Time for my annual check-in on how many few pro athletes in the principal sports I follow are older than me. I’m 41 2/3 years old now, and can tell you that this is an age where not many people could or should engage in elite physical activities. So the number will be zero sooner rather than later. A year ago we were down to nine.

Now? Baseball first, as the 2018 season is winding down. Last year there were five left. But the attrition rate of 40-somethings is pretty high.

Ichiro started the year on the Mariners’ roster, so he appears in this search, but his age-44 season proved to be one too many. He was unplayable and barely made it out of April. They cut a deal to make him a special assistant as a de facto retirement, although he was known to still wear his uniform to work and once got caught sitting in the dugout wearing a fake mustache. (Indeed, Ichiro is one of my all-time favorite players.) Since the M’s fell out of the race I guess I wouldn’t be shocked if they re-rostered him for the last week and ran him out there a few times. But unless he goes back to Japan he’s done.

Walter Silver is still showing up here because he’s active in Mexican pro baseball, so we won’t count him. No one else on last year’s list played again this year except for Koji Uehara, who went back to Japan to continue playing.

So, the immortal Bartolo Colon is officially the last active MLB player to be older than me. How long will he last? Well, maybe like two more weeks. He’s been terrible. Just playable as a back-end starter on a very bad team, the Texas Rangers, who have no pitching and are far, far out of the race and only need someone to burn through innings until the sweet release of autumn ends their torment. I suppose some team could use an unbreakable arm next year and give him another try, who knows? We’re all rooting for you, big fella.

As the 2018 football season kicks off, lets see where we’re at:

Same list as last year! Well, checking more closely, Shane Lechler is off the list at the moment. He was supplanted by a rookie punter this year and is not currently rostered. He may well be the 33rd of 32 NFL punters so if anyone gets hurt or stops being good at punting he might get a call.

But for now, we’re down to three. All kickers. Interestingly, Phil Dawson’s team, the Arizona Cardinals, are so wretched through two games that he hasn’t even had a kicking opportunity yet. This is absurd. They scored a TD in their first game but it was desperately late so they went for the two-pointer. Then they got shut out entirely last week. Truly, kicking for the Arizona Cardinals is the dream career for us 40-somethings.

Speaking of football, the other thing I wanted to note is that I successfully eschewed fantasy football this year. My letter to me certainly helped. (Good to know. If you can’t talk to yourself, who can you talk to?)

Immediately liberating. Not surprising. I quit doing March Madness brackets a few years ago and thankfully didn’t have to be yet another person kvetching about their unfathomably improbable picks turning out bad. This feels similar. Every fantasy season is a terrific high of a draft followed by four months of uncontrollable failure. This year, it’s not! Yay!