Quote:
Originally Posted by FatJack
I hate discussions of lifespan as its all in how you arrive at it, what your sample groups are, etc. Rich people live far longer lives than laborers, white people live longer than people of color, women live longer than men, etc., etc. Officially, however, average expected lifespan has been on the decline for the last several years (I believe it peaked in 2012). And that, too, is a farce. Because you can't predict how long someone born in 2012 will live based on how long someone born in 1932 lived.
I look at it this way. My grandfather lived to 100, my father lived to 85, and the odds are pretty good I'll be dead before I reach 65. Can't speak for anyone else, but that sure looks like a decline in life span to me.
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Still, the vast majority of these guys in Wikipedia's oldest 100 players list were short-term major leaguers. who didn't have enough time in the majors to qualify for a pension. (although many received small pensions retroactively, when the standards for pension qualification were lowered). These guys never got rich from baseball and yet they are still alive, in many cases, 60 years after their major leaguer days came to an end. Even guys who were journeyman major leaguers who played 8 or 10 years in the big leagues were more famous than they were rich. What was the minimum salary 60 years ago $8,000 a year, if that. Most of the biggest stars were still only making $35,000 or $40,000 in their peak years, many quite a bit less than that.
Most of these guys didn't get rich from baseball or have a great pension to fall back on to provide them with excellent health benefits. Yet here they are in their 90s, or knocking on the door of age 90. So, I think the number of these long term survivors has increased over the eight years or so that I have been following the oldest living major leaguers list and that reflects a trend towards longer lives in the United States in general.