Two old men on a Sunday

I turn 40 in December. I am reminded that I'm getting older in many ways. There are the more obvious signals, like the gray hair and the thinning hair. I can't run or move the way I used to.

Another measure that I track is the number of professional athletes who are older than me. That list shrinks with each passing day and each passing season. But I've still got a few guys who are hanging on. For example, as much as I want Aaron Rodgers to go away, he is 41 years old. The longer he drags out his career and annoys all of us, the longer I'm still younger than an NFL quarterback.

Over in Major League Baseball, I've still got at least two starting pitchers who are older than me. They happen to be two all-time great pitchers, and they both started this past Sunday.

Just like all of us will at some point or another, they were both confronted with the cruel reality of time. And I was reminded that I won't have elders as MLB starting pitchers for much longer.

Today:

• Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, and the signs of the end of the line
• The ridiculous 2025 Rockies found a new way to be ridiculous
• Diminishing returns on college football head coaches as the stars of their programs

121 pitches and a back injury

I was hopeful when I saw a headline about Justin Verlander's start against the Baltimore Orioles this past Sunday. Here's the information I learned from the headline: he threw 121 pitches, he struck out 10 batters, and he got the win.

Where did my mind go? I figured the 42-year-old Verlander threw a complete game, or something close to it. It must have been a vintage outing from a Hall of Famer, with Verlander going deep into the game while talking his coach into a pitch count that most starters don't dream of in 2025.

It turns out that Verlander threw all of those pitches in five innings of work. Still impressive, but it's also a reminder that he isn't what he used to be.

It was Verlander's third win of the season. He's now 3-10 with a 4.29 ERA.

Over in Toronto, Max Scherzer took the mound for the first place Blue Jays. It was a key game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Scherzer had pitched at least six innings in his last six starts. Having battled nagging injuries for the last two seasons, "Mad Max" was pitching like his old self.

It seemed like the 41-year-old Scherzer was rounding into form, holding off the end of his career for the time being. It's a pretty cool prospect, the idea that we could see Scherzer stirring the echoes during a playoff run.

Maybe we'll still get that. But it was a clunky start on Sunday, with Scherzer lasting just four innings and exiting with a back tightness.

As of now, Scherzer is still on track to make his next start. Maybe he and Verlander can still end the 2025 season on the upswing. Or maybe, in a way that is relatable for so many, they will both find that it's all that much harder than it used to be.

And it was bark at the park!

I maintain that one of the key differences between 2025 and the previous losing seasons for the Colorado Rockies is the fact that people actually sat up and took notice. Before this season, the Rockies were mostly bad in a quiet way, not worth much more than a passing comment about their hopelessness or their ballpark.

This season, people actually talk about the Rockies. Their historic losing stretch led national headlines. Their embarrassing plays extend beyond baseball fans to mainstream outlets. They are finding new and distinct ways to be an embarrassing franchise.

Tuesday night added another of these moments, led by one of Colorado's longest tenured players in Kyle Freeland.

Granted, this brawl would have gotten a lot of attention no matter what. Devers didn't even make it to first base. And that's the way that the Rockies found to make this even more humiliating.

Usually, baseball players who don't like fun and are fussy about the other team hitting a home run wait until the guy is crossing the plate. Freeland didn't wait. He couldn't wait, apparently. It's silly from any player. It's especially silly from any of these Rockies, and it just gave people another excuse to check in on how bad this team is.

Let's set things straight with the notion that Devers did anything wrong. He didn't. Baseball should be fun, and if the sport ever wants to shake free from the stereotype that it's a dying sport for old men, they need to shut up about "unwritten rules" and "playing the game the right way."

If Kyle Freeland's teammate poses after a home run, he probably doesn't have a problem with it. And if Kyle Freeland doesn't want opposing hitters to pose, he shouldn't throw terrible pitches. Because boy howdy, that was a meatball that he served up to Devers.

Before we move on, I have to share my favorite part of this ridiculous brawl. It was "bark at the park" at Coors Field, so a bunch of fans were there with their dogs. It also seems safe to assume that a lot of those fans don't attend a lot of baseball games and were surprised at what was happening.

All in all, there were probably a lot of confused beings at Coors Field when Kyle Freeland started screaming at Rafael Devers.

Can we be done with this?

College football lost me a while ago. If I hadn't already been out before the last few seasons, I think the nature of it with NIL payments would have pushed me away. But the sport lost me before then for a different reason: the weird worshiping of the head coaches.

The treatment of Nick Saban was tiring enough. Everyone was fascinated with him and held him up as some sage, wiser-than-all program manager and no-nonsense coach. Maybe some of it was true. But after a certain point, it was just because the University of Alabama always had the best players, right?

Anyway, whether it was right or wrong, I just grew tired of that as one of the primary angles for college football coverage. Based on a few glimpses the last few seasons, it seems like it's still there. Coaches are still put up on pedestals, just like I remembered. Except now, they might not even be good coaches. They're just famous.

For example, Deion Sanders is 13-13 as the head coach at the University of Colorado. His Buffaloes got trounced in their lone bowl game appearance last season. He is running a mediocre program that isn't contending for anything. And yet "Coach Prime" is a frequent lead story.

His debut season included College Gameday in Boulder, the Rock and Kevin Hart and other celebrities on the sideline, and the general treatment that would normally be reserved for a successful or contending team. The Buffaloes went 4-8.

New this season, we've got Bill Belichick at the University of North Carolina. The Tar Heels' 2025 opener was the story of the day. It was a national game. Michael Jordan was there along with a number of famous North Carolina alum. It was important for us all to see that this was, in fact, a big deal.

North Carolina lost 48-14.

And so, I ask this question once again: can we be done with this?

Odds and ends

• Last week's newsletter focused on the simple enjoyment of watching Shohei Ohtani play baseball. This week, he hit a home run that was 120 MPH off the bat (FanGraphs).
• We're into the final month of the MLB regular season, which means we can start thinking about playoff baseball and some of the key players (CBS Sports).
• The Yankees had an absolute meltdown against the Houston Astros on Wednesday night, a game I happened to be watching. The main problem was walks, and then a run-scoring wild pitch to boot. It resulted in Aaron Boone earning an ejection for putting the blame on the umpires (ESPN).

As I watched that inning unfold, I thought of this classic scene. "Tommy, you have derailed."

Happy Friday.