1999--The Final Act

We partied like it was 1999, all right, long and hard and oblivious to the numbers on the calendar on the wall.

The champagne corks flew when John Elway won the Super Bowl. Glasses were raised when Michael Jordan sank his final 20-foot jumper against the Utah Jazz. Then the glasses were refilled and raised, and refilled and raised again, every time the amazing Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run derby sent another baseball into history.

But then, sadly, 1998 came to an end.

The ensuing hangover, as we painfully discovered, has been a bear.

If 1998 was a 12-month celebration of American sport, 1999 played like one long memorial service. We said goodbye so often it hurt--to Joe DiMaggio, the All-American icon; to Wilt Chamberlain, perhaps the greatest basketball player of them all; to Walter Payton and Marion Motley, the starting tailback and fullback in pro football’s all-century backfield; to Pee Wee Reese, who towered as captain of the star-glutted Brooklyn Dodgers for so many years; to Payne Stewart, three months after winning his second U.S. Open; to Catfish Hunter, Hall of Fame pitcher who mastered the art of closing the deal; to Gene Sarazen, the 97-year-old dimpled golf legend; to Kim Perrot, the 32-year-old WNBA star.

Between obituary notices, we passed the time by sitting in on retirement news conferences. More farewells, more misty eyes, more minor chords.

Jan. 13: Jordan announces his second retirement from pro basketball in six years to devote more time to another sport: recreational golf. If this is really it this time--you never know; he’s only 36 and Phil Jackson is back,

coaching in Hollywood--Jordan leaves with six NBA championship rings, 10 scoring titles, five most-valuable-player trophies and the perfect closing act: a championship won on the arc of his final jump shot.

April 16: Wayne Gretzky, the Michael Jordan of hockey, calls it a career, if you wish to call it that. It looks more like an adding machine that slipped a gear, spitting out these ridiculous numbers: 894 goals, 1,963 assists, 2,857 points, 61 league records, 10 scoring titles, nine MVP awards, four Stanley Cups. Another number--Gretzky’s 99--is immediately retired by the NHL, never to be worn by any other player in the league.

May 2: Elway retires, becoming the first NFL quarterback to quit immediately after winning the Super Bowl. Or after winning back-to-back Super Bowls. His 148 victories are also unprecedented for an NFL quarterback. His 47 fourth-quarter rallies are already a part of American folklore. But to make a run at three-consecutive titles-and-out at 38? Sheer science fiction, to Elway’s way of thinking.

July 28: Barry Sanders says he is retiring too. Yeah, sure, we say; he’s too young (31) and too close (1,458 yards shy) to Payton’s all-time NFL rushing record. Quit now, just because Detroit and Coach Bobby Ross are two royal pains in the posterior? We don’t believe it, and still refuse to believe it. Meanwhile, the Lions prepare for their 16th Barry-less game of the regular season.

Aug. 13: Two months after winning the French Open and one after reaching the finals at Wimbledon, Steffi Graf, winner of 22 Grand Slam titles, says this act has become tiresome and abruptly quits at 30. After an injury-ridden 1998, Graf says she found it “almost too easy to catch up to the top players again. I have nothing left to prove.” And what are we left with?

Professional basketball and hockey leagues wobbling on weakened knees without their all-time greatest players and feel-good ambassadors.

A professional football league suddenly stripped of its most charismatic old gunslinger and most fearsome not-so-old running back.

A teen-heavy “women’s” professional tennis tour without its designated baby-sitter, so useful in dispensing discipline at the majors and keeping the young brats in line.

Never before had one calendar year been broadsided by so many superstar retirements--by athletes still competing at, or near, customary high-performance levels. You have to go back to 1966 to find even two retirements of similar stature and circumstances: Sandy Koufax and Jim Brown, both 30 and at the top of their sports, bowing out within a span of four months.

On paper, this should have been the rightful cause of public mourning.

Instead, on many fronts, perhaps as a defense mechanism, the hello-I-must-be-going syndrome was greeted with approving applause.

From the Sporting News: “ 1/8Elway is 3/8 following a most pleasant trend in sports: great players, such as Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, being smart enough to get out before they wished they had.”

From Sports Illustrated: “Now they’re getting it. They’re leaving on top, with minimal fanfare and no looking back. . . . Gone, just like that, in a span of four months, gone before any owner could demean our memory of them with a stupid or desperate trade, before last-act whispers (is he washed up?) could build into a humiliating roar.”

From USA Today: “The great ones always want to leave on their own terms. Sadly, they rarely do. Often, they erode, then disintegrate before our very eyes.”

