One by one, they've faded away. Almost all of Jeff Samardzija's football-playing peers. Calvin Johnson. Brady Quinn. Reggie Bush. Matt Leinart. The names flip by as if from a ragged stack of football cards, relics from a bygone era.
They are still young men, all in their early 30s. But the sport of football has very little patience for 30, an age when it is quick to usher its own off to the broadcast booth, or to charity work, or home to families. Someplace, anyplace, that is not on the field.
Meanwhile, here in the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse and just getting warm in the second season of a five-year, $90 million deal, Samardzija pauses from completing a crossword puzzle long enough for me to take inventory of his body.