As baseball teams have reported and I begin perusing the Spring Training rosters and player invites, I see Jamie Moyer is in camp! Looking to make the Rockies, his 9th team, for his 25th major league season. Now this obviously requires a deeper look.
Analyze the Rockies roster a little further so you can see pitcher Tyler Chatwood in camp also, born in 1989. Moyer's Topps rookie card is older than that and was also with a different team as Moyer had already been traded once in his career by that point.
The key may be the Tommy John surgery he had last year. The procedure used to be a death sentence but improvements and rehab techniques have almost made it into an upgrade. Moyer has rehabbed from the surgery and received an invite to Colorado's camp.
The man must love the game, the camaraderie and competition as he has made about $83 million in his career along with winning a World Series and accumulating 267 wins. This kind of perspective on the game by Moyer is what makes spring training over flow with hope and allows us to love the game of baseball as much as he must.
In 1986, he began pitching in the Major Leagues. He could throw harder then, before interleague play and even the wild card were in place. He would not have even had the chance to play for the Rockies as they didn't exist yet. Just imagine the spectrum of knowledge he can provide Rockies pitchers having played with hard throwing Nolan Ryan and soft throwing Charlie Hough!
After six seasons in the bigs, Moyer was 34-54, hardly a pre cursor to a 25 year career. Then he won 145 games with Seattle in the middle 11 years of his career. His trade to Philadelphia allowed him to continue, going 56-40 for the Phillies while leading the 2008 World Champions in wins with 16.
He has 114 wins since turning 40 years old all without the velocity to break a neighborhood window.
He is in camp with 19 pitchers on the Rockies 40 man roster who have combined for a total of 234 wins, still short of Moyer's 267 victories. They have about eight pitchers in camp with some experience in starting major league games but none with 628 starts worth of experience.
He could become the oldest pitcher ever to win a game. The handful who appeared that were older did not earn a victory or start except for Satchel Paige who was claiming to be 58 when he started a game in 1965**.
** Paige went three innings, gave up ONE hit and NO runs
Even if he doesn't make the team at age 49, Moyer holds the record for oldest pitcher to throw a shutout (47, which he has done in four different decades), oldest to start an NLCS game at 45, and oldest to ever beat the New York Yankees (47).
I am rooting for Moyer to make the team, pitch in Miami's new park allowing him to have thrown in 50 different Major League stadiums, and record a win. A timeless man for a timeless game.
All this because I know more about nothing...
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