You’re only as old as you feel, so they tell me. But as an economist I rely on what the market is telling me, and the fact that 92% of the TV ads I see are for prescription drugs is an elegant summary of my place in the world; I’m seen as old, diseased and gullible. Of course, maybe I just don’t understand the other ads and my estimation process is skewed. Or maybe I’m just old, diseased and gullible. But permit me a few moments of old-guy lugubriousness and old-guy optimism before your next plate of wings.

Anyway, the Super Bowl today marks the death of another football season. I’m not much of an NFL fan, and haven’t been for a long time, but I watch. For me, the big interest today is Sam Darnold. I have a friend who’s a Jets fan. This is extremely unusual up here where I live, where the Giants are king. The Mara family is based in my home town. I even know more Patriots fans than Jets fans. But there are a few eccentric outliers — is there any wonder that I end drinking with them? In any case, my friend Dan said to me, when the Jets cast Darnold loose: “He’s a good QB, but he’ll never win a Super Bowl.” I argued with him then that there’s no way he could know that, and I’ve waited for severl years (not all that many to be honest) to make my point. My biggest fear is that Seattle will win and Dan won’t remember his overconfident prediction.

The next thing the Super Bowl reminds me of is the death this week of my favorite QB from my youth: Sonny Jurgensen. When there were fewer football teams, there were fewer star QBs, and Sonny was generally regarded in my circles as really good but distinctly a notch below Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Fran Tarkenton and the last Jets QB to win a Super Bowl. But not to me, and sitting here 60 years later I couldn’t tell you why. But I don’t give these things up easily, and 91 is a pretty good run.

But enough about football. Sticking to death, though, the fact that Mickey Lolich also died this week reminds me that every baseball fan I knew as a kid had an AL team they rooted for as well as the Braves. The 1968 Tigers captivated me, and the debate (Lolich or McClain?) was a fun debate. Also, at 12 years old, it was my first insight into the notion that some statistics were more meaningful than others, and my lifetime argument against the Win was set in motion. Nobody has those debates any more, because the Win really is now irrelevant because of changes in the game. The Win was far more important in 1968 than it is today, But my defense of Lolich had to overcome the Cult of 31. And I was able to use a little statistical jiu iitsu to point out that if wins are that important, 3 of them in a World Series must be pretty damn good. Mickey was 85.

And that brings me to tragic death. Terrance Gore wasn’t a great baseball player, but he leveraged the skills he did have in a way that was second-to-none. To start with, he played in 112 regular season games and 11 postseason games. Take that, Ernie Banks. He had three World Series rings. In those 123 games he got his teams 1% closer to World Championships. On a per-game basis, I’m not sure there was anyone better. 34? Ridiculous.

So the football season ends today, and the cycle of rebirth is upon us. Pitchers and catchers report tomorrow.