You can officially feel old now.
This year, for the first time, there are no players on Opening Day rosters who were playing Major League Baseball in the 20th century. And MLB is about to see its first player who was born in the 2000s.
There were two Major Leaguers in 2018 who had played in the 1990s: Adrian Beltre and Bartolo Colon. Beltre retired at the end of last season after a 21-year Hall of Fame-caliber career that began in 1998. The 45-year-old Colon — who debuted in 1997 and has pitched 21 seasons in the big leagues — has not retired and has expressed the desire to continue his career, but he’s unsigned entering Opening Day.
Ichiro Suzuki, who played the Mariners’ first two regular-season games in Japan last week before announcing his retirement, didn’t start his Major League career until 2001. So did two other players who entered Thursday on their team’s Opening Day roster — Albert Pujols of the Angels) and CC Sabathia of the Yankees. They’re the earliest debuters left of anyone on an MLB active roster.
Also interesting — despite the sense that baseball is a bit softer on its players than football or basketball, MLB is the first league this has happened to; the NFL and NBA and NHL all still have active players who started in the 1990s.
[Handwave discussion about which century 2000 belongs in.]
Nothing earth-shattering, to be sure, just … an observation about the passing of time.
Do you want to know more? Baseball says goodbye, literally, to 20th century