This is an opinion column.

I was a kid baseball fan. For my parents and their generation, it was the sport. They watched baseball sign Jackson Robinson and were euphoric. Baseball was the pastime, and we were finally in it. (Way past time, and to the short-sighted detriment of the viable and valuable Negro Leagues; alas, that’s another column.)

They rooted for the Dodgers, of course; I chose the St. Louis Cardinals. In my youth they fielded men who looked like me: Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Julian Javier. The Tulsa Oilers in my hometown was their AAA team. My favorite Oiler was Walt (No Neck) Williams, who frequented my dad’s store in Greenwood Ave in Black Wall Street.

My beloved Cardinals didn’t do so well in ‘23. The postseason is underway, and they’ve gone fishin’. Still, the season was a good one.

Baseball attracted 70 million fans to stadiums for the first time since 2017. Credit a slew of peppy new rules that helped whack 24 minutes off the average game. I enjoy this new game, but old-school baseball fans will feel my pain.

Remember the 20-game winner, the ace who didn’t just take the mound every fifth day but owned that sacred, heightened dirt? Who commanded the game’s center stage? They’re all but extinct. A wheezing, gasping dinosaur.

Atlanta Braves ace Spender Strider was the only 20-gamer this season, and he had to go 6-1 in his final seven starts, including winning his finale against the Washington Nationals last Saturday to finish 20-5. Had he not earned that last W (pitching just five innings, alas), ‘23 would be MLB’s first season in six years without a 20 arm.

Ready taps.

In my youth, almost every contender had an arm capable of collecting 20 Ws in a 162-game season. Some had two. Later, between 1996 and 2005, MLB had at least three 20-game winners every season. Since then, the sport’s hit that mark only three times.

Today, the complete game pitcher is a do-do bird. Beginning the year I was born (1956, whew!), complete-game leaders in each league tallied well into double figures. Four pitchers—Juan Marichal (1968), Ferguson Jenkins (1971), Steve Carlton (1972), and Catfish Hunter (1975) pitched a staggering 30 complete games in a season. Two others—Mickey Lolich (1971), Gaylord Perry (1972, 1973) reached 29 games, as did Jenkins (1974).

CS tallies waned in the late-1980s, and early 90s. Now, only once since 2000 has a pitcher in either league reached 10 complete games: James Shields of Tampa Bay in 2011. In 2023, Kansas City’s Jordan Lyles and Miami’s Sandy Alcantara led the American and National Leagues, respectively, with, uh, three complete games each.

That’s 3.

With the demise of the workhorse, the 20-game winner has slid, as well. So, I could be wrong, but probably not: Say goodbye to the workhorse 20-gamer for whom a fan could pretty much pencil in the “W” before the end of the national anthem.

Which means we might also have to call it a wrap for the Black Aces.

Never heard of ‘em? I hadn’t really, either, until reading this Washington Post account of Cincinnati Reds pitcher Hunter Greene, a heat-hurling right-hander who loves mid-90s hip-hop and is deemed one of the few players with a chance to join what may be the most elite fraternity in a sport.

The Black Aces are the 15 Black pitchers who’ve won 20 games in a season over the sport’s history. That’s right: 15.

Some I watched in my youth (Bob Gibson, Vida Blue, Ferguson Jenkins, James “Mudcat” Grant, who launched the term); some I chronicled during my years covering sports (Dave Stewart, Dwight Gooden, CC Sabathia), others only as a peripheral fan over recent seasons (Dontrelle Willis, David Price)

After 14 seasons, Price did not play in 2023, making this the first time in 20 seasons, MLB does not have an active Black Ace.

The dearth of Blacks in baseball has long been lamented, so no surprise the effect contributes to the disappearing Black Ace.

Though Philadelphia’s Tiajuan Walker isn’t the Phillies’ ace, he may sit atop the Black Ace “watch list; he won 15 games this season. Josiah Gray shows promise (he’s just 25) for Washington; he was 8-13 this season.

The 24-year-old Greene went 4-7.

Grant used to make the call when a Black pitcher qualified to become an Ace. Before he died in 2012, Grant authored “Black Aces” to inspire more young Blacks to choose baseball.

And so, the elite fraternity’s story would be told—even if it never pledges another member. Sadly.

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

When Bill Russell stopped blacking my shot

Serena Williams’ valiant exit reminds me of another tennis icon’s gallant end

Biggest NCAA hoops upset? I was there

Remembering Michael Jordan’s ‘Last Dance’

I’d like to thank my teachers, too, and this coach