Going out on top became the en vogue trend of the year. Wade Boggs claimed to have done it, even though he really didn’t; he went out at 42, with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, having hung on just long enough to collect his 3,000th hit in August. Columns were written encouraging Cal Ripken to hang them up in ’99 so he that he could be packaged off neatly with Gretzky, Jordan and Elway--one megastar per sport!--as if a fourth face were needed to complete this jockstrapped Mt. Rushmore, at the buzzer, with time running out before 2000.

(Ripken didn’t budge, despite two extended stays on the disabled list--the first of his career--and season-ending back surgery in September. The surgery left Ripken nine hits short of 3,000. Ripken, a man who cherishes his legacy, will be back to get those hits, rest assured.)

Buffalo Sabre goalie Dominik Hasek isn’t retiring until 2000 but got in on the goodbye boom of ’99 by announcing his intentions in July. At the time of his announcement, Hasek had just completed a two-year run as the NHL’s most valuable player, reigning supreme as pro hockey’s “Dominator,” and appeared in his first Stanley Cup finals. He doesn’t turn 35 until January, but, Hasek claims, his native Czech Republic is calling him home.

In the Bay Area, where the last vestiges of the San Francisco 49er dynasty finally crumbled in 1999, fans and media implored the all-pro passing combination of Steve Young-to-Jerry Rice to call it a day. With Young, the concern was concussions; with Rice, continued contusions to his once-sterling reputation.

Who next? Whom else can we push out the door?

Charles Barkley? Yes, Sir Charles is getting up there, he really ought to think about hanging them . . . oh, it seems a ruptured tendon already took care of that.

Dan Marino? Yeah, we know about the 58,000 passing yards, we know about the 400 touchdown passes, but what have you managed lately? WE WANT HUARD! WE WANT HUARD!

Orel Hershiser? He turned 41 in 1999--that’s 287 in bulldog years--and after so much postseason success, we’d hate to see him start embarrassing himself in the playoffs. So good of the Mets, then, to let him sign with the Dodgers.

It is a classic late-1990s conceit: It might be his career, but we want to know what’s in it for us.

We don’t want our memories of him to be tainted.

We don’t want his final act to be ruined for us.

We don’t care if he’s trying to hold onto a passion, a pursuit that has thrilled and engaged him most of his life, for as long as he possibly can. Never mind his terms--we want to see that he goes out on our terms.

Yet, the passing of Chamberlain and DiMaggio in the same year served up a sobering reminder about great athletes and retirement: It’s usually awkward and never easy, for anyone involved. Chamberlain retired at 36 and spent the next 15 years tinkering with professional volleyball, threatening NBA comebacks and grousing about the man who would break his career scoring record, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. DiMaggio quit at 37, better players--Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle--would succeed him, but nearly two decades after his retirement, Simon and Garfunkel were writing songs about him, the country still pining for his quiet grace in the outfield.

“The reality of being a great athlete is that the fans always want more,” says Bill Walton, the former UCLA and NBA center. “No matter what you give them, they always want more. Which is fine--that’s the nature of the relationship. . . .

“Fans demand that a great athlete get out before his skills diminish. And as soon as that happens, it’s like, ‘Oh no, come back, why did you do that?’

“Why? Because you asked him to do it.”

*

Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs--hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm to get out of. He didn’t tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept and chanted “We want Ted” for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into an immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.

--John Updike,

on Ted Williams’ final at-bat, 1960

*

Babe Ruth was 42, wearing the unimaginable uniform of the Boston Braves and hitting .181 when he retired in June 1935. Tris Speaker was 40, a .267 hitter and a member of the Philadelphia Athletics--his third team in three years--when he ended his career in 1928. Honus Wagner was 43 and a .265-hitting player-manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates when finally laid down his glove in 1917.

Even the fabled DiMaggio went out as a faded photocopy of his prime. He batted only .263 with 12 home runs in his final season, 1951, and retired that December, admitting, “I just don’t have it anymore.”

Through the 1950s, that had been the accepted norm for star athletes. The arc of a career was a true arc--it rose and it descended, the final act was usually anticlimax, and that was all right. The financial rewards weren’t nearly as great for professional athletes then. Throwing a baseball, catching a football--they were vocations, the way one made his living. Plumbers plumbed until they no longer could. Why should hitting a baseball be much different?

One swing of the bat, accompanied by a few thousand typewriter strokes, changed all that in 1960. Ted Williams, the greatest hitter of his time, cleared the Fenway Park fences with his final swing as a major leaguer. John Updike, the renowned novelist, was there to chronicle it for the New Yorker.

