Mortality Alert: Andy Benes

As time goes on, I come across more and more articles profiling the post-retirement life of ballplayers who aren't terribly older than me. From time to time I'll be making note of such pieces under the heading of "Mortality Alert" (i.e. reading them reminds me that I too am aging and will one day get really old and die).

Today's subject is Andy Benes, who I always considered to be a rough contemporary. Yeah, he's about six years older than me, but he made his Major League debut about three weeks after I got my driver's license, and that's kinda when I began to think of myself as an adult even if I was quite wrong to do so. The point about Benes is that he was among the first crop of guys who I didn't think of as being more like my dad than me.

What's Andy Benes up to today? Adopting kids and enjoying the retired life. But here is the nugget that had me contemplating my mortality:

So Benes now concentrates on what he values most -- his family. By spending time with his children now, he is making up for all the time he missed when he pitched in the Major Leagues.

With his oldest son playing baseball at Arkansas State University, Benes can watch him with the proud eye of every father. But at the same time, both Benes men have to concentrate on their studies. Never having finished his degree at the University of Evansville, Benes has to finish six courses before he can call himself a college graduate.

Andy Benes has a kid in college. Doing some rough math has me thinking that, yeah, he and Mrs. Benes got a bit of an early start on the child rearing, but still, Andy Benes has a kid in college.

I am going to get old some day and die.