Wimbledon may be a long way metaphorically as well as geographically from Washington, D.C., but both Ws have been confronted recently with the age of key players. Two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray, with an artificial hip and fresh from surgery to remove a spinal cyst, is playing doubles with brother Jamie at age 37. Just a week younger, seven-time champ Novak Djokovic is playing ahead of schedule after surgery to repair a meniscus tear, which may or may not have an effect on his chances for an Olympic medal at the Paris Games, beginning July 26, and a repeat as US Open champ. (I don’t know why people keep saying “an elusive Olympic medal.” He won a bronze at the 2008 Beijing Games.)
Rafael Nadal, 38, who has had his own hip surgery and subsequent injuries and whose knees are allergic to grass anyway, is sitting out Wimbledon for a chance to play at Roland Garros again as Carlos Alcaraz’s doubles partner at the Paris Olympics, after losing there in May in the first round of the French Open, a tournament he once dominated.
But hey, at least they’re not running for president of the United States. Of course, if they were, they’d be whippersnappers. Instead we have equivalent of thirtysomething tennis champs in former President Donald J. Trump, 77, and President Joe Biden, 81. All of which begs the question, when is enough enough?
For athletes, there have always been poignant physical limitations. Sandy Koufax — the best baseball player I ever saw and a pitcher who was virtual unhittable at the height of his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first half of the 1960s — walked away from his career in his prime (age 30) rather than let treatments for osteoarthritis in his left, pitching arm leave him incapacitated and so high on the mound that he might’ve injured a batter. Here’s what he said at the Nov. 20, 1966 press conference announcing his retirement:
“I've got a lot of years to live after baseball and I would like to live them with the complete use of my body. I don't regret one minute of the last 12 years, but I think I would regret one year that was too many.”
For Nadal, Djokovic and Murray — the men who chased Roger Federer in a not-too-long-ago golden age of men’s tennis — it’s a calculated risk, one that is already sadly yielding diminishing returns.
Those of us who have a desk job, though, can go on in perpetuity — or can we? The president’s performance at the debate, in which he was stiff not only physically but mentally, showed that it ain’t necessarily so. You need to be sharp at all times when you have your hands on the nuclear football. The question for the Democrats is not just can they win with Biden but can they win without him? Had he announced in January that he was bowing out and anointing Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer — there’s no way Vice President Kamala Harris can beat Trump — there would’ve been a chance for a smooth transition. Now whatever happens, the one certainty is that it’s going to be a divisive mess.
And yet it’s an understandable mess: It’s not just that no one with that much power wants to relinquish it. You don’t get to be president — or win Wimbledon — unless you believe that you deserve the prize. It’s that who you are is what you do. Wimbledon is what set Murray and Djokovic to start bouncing a tennis ball more than 20 years ago. You don’t walk away easily from a love that deeply engrained.
Biden has been an excellent president. And in a choice between him and Trump, it’s still a clear choice for many. After all, better to have a mind that you can potentially lose than never to have had a mind at all.
But everything ends, because everybody dies. The hardest thing is to know when to let go — and not just for those with momentous careers but those of us average almost retirees.
My Aunt Rita always said you’ll know when it’s time to go — balancing the need to move on with the realization that there are other things to move on to. Presidents ranging from George Washington to Jimmy Carter have had meaningful post-presidencies. I think Biden knows this — God help us.
Say it ain’t so, Joe. Except that it is.