[tuq]

Baseball: old people like to cite Willy Mays' return to New York, with the Mets, and his subsequent errors in the World Series and general "looking old" as an unsavory way to wrap things up. Going from memory his stats that season weren't that bad at all for a 73 year old, but I guess people would have preferred the Say Hey Kid wrap it up in general obscurity in San Francisco. Also, Donnie Moore.

Basketball: littered with players who held on too long. The most frustrating ones are the career one-team players who ended up with another team (or two) at the end of their career. Dave Cowens, Patrick Ewing, and Hakeem Olajuwon come to mind. As does Michael Jordan. I mean seriously, he could have retired a Bull after pushing off of Russell and winning a sixth NBA title in 1998. Wow, what better ending could there be? Instead he came back and played for a terrible Wizards team while bitching at Kwame Brown the whole time. Ugh.

Football: Peyton Manning (hasn't happened yet but is inevitable).

Golf: Ian Baker-Finch, or one of the many players who won a major championship only to lose their swing entirely and end up commentating because they can no longer play.