The resulting essay, headlined “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” is widely regarded as a sportswriting classic. Williams did the heavy lifting, but in a pre-”SportsCenter” world, Updike christened the accomplishment for the masses, likening Williams’ in-flight home run ball to “the tip of a towering motionless construct, like the Eiffel Tower or the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was in the books while it was still in the sky.”

The Red Sox still had one last series to play that season, against the Yankees, but, as Updike concluded his piece, “On the car radio as I drove home I heard that Williams had decided not to accompany the team to New York. So he knew how to do even that, the hardest thing. Quit.”

With that, a blueprint had been drawn: The Right Way for a Star Athlete to Bow Out. Williams was 42 in 1960, but he batted .316 with 29 home runs that season. He quit while there was still gas in the tank. And he ended it all with an exclamation point--a home run on his last at-bat.

It became something to emulate: To go out in grand style, even if it meant leaving early. Nearly four decades later, Jordan copied it to the last tee, and then some--his final shot won an NBA championship. And then, a renowned author of the day, David Halberstam, wrote a book about him.

At the same time, a Wrong Way to Retire also developed. And its poster athlete was another home run hitting great--Willie Mays. Mays hit 660 home runs during his 22-year career, but only 14 during the last two, 1972 and 1973, spent with the New York Mets. His is often the first name dropped when the conversation turns to sporting greats who stayed on too long, punctuated by sad shakes of the head and disturbing tales of Mays stumbling and falling on his face in the Shea Stadium outfield.

Fact . . . or urban myth?

Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully observed Mays throughout his career. “He was,” Scully says, “in my mind and the minds of many, the best ballplayer I ever saw. One of the reasons, we felt, was that Willie could probably be an all-star at any position. He was just phenomenal. He played center field like a shortstop.”

Scully digs out a copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia and scans Mays’ career statistical line, refreshing his memories.

“He played through 1973, which would have made him 42 years old,” Scully says. “You can be 42 years old and be Phil Niekro and throw knuckleballs. But to be 42 and playing the outfield? That’s asking an awful lot.”

Scully studies a few more numbers.

“This is a man who hit as many as 52 home runs in a season,” he says, “and he wound up hanging on, batted .211, had six home runs, had 25 RBIs. He was just a ghost of what he was. He even played some first base. I mean, Willie Mays playing first base? And one game at third base!

“He could have done that when he was 21. He probably could have been a regular at any of the positions. But at the end, hanging on, he fiddled around. It was sad.”

Mays, however, had his reasons for leaving the San Francisco Giants, where his legend was built, for those last two years with the Mets. One was the romantic idea of ending his career where it began--in New York. Another, as Mays put it at the time: “All I ever wanted to do was play baseball forever.”

Did Mays really taint his career, his accomplishments, with that final chapter in New York? When thinking about Mays today, what image do you click onto first? The Vic Wertz catch at the Polo Grounds in the 1954 World Series? The baserunners Mays threw out, on the fly, from the warning track? Or the fly ball he bobbled in Shea Stadium in ‘73?

“I don’t think it diminishes him,” Scully says. “If he had hung around for a long time, maybe. But hanging around for two years--I don’t think that diminishes him at all. Because he was so brilliant. He’s a Hall of Famer.

“But I do think the moment when you watched him 1/8near the end 3/8 was a little sad. Watching a man struggle--and not too well at that--to do what he did effortlessly for 20 years, that’s the sad thing. It only diminishes for the moment.

“But when you look back on a great career, you easily forget about it. You don’t want to think about it. I’d much rather dwell on the greatness of the man.”

*

The decline (of an athlete) is sad but human. To miss it makes a pro’s experience incomplete.

--Bill Bradley, in his autobiography, “Life on the Run”

*

It is largely an American fascination, this idea that it is better to go out on top. Many U.S. journalists and tennis observers lauded Graf for her decision to make an early exit, but back in her native Germany, the reaction was closer to distress.

Former German national tennis coach Klaus Hofsaess described Graf’s retirement as a tragic blow to Germany’s standing as a global sports power. Soccer great Franz Beckenbauer said Graf’s “decision today is a pity, but deserves our respect.” Formula One driver Ralf Schumacher lamented, “A great name has been lost from German sports. I find it unfortunate, as she had recently shown what great accomplishments she was capable of.”

In Europe, it is not uncommon to see professional soccer stars play into their dotage, well past their prime, in the lower divisions of their domestic leagues, largely for the love of the sport.

