age 27

felix doesn't like the cold and neither do i

According to baseball writer Bill James, who I will call the Godfather of Sabermetrics, once noted that most baseball players will have their peak season at age 27.  I assume that he came to this conclusion by way of a spray chart, a line graph and complex mathematic formulas which make my head spin.  What it means is that according to James a player will have matured fully by age 27 and will post his best numbers.  Right now as I write this blog I am 27.  So.... yeah.

Last weekend my wife and I attended the Seattle Mariners fan fest at Safeco field where the main attraction for us was waiting in line two hours outside the stadium in the freezing cold and then another two hours standing inside on the relatively warm suite level waiting for an autograph from the reigning Cy Young award winner Felix Hernandez.  This May Felix will turn 25 and has already won the Cy Young, become the third fastest to reach 1,000 career strike outs, has been selected to the All Star team and in 2005 was the youngest pitcher to appear in the major leagues since 1984, not to mention that he is arguably the best pitcher in the American League.  He won’t even turn 27 for another two seasons.  It goes without saying that this kid makes me feel like a failure.

If Bill James’ assertions are to be believed then Felix has two more years in which to improve and grow his skill set, it also means that this is my peak year and that whatever it is that I do I will have my best year at.  I’m not entirely sure if that means that I will have my best year of writing plays that no one will ever read or if this will be my best year at being lost.  Neither option makes me feel terribly optimistic as I don’t want to have my best year at either of those.  Maybe right now as I sit here on my couch writing this I am having my peak season and if this is it, then I am thoroughly unimpressed.

When I was growing up I was convinced that I was a good enough baseball player and I too would one day have my chance to become a professional.  I would sit in my room and study their cards paying close attention to their ages and subtracting mine from theirs to see how much older than me they were.  I felt that the closer I was to their age the closer I got to being a major leaguer.  When I got older I still would check their ages but now I was much closer to them in age and my dreams had changed, now I was gauging how close to adulthood I was.  At 27 I still check the age of my favorite players but now I find that I am older than many of them and I can’t quite come to terms with the fact that I am an adult even through I don’t feel like it.

My wife and I had Felix sign our baseball and made sure to have him include “2010 Cy Young”.  I will take that ball and put it on a shelf next to memorabilia from stars much older but maybe less talented, stars who I looked up to.  I will spend my age 27 season looking at that ball and I will try to figure out what it is that I am supposed to be having my best season of.  Then again maybe Bill James with all his fancy numbers and mathematical formulas is wrong.  After all plenty of players have peaked in their mid 30’s and many other’s have peaked in their early 20’s only to flame out before they ever reach 27.

Then again there is the 27 club where Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain all died at 27, so I guess I could have that to look forward to also.  Given that proposition I suppose I will take peaking at writing plays that no one will read.

This could be my year, checkout my latest play not coming to a theater near you.