Feeling old: Pedroia’s retirement and ‘Jeopardy’ category

Here are two more reasons why I feel a little older this week:
Dustin Pedroia: Seeing the outstanding Red Sox second baseman officially retire on Monday at age 37 because of his severe knee and other injuries makes me feel old. I watched Dustin Pedroia shine at second base often while he was a member of the Pawtucket Red Sox, and I enjoyed rooting him on then as well as during his career in Boston.
Pedroia --- like first and third baseman Kevin Youkilis, whom I also enjoyed watching at Pawtucket --- was a fighter to the end. Both Pedroia and Youkilis played the game the only way they knew how: hard. They both gave 110 percent, and their all-out approach to playing baseball is why both wound up having their playing careers cut short due to a rash of injuries.
I saw Pedroia play in 2018 in Pawtucket the day before he was recalled to the Major League roster for a weekend series. He played 7 or 8 innings of a 9-inning late-morning game --- and he looked relatively sharp in the field. But his hustling style of playing the game is what contributed to Pedroia getting injured again once he got back to the Majors.
Pedroia never played  in the Majors again in 2018, and he eventually had to stop his last rehab stint in 2019 at Portland because of his injuries. (He had played with the Red Sox in April before going on the injured list yet again.)
Pedroia showed a lot of guts in trying to come back several times, but he finally made the only decision he could make, which was to retire to preserve his long-range health.
Thanks, Petey, for giving your all with the Red Sox. You made plays at second base that few second basemen could make.
A RELIC OF A “JEOPARDY” CATEGORY: I really felt like a relic when this “Jeopardy” category was a part of a recent episode in Double Jeopardy: “1971 Emmy winners.” And I felt really old when none of the three contestants rang in on the $2,000 question in that category: “Which actress who played Rhoda Morgenstern on ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ won the Emmy for supporting actress?
If you knew the answer was the late great Valerie Harper, you’re as old as I am (68) or are a loyal fan of one of the Top 5 all-best sitcoms. A contestant did answer another question in that category that also dates us Baby Boomers: Name the show that featured the Bunkers. The answer, of course, is “All in the Family.”
It's hard to grasp that the 1971 Emmy Awards were given out a half-century ago. It's little wonder, then, why I feel positively ancient!