Why Do Sportswriters Try to Repeatedly Chase Aging Athletes Out of Their Respective Sport?

Here’s Slate’s Jack Shafer getting medieval on sportswriters for chasing aging athletes out of their respective sport:

"Only sportswriters cherish storybook career-finishes. They want Ted Williams to hit a home run in his last at-bat, because that’s a prettier story to write than chronicling a superstar who goes out stumbling—like Willie Mays. If sportswriters had their way, every star would die of Lou Gehrig disease during his last dance on the field, the court, or the rink … Why are sportswriters so invested in sports stars retiring while still on the top or, as Rhoden puts it, with their “legacy intact”?"

Tough not to agree with him, especially based on what sportswriters were saying in the first half of Favre’s Monday Night Football performance … and then after his three TDs made it a nailbiter in the fourth quarter. But it’s not just Favre, apparently.

"A brief Nexis consultation reveals sportswriters complaining about Scottie Pippen, Emmitt Smith, Johnny Unitas, Luc Robitaille, Muhammad Ali, Gordie Howe, Jerry Rice, Sugar Ray Leonard, Charles Barkley, Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Joe Louis, and Eric Dickerson staying in the game too long … In this regard, sportswriters are more sentimental than any fan. God forbid that a great player—or even a marginal one—should extend his tour in a game he loves, perhaps even helping his team in the process and cashing a few more payroll checks."

Fortunately, our favorite athlete of all-time, Magic Johnson, never went through this. The problem, of course, was that he was forced into retirement at the age of 31 due to HIV. (Nobody counts his player-coach 32-game stint in 1995, right? ED. Magic briefly coached in 93-94; the playing stint was in 95-96.) Perhaps because Magic never went through that “old man” phase is the reason he’ll always be our favorite?

Retiring the Side [Slate]

[Photo via Getty]