The right-hander led baseball with 342 innings pitched and posted a 3.39 ERA at 40 years old. He eclipsed 200 innings in six of the next seven seasons and threw 210.1 frames at age 47 with the Cleveland Indians in 1986.

Niekro hung on for one more year before he finally ran out of gas. In all, he logged 1,974 innings with seven shutouts, 1,148 strikeouts, four Gold Gloves and a pair of All-Star appearances at age 40 and onward.