The Yankees and Alex Rodriguez announced Sunday his final game will be on Friday, a vastly shorter timeline than when he said earlier this year he would play through the end of his contract in 2017.

The bigger implication of this development is that he will not be the last active player remaining from the Nintendo 64 game Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr.  ARod had been the clear favorite since he was the only competitor who even had a contract for next season.

David Ortiz has made it clear this will be his final season, too.  That leaves us with the hero we deserved all along as the guy who can be immortalized in history books for centuries to come.  That man, of course, is Bartolo Colon.

Sure, he would turn 44 years old less than two months into the 2017 season, but I’m pretty certain Bart could pitch until he’s 54 with no real dropoff.  All he needs is a contract.  If you’re an owner and can’t quite fathom putting up the necessary cash, please recognize that a simple Kickstarter will draw in enough baseball fans to easily cover any salary Bartolo demands.

Long pitch Bart.

(I’ve been following this race since 2013 when there were 14 guys left.  In 2014, it was 10.  There were five at the start of 2015 and of course three to start this season.)