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Ranking the best Boston sports stars by age – Larry Bird to Tom Brady to Mookie Betts – Metro US
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Ranking the best Boston sports stars by age – Larry Bird to Tom Brady to Mookie Betts

Ranking the best Boston sports stars by age – Larry Bird to Tom Brady to
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With Larry Bird having turned 60-years-old recently and the calendar having flipped to 2017 – it’s easy to feel old as a Boston sports fan.

You know you’re getting old when the players you watch on a nightly basis are considerably younger than you are. I’m 34, for example, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to find guys around my age who are still lighting things up on the pro level. What’s crazy to think is that 39-year-old Tom Brady, who is considered ancient by most sports standards, never took a snap on the pro level in the 1990s. Pretty soon there won’t be any athletes left in the four major pro sports who played in that decade (Adam Vinatieri, Jaromir Jagr – you’re our only hope).

So, for nostalgia purposes I decided to rank the best Boston athletes – past and present – by current age. There were several age groups in which it was impossibly difficult to find a worthy player. For instance, former Bruin Steve Kasper was the top 55-year-old and current Celtic James Young was the top 21-year-old. In other words, 1961 and 1995 are cursed years on the Boston sports scene. On the flip side, there were some age groups where there was far too much competition. Not sure what was going on in this country in 1977 – but it should easily be Boston fans’ favorite year. Brady was born that year. So was Paul Pierce, Randy Moss and Zdeno Chara.

Another top year was 1989, as Isaiah Thomas didn’t make the cut! Unfortunately for Thomas, Rob Gronkowski was also born that year.

A look at the list from 60-year-old Larry Bird all the way down to 20-year-old David Pastrnak.

Larry Bird: 60

Kevin McHale: 59

Wade Boggs: 58

Andre Tippett: 57

Ray Bourque: 56

Steve Kasper: 55

Roger Clemens: 54

Mike Greenwell: 53

Jose Canseco: 52

Cam Neely: 51

Curt Schilling: 50

Mo Vaughn: 49

Dee Brown: 48

Troy O’Leary: 47

Kenny Anderson: 46

Pedro Martinez: 45

Manny Ramirez: 44

Tedy Bruschi: 43

Ty Law: 42

David Ortiz: 41

Kevin Garnett: 40

Tom Brady: 39

John Lackey: 38

Deion Branch: 37

Josh Beckett: 36

Wes Welker: 35

Logan Mankins: 34

Dustin Pedroia: 33

Stephen Gostkowski: 32

Patrice Bergeron: 31

Julian Edelman: 30

Tuukka Rask: 29

Brad Marchand: 28

Rob Gronkowski: 27

Jackie Bradley Jr: 26

Torey Krug: 25

Mookie Betts: 24

Trey Flowers: 23

Malcom Brown: 22

James Young: 21

David Pastrnak: 20