More often than not, if a baseball purist wants to know the answer to a question that starts, “Who is the oldest player in baseball to…”, a good place to start is Julio Franco. His 23 year major league career was punctuated on April 20, 2006 at Petco Park in San Diego when he became the oldest player in MLB history to hit a home run in a major league game. He was 47 years, 240 days old that day in San Diego, by far the oldest player in baseball at the time.

The Mets were trailing the Padres for most of the game until they came up in the top of the eighth. With one on, Franco laced an opposite field two-run shot off of Scott Linebrink to give the Mets the lead. The Mets went on to score six times in the frame on the way to a 7-2 victory. It was Franco’s first home run of the year.

He would go onto homer a total of three times as a Met, the last off of none other than 43 year-old Randy Johnson. Franco was 48 years, 8 months, and 11 days  old when he homered off Johnson. The combined age of pitcher and batter (91 years old plus) is believed to be a record (some stats from the dead ball era and older are not always factual).

Franco broke the record held by Jack Quinn. A pitcher for 23 years with eight organizations from 1909-1933, Quinn was a lifetime .184 hitter with eight homers over the course of his career. His final home run came with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1930, at age 46 years, 357 days.

Julio Franco played for eight different major league teams. He spent the better part of two seasons in Japan and one in South Korea before ending his career in the Mexican League on May 2, 2008. All told, including games abroad, Franco played in all or parts of 31 seasons as a professional ball player. He amassed over 4200 hits in his long career (2586 in the majors) and is one of only seven known players to have over 4000 professional hits.

Franco made the All-Star game three times as a member of the Texas Rangers (1989-1991) and was the game’s MVP in the 1991 renewal at Rogers Centre in Toronto. That year he led the American League in batting with a .341 BA. Franco was also a five time Silver Slugger awardee copping the prize in 1988-1991 with the Rangers and in 1994 as a member of the Chicago White Sox. Ironically, Franco had his best season numbers-wise in the strike shortened 1994 season as he had 20 homers, 98 RBIs and a .319 BA after only 112 games. He received MVP consideration in 1994.

Franco played shortstop, second base and first base (as well as DH) for the majority of his career. The Mets had him start one game at third after they clinched the division in 2006, his first appearance at the hot corner since his rookie year of 1982.

The Mets signed Franco to a two-year contract on December 8, 2005. He was 47 at the time. Franco had been the oldest player in the major leagues from 2004 to 2007, and was the last active player who was born in the 1950s. In the 2006 season, he stroked .221/.321/.289 with 45 hits in 95 games for New York but will be remembered for one swing in San Diego.

His struggles continued in 2007 and he received less playing time which frustrated Franco. He was hitting only .200 and was primarily used as pinch hitter or runner. He was designated for assignment on July 12. He finished his major league career with the Atlanta Braves.

To put Franco’s career in perspective one only has to know this:

There have only been 25 home runs hit by players aged 45 or over, and Franco has hit 20 of them. Most of them came during his time with the Braves, but the final three came with the Mets during the 2006 and 2007 seasons. He’s also the oldest player ever to hit a grand slam (at 46 years, 308 days old) and the oldest to have a multi-homer game (46 years, 299 days). He even had his grandson witness a game when he homered.

Franco is the oldest non-pitcher to regularly play in the majors (48). He is the second oldest to steal a base (48) and the second oldest to appear in the playoffs and that was in 2006 with the Mets. He truly can be called the ageless wonder of baseball.

His overall career stats are : In 2,527 games over 23 major league seasons, Franco posted a .298 career BA (2,586-for-8,677) with 1,285 runs, 407 doubles, 54 triples, 173 home runs, 1,194 RBI, 281 stolen bases, 917  BBs, .365 OBP and .417 slugging. He finished his career with a .978 fielding percentage.

Never known for his loquaciousness, Franco was once asked by reporters the secret to his longevity. He simply replied:

“I worked out. Anybody can lift weights.”