47-year-old Bartolo Colon taking aim at Juan Marichal record

Veteran pitcher Bartolo Colon recently turned 47 years old, and he hasn't appeared in an MLB game since the 2018 season. Nevertheless, reports surfaced earlier this month that the man affectionately known by fans and former teammates as "Big Sexy" is attempting one final big league comeback.

Specifically, Colon wants to pitch 46 more innings on baseball's biggest stage.

As Sarah Valenzuela of the New York Daily News and John Healy of Radio.com wrote, that's how many frames Colon requires to pass Hall of Famer Juan Marichal and become the all-time leader in innings pitched among players born in the Dominican Republic.

Marichal notched 3,507 innings in his 16-year career.

For a piece published on May 18, Colon told ESPN's Marly Rivera he wants to retire with the New York Mets, his employer from 2014 through 2016:

"I've played with 10 teams, but with the Mets, the way all those players treated me, how that entire franchise treated me, from the front office to the kitchen staff, it was amazing. And Mets fans are the best. In the beginning, when they laughed at me every time my helmet fell off, at first I felt uncomfortable. But when I saw how much the fans enjoyed it, I asked for a bigger batting helmet so that it would fall more because it was so much fun for them!

"If it was up to me, I would retire with the Mets. I would like my career to end in New York."

Teams likely will require so-called "taxi squads" to complete a pandemic-shortened season, and a veteran who can eat innings such as Colon could prove valuable to the Mets or any other organization during a campaign unlike any we've ever seen. 

Regardless of potential alterations to designated hitter rules for 2020, we hope Colon gets at least one more MLB at-bat before he rides off into the sunset.