Eh, that’s pretty anecdotal, and there were genetic freaks before. Nolan Ryan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar both had long, highly productive careers. I’m not saying sports medical science hasn’t improved a lot, but it’s not like there simply weren’t late 30s or early 40s people competing at a high level. I suppose you could argue that the games are more competitive these days, and that if not for medical improvements, people would otherwise have had to retire earlier.

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Djokovic is undeniably the GOAT of tennis by any measure. He beats them both head to head, has more slams, more 1000 series wins, longest time at #1, everything. You can hate the guy but it's still facts.

Oh if only I could be his fingers for one game.

I definitely agree that Federer and Nadal are the greatest of all time.

BUT with that being said I think there’s an argument to be made that Djokovic prime vs prime was just as good as both Nadal and Federer. Which he deserves credit for. Is that an unreasonable statement?

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Or Jagr at 50 not at the top of his game anymore but still playing in a pro league

It's too early to tell really.

Lets not forget Tiger winning a major, in his 40's, on a fused back

What if I already have a few? You don’t know me!

I mean yeah, not many sports have a common injury literally named after them

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I remember when Vinnie Testaverde (44) and Brett Favre (38) played a game in 2007 and they called it the senior bowl. Lol times have changed.

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The math checks out !

Yea, but hes never faced me.

They definitely pitch less. The belief is that when a pitcher begins to tire, they stop using proper mechanics to compensate, so the biggest injury risk is pitching while tired. They now count the number of pitches thrown and pull a starter quickly when they're near a predetermined maximum. They used to view off-days as chances to skip the worst pitcher in the rotation and start the best pitcher sooner, but now it's generally an opportunity to give every starter in the rotation an extra day of rest. And they now put pitchers on the disabled list at the slightest indication of a problem. But are Verlander and Scherzer's dominance at an older age a result of that?

It's hard to say.

There have always been occasional pitchers who are still effective at an old age. Just from my lifetime, Perry, Kaat, Sutton, Niekro, Ryan, Clemens, Wells, Johnson, Moyer, Colon come to mind. Scherzer and Verlander are just two guys and not a representative sample of anything and could just be random chance, and they're not even that old yet. 37 and 39, while Perry and Clemens won Cy Young awards in their 40s, Ryan lead the league in strikeouts at 43, Colon was an All-Star at 43, and Niekro was an All-Star at 45. And for all the talk of Scherzer still pitching well at 37 and Verlander winning the Cy at 39, it's still a young man's game. The top 7 finishers in the NL Cy Young vote were all in their 20s, and 2nd through 8th place in the AL were also in their 20s. The young are still dominating, and being a good, old pitcher still makes you an outlier.

And even if we could say for sure that pitchers are aging better, there are lots of potential explanations: pitch counts, extra rest, improved medicine, something nefarious like PEDs, or I once read a study when Clemens and Wells were still going in their 40s suggesting that fat pitchers age the best and it successfully predicted Bartolo Colon's longevity (and while neither is fat, Verlander definitely looks heavier than when he was young).

Rey Mysterio is still at it? Time to watch some vids, a childhood hero for me.

An incredible story that's nearing its end.

Unbelievable longevity.

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He’s ok. It’s only top 10, it’s not like he’s been top 7 the whole time.

Wow. Amazing achievement.

Nadal has been consistent over the years it appears