Ageless Wonders: Martina Navratilova, Jamie Moyer Shine Well Past 40

Given the advances in training and medical technology in recent years, it’s not all that surprising that professional athletes would be able to perform later and later in life.

In fact, in the case of non-contact sports, it would seem that mental burnout is more often the culprit in an athlete’s decision to leave the game than physical inability to continue playing. 

Yet we as a society are fascinated by the athletes who win past the “usual” age and who become statistical outliers as a result. Two competitors who’ve captured our collective imagination, albeit via very different career paths, are Martina Navratilova and Jamie Moyer.

Navratilova, along with legendary rival Chris Evert, dominated women’s tennis from the late 1970’s into the early 1990’s, when Steffi Graf asserted herself as the heir to the throne. 

Navratilova’s career statistics are remarkable—18 Grand Slam singles titles, 41 Grand Slam doubles titles, a record total of 1,440 singles matches won, just for starters—leading numerous people to laud her as the greatest women’s player in history.

In 1994, at the age of 37, Navratilova retired from professional tennis. Her status as a Hall of Fame player was in no doubt, and she had many other interests that she was ready to pursue.

She did return to Wimbledon the following year to pick up a mixed doubles championship with Jonathan Stark, but she then left the tour for an extended period of time.

The siren call of top-level competition proved to be too strong, however, and Navratilova returned to the tour in 2000. Although she only rarely played singles, and with only spotty success, her doubles prowess had not much diminished. 

By 2003, she was once again hoisting Grand Slam hardware, winning both the Australian Open and Wimbledon mixed doubles titles at the age of 46.

The Australian Open win made her the oldest-ever Grand Slam champion and gave her a complete set of Grand Slam titles (singles, doubles and mixed doubles at each of the four events), but she wasn’t through yet.

In August 2006, the U.S.T.A. announced plans to induct Navratilova into the United States Open Court of Champions during that year’s US Open. She, in turn, told reporters that she would be retiring for good following the tournament.

It was a fortnight of farewells that summer in Flushing Meadows, as it was the swan song for both Navratilova and beloved men’s star Andre Agassi. 

Emotions ran high and media coverage was plentiful, but expectations were tempered, as Navratilova was then more than three years removed from her last Grand Slam title.

But ever the master of the big moment, Navratilova shone in her final turn on the stage. Teaming with doubles specialist Bob Bryan in the mixed draw, she fought her way to yet another championship.

Just a month shy of her 50th birthday, Martina Navratilova capped her incredible career by holding up the US Open trophy and walking away a winner.

Navratilova’s career arc is perhaps the more common among older athletes—rocketing to stardom at a young age, winning everything in sight, and retiring when it seems there is nothing left to accomplish, only to return soon after because nothing else fills the competition void. 

Jamie Moyer’s career has followed a decidedly different, but no less remarkable, path.

Moyer was a very successful collegiate pitcher at St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia, but his major league career didn’t take off right away. In his first six seasons, with the Cubs, Rangers and Cardinals, his record was 34-54. He never threw high heat, even as a young man, and he struggled to adapt his pitching style to the big leagues.

He finally found his groove during a short stint with the Red Sox in 1996.  Relying on his pinpoint control and his wicked change-up, Moyer learned how to flummox hitters instead of overpowering them.

Boston traded him to Seattle in the middle of that season, and Moyer blossomed in the Emerald City. He spent nine full seasons there and had a losing record only once, despite not always having strong run support from his offense.

Even as he grew older, he continued his remarkably consistent ways, thanks to his strenuous workout regimen and dedicated mental approach to the game.

Seattle traded Moyer to his hometown of Philadelphia in the middle of 2006, sending him back to the team he’d idolized as a kid. Moyer had skipped classes during his senior year in high school in order to be in attendance as the 1980 Phillies paraded down Broad Street following their World Series victory.

A parade such as that was one of the few things that had eluded Moyer at that point, despite his long and productive career.

When the 2008 season began, Jamie Moyer was 45 years old, making him the oldest active player in Major League baseball. He was a tremendous asset to a Phillies clubhouse stocked with young talent.

In particular, rising superstar pitcher Cole Hamels often credited Moyer with being a great mentor to him throughout the season. But Moyer’s greatest value, first and foremost, was still as a winning pitcher.

He notched 16 victories during the regular season to lead the pitching staff, as the Phils headed to the playoffs for the second year in a row.

Moyer’s postseason got off to a rough start, as he lost to the Milwaukee Brewers in the divisional series and got hammered by the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. Still, the Phillies made it to the World Series, and manager Charlie Manuel handed Moyer the ball for Game Three.

A 90-minute rain delay postponed the start of the game, only the first of several weather-related delays that would turn this into one of the wackier World Series in memory. 

When Moyer took the mound, virtually no one knew that he was also battling a serious stomach illness, one that had been making him miserable for two days. He had refused to even consider missing his start, however, not after waiting 22 years for his chance.

And so, Moyer pushed aside his illness and pitched...magnificently.  The young Tampa Bay Rays squad didn’t know what to make of his slow pitches, and they couldn’t find any sort of groove.

In the last inning he pitched, he made a diving play on a ground ball to the first base side, laying flat-out on his stomach to grab the ball and then flipping it with his glove to first baseman Ryan Howard.

The umpire called the runner safe (although replays later showed that he was out), but the indelible image of the second-oldest player ever to make an appearance in a World Series game leaving it all on the field is something baseball fans should always treasure.

The Phillies went on to win the World Series, and after the final out, Moyer dug up the pitching rubber at Citizens Bank Park as his souvenir. Two days later, he got to ride in his own parade down Broad Street, just a month before he turned 46 years old. And in December, he signed for two more years with the Phils.

In our impatient age, not many athletes are given the opportunity to build their careers slowly, never mind over the course of 22 years. After completing the long climb and finally reaching the pinnacle of his sport, Jamie Moyer isn’t ready to leave just yet.