Peter Shilton, the great English goalkeeper, played until he was 47, logging his record 1,000th professional appearance in 1996 with a club from England’s fourth tier of pro soccer teams, Leyton Orient. Ian Rush, Liverpool’s all-time leading goal scorer, played until he was 38, did not score a goal in his final three English League seasons and ended his career with a Welsh second-division club, Wrexham. Likewise, former England national team stars Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley were recently seen laboring for fourth-level English clubs Torquay United and Hartlepool, respectively.

Imagine Nolan Ryan popping ibuprofen, rolling up his sleeve and pitching every fifth day for Class-A Medicine Hat, just for the fun of it. Or Barkley rehabbing that leg and signing on next season with Fort Wayne of the Continental Basketball Assn., simply for the thrill of a few more jump shots.

(Actually, an American equivalent for this concept does exist. It is known as the Anaheim Angels. Reggie Jackson, Bert Blyleven, Lance Parrish, Dave Parker, Von Hayes, Kelly Gruber, Bo Jackson, Cecil Fielder, Eddie Murray and many other notable major league players have availed themselves of this option once they realized the glory days were over.)

Jackie Slater played 20 years in the NFL with the same team, the Rams. He was with the Rams so long, he broke in with them in Los Angeles and said farewell to them in St. Louis. Now a football analyst for Fox Sports Net, Slater takes a stand behind players such as Rice and Ripken, veterans hanging on in the face of mounting criticism and unsolicited advice to get out now.

“I would differ with anyone who says Jerry Rice should just quit and stop playing,” Slater says. “Just because he’s not playing at the level he played at some time ago doesn’t diminish the fact that he’s still competitive, that he still enjoys the game and, quite frankly, when he’s got somebody who can get him the ball, he’s as good as any of the average receivers who are playing the game today.

“I commend Jerry for doing something that he loves.”

Brent Jones, Rice’s longtime 49er teammate and now a football analyst for CBS, sees his friend’s current circumstances in a different light.

“To be honest with you, it’s tough to watch Jerry,” Jones says. “ 1/8Retirement 3/8 is such a personal decision. But I hate what I have to hear about him, because he’s the greatest receiver of all time.

“Now, I have to hear little punk defensive backs talking trash to him. You’ve got writers--some that don’t know what’s going on in regards to what it takes to be a professional football player--criticizing him. It hurts me to know how much he’s done and have that be the 1/8perspective 3/8 that keeps resonating.”

Which is one reason why Jones, a four-time Pro Bowl tight end, decided to retire after 12 NFL seasons at age 35.

“When I retired, I had a couple years left, I thought, for sure,” Jones says. “But I didn’t want my legacy to be, ‘Oh, here’s a guy who’s hanging on, just playing for the money and squeezing every last dollar out of the 49ers.’ I chose to make the jump. It was tough, I’m not saying it was easy, but I wanted to go out the right way.”

To Walton, whose professional career was cut short by chronic leg injuries, there is no right way to walk away.

“I never did retire,” Walton says. “I couldn’t play. I can’t play. I went from the basketball floor to the operating table in a three-year attempt to get better and get back out there.

“And after the 27th, 28th, 29th operations that I had in my career, I ended up with the 30th and final one, which was the one that fused my ankle. That was the point when I knew I couldn’t play anymore.

“Mine was not a voluntary mental 1/8decision to quit 3/8. Mine was an involuntary physical 1/8departure 3/8. I would love to still be playing. Because I could never get enough. All I ever wanted in my life was more. I so desperately wanted to be part of that team. I wanted to be on those bus rides, I wanted to be in the locker room, I wanted to be at the games. It’s something that I would never voluntarily give up.”

Jones did, and he has to concede: There were misgivings and self-doubt during that first year away from the game.

“When you retire, a part of you dies,” he says. “The camaraderie, the locker room, the friendships, the relationships, the intensity, the unbelievable high of playing in playoff games and Super Bowls. You just have to come to the realization that nothing in the real world is going to replace that adrenaline rush. . . .

“I was fortunate to get a job pretty soon with CBS, so all my focus was learning something new. At first, I didn’t have time to miss it as much. But as the season went on, I got hunger pangs. I saw the 49ers having a great season and, man, if the phone had rung and they said, ‘Hey, come on back, we’ll take you right now,’ I’d have been on the next plane to San Francisco.”

As for Jordan, Sanders, Elway and the rest of the retiring class of ‘99, Jones has a hunch at least one will be back in uniform someday.

“I still have a strange feeling Jordan will come back in the next year or two,” he says. “I just feel it. He’s going to come back and make it even more amazing.

“He can do it. Barry can do it. John Elway?”

Jones flashes back to Elway’s final season and all those grimacing hobbles up to the line of scrimmage. He laughs.

“I love John. But I don’t think he can do it.”