfer to make a PGA cut...in 1979 at the age of 67. Jack Nicklaus won the Masters in 1986 when he was 46.
Don't think this record will be broken in London this summer, but Oscar Swahn of Sweden won the gold medal for an event called the 100 meter team running deer shooting event in 1912 at the age of 64. Then again, there are contradictions about the gold being given that year for this sport. Jim Thorpe, All American, won two golds that year, but had them taken away because he had played a kind of professional baseball earlier. He, indeed, though, was all-everything, as he excelled in track and field, football, basketball, lacrosse, tennis, handball, bowling, golf, swimming, billiards, gynastics, rowing, hockey, boxing and figure skating. He retired from professional sports at the age of 41 into a life of poverty. Swahn did win the silver medal at the age of 72.Of course, we can't leave this posting without a mention of Jiro, who at 86, still runs the best sushi restaurant in the world. If you don't know anything about him, click on his name.
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