Growing old and rooting for aging stars to keep on playing

The author is sad to see Brett Favre retire because he represents the end of a generation. Damian Strohmeyer/SI

Brett Favre is finally retiring, which means millions of New Yorkers are dancing in the streets and 501 New Yorkers are heartbroken.

Five hundred of those are the low-schlubs-on-the-totem-poll employees of the myriad Big Apple-based sporting goods stores, who are responsible for removing the $59.95 price tags from every FAVRE Jet jerseys and replacing them with $2.95 CLOSEOUT! stickers.

The one of those 501 is me.

Oh, I have no real love for Favre, what with his hail mary wobbly ducks through the Giants Stadium wind and persistent, deliberate, grating will-I-or-won't-I-retire pleas for attention.

Yet with my 37th birthday a mere two months away, Favre's hobbled farewell into the world of Viagra commercials and canasta games with Grammie Norma serves to reinforce one unalienable truism.

I am old.

Not all that long ago, 37 was the new 22. Men like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro proved to a nation of Quiet Riot-loving, Pretty In Pink-reminiscing, Where's-Kirk-Cameron-when-we-need-him?-wondering has-beens that anything the young guys could do, they could do better.

If 22-year-old Albert Pujols hit 34 home runs in 2002, Bonds, at 37 years old, hit 46. If Kerry Wood struck out 233 in 1998, Clemens, at age 35, struck out 271. Sure, performance-enhancing drugs were illegal, immoral and, technically, cheating. But the same could be said for those underwater rocks in Cocoon -- and last I checked, 24 years after the film's release, Wilford Brimley, age 298, is still doing commercials for Liberty Medical.

Now, however, thanks to the damned doggedness of the media to burst the steroid bubble, I have come to the unmistakable conclusion that old age really does bite; that the ability to replicate my 3:11 marathon of 2004 is likely gone; that I'll no longer be able to hang from a 10-foot basketball rim (I could never dunk anything beyond a radish, but when it came to small vegetation, I was Terence Stansbury); that the strained calf I suffered during a Thanksgiving game of flag football wasn't accidental and the creaking in my knees won't cease with extra stretching or an alien make-out scene with Tahnee Welch.

Hence, when people ask what players I root for these days, my answer is simple, honest and to the point: Anyone older than me.

The New York Giants' Jeff Feagels, a 42-year-old punter? Best at his position since Ray Guy! Heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield, age 45? I don't care how long it takes -- you bring that belt back home to those 23 kids! Kurt Warner, the Cardinals' free-agent 37-year-old quarterback? Don't contemplate retirement -- sign a five-year deal! Dikembe Mutombo -- 42 and backing up Yao in Houston? Sure, he's only averaging 1.3 points per game. But that's 1.3 more than the combined output of Ralph Sampson, Hakeem Olajuwon and God!

As for all those ex-athletes bored of golf outings and rubber-chicken talks to the Somers Rotary -- come back! Really, come back! The nation still pines for Leonard-Hagler: This Time it's Dentures and Barry Sanders, portly-yet-potent, slicing through defenses. Surely the Cowboys would re-sign Troy Aikman to throw his trademark spirals to Jay Novacek; certainly the Mets could find spring training lockers for Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman and Bruce Berenyi. Bill Rodgers may well be 61, but he doesn't hit 62 until December -- two months after the New York City Marathon. You can do it, Bill! I know you can!

All around, there are mounting reminders my better days have ended. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers hire a coach, Raheem Morris, who was a college freshman a year after I had graduated. Kevin Bacon stars as an aged campaign manager in Frost/Nixon -- and it's not a stretch. Just the other day I asked a 19-year-old woman whether she'd ever heard the song Maneater.

Tyke: "Yeah. I love Nelly Furtado."

Geezer: "No, it's by Hall & Oates."

Tyke: "Oh. Are they, like, dead?"

No, they're not dead. Like myself, they're alive and kicking -- and playing the Borgata in Atlantic City on March 14.

Plenty of good seats still available.

Send a comment to Jeff Pearlman at anngold22@gmail.com.