Professional athlete competing alongside someone born after they made debut
 

A professional athlete who played with or against someone who was born after the older one started playing at the highest level*.

It has happebed a few times.
Gianluigi Buffon has played against Kylian Mbappe; who was born in Dec 1998, over a year after Buffon made his debut.

Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik made his debut in Oct '99, and in April 2018 was in the team when Shaheen Afridi (born April 2000) made his debut.

Venus Williams made her Grand Slam debut in May 1997, while Naomi Osaka was born in Oct 1997.

Any others?

* Identifying this is problematic for some sports. For our purposes, highest level will exclude junior or reserve/second team appearances, while for soccer, a first team club appearance is sufficient, no need for international caps. Cricket, Test, ODI, not first class. Tennis, first appearance in a singles GS main draw.

American sports would be an actual appearance in NFL, MLB, NBA game etc.

Tim Howard's career started in either 1997 or the Spring of 1998 depending on if you count USL teams. Christian Pulisic was born in September of 1998.

Many fathers-sons pairings in MLB: Bobby and Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Sr and Jr, Felipe and Moises Alou, Jose Cruz Sr and Jr, Sandy and Roberto Alomar, and Cecil and Prince Fielder, to name only a few.

This is fairly common in snooker where you have older players like Ronnie O'Sullivan playing against teenagers. Ray Reardon only retired (from snooker) at age 60 so may have played against players who could have been his grandchildren.

Gordie Howe played on a line with his two sons for the Houston Aeros of the WHA in 1974. He played until 1980, ending his career with the Hartford Whalers. In his last season there was only one player on his team (Bobby Hull) who was born when Howe made his NHL debut.

ETA - there were 3 players on the 1979-80 Whalers born before Howe made his NHL debut in 1946.

Bobby Bonds started his career in '68, Barry was born in '64.
Griffey Sr. started in '73, Jr. was born in '69.
Cecil Fielder started in '85 and Prince was born in '84.

I doublechecked, both of Gordie Howe's sons were born well after he started playing in the NHL.

Only the Griffeys meet the conditions of this thread, in that they actually played together or against one another. None of those other examples meet that criteria.

The only other example in baseball history of a father and son playing together are Tim Raines Sr. and Jr. I cannot think, to be honest, of any other examples of father and son playing against each other.

Bartolo Colon.

In the 1980 All Star game Howe (b. 1928, age 52) played against Wayne Gretzky (b. 1961, age 19). Howe was 33 and had been playing in the NHL for 15 years when Gretzky was born.

I would say these are notable events, but probably relatively common (of the order of happening several times a year) in cricket and football. In both sports it is not unusual for players to make their debut at age 17/18, so it only requires another player to have maintained a career of that length, making them 35+. This is a pretty normal age for goalkeepers and cricketers.

Ahh, thanks for that Rick.

Happens in Golf a lot. A LOT

Phil Mickelson is still a World Class Golfer, ranked #33 in the current OWGR. He won a World Golf Championship event last March. He will be 49 yrs old in June.

Players ranked higher than him than were born after his first win in 1991 include Spieth, Thomas, Schauffele, Rahm, DeChambeau, all in the Top 20 of the OWGR.

Adam Vinatieri (b. 1972) of the Indianapolis Colts played his first year in the NFL in 1996, the year that 7 of his teammates were born.

Vince Carter (b. 1977) of the Atlanta Hawks played his first year in the NBA in 1998, the year that two of his teammates were born.

George Blanda played in the NFL until age 48. His first year in the league was 1949, and his last was 1975.

In that final season, he was playing with a number of teammates who had been born after he had made his debut in '49 with the Bears, including his fellow specialist, punter Ray Guy, starting fullback Mark van Eeghen, tight end Dave Casper, and backup quarterback David Humm.

Dirk Nowitzki started playing in the NBA in 1998. Luka Doncic was born in 1999 and they are teammates on the Dallas Mavericks this year.

While this isn't specifically about a professional athlete, does anyone remember the 41-year-old gymnast who competed in the 2016 Olympics for Uzbekistan? She had a son who was older than some of her teammates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oksana_Chusovitina

It's common in pro wrestling--Johnny Valentine teamed with his son, Greg Valentine (though Greg was billed as Johnny's brother so as to kayfabe Johnny's age). Dusty Rhodes teamed with his son Dustin, Bill Watts was the booker when his son, Eric, worked for WCW, Nick Patrick wrestled as Assassin #3 teaming with his father, Jody Hamilton as Assassin #1, Jake Roberts and Sam Houston both worked under their father, Grizzly Smith in Mid-South, Brian Lawler worked with his dad Jerry Lawler, Fritz Von Erich teamed with various combinations of his sons, Tommy Gilbert teamed with his son Eddie, etc....

The list of actors that work with people that were born after they started acting is extremely long.

I was going to say Sebastian Janikowski (Seahawks kicker) and Rasheem Green (defensive end on same team) but Seabass was drafted in 2000 in the first round and Green was born in 1997. Close but no cigar.

Martina Navratilova, whose first major win was the Czechosolovakian national championship in 1972 had her last major win in the 2003 Wimbledon mixed doubles. She was playing with partner Leander Paes (born 1973) against Andy Ram (born 1980) and Anastasia Rodinova (born 1982). So that's a three-fer!

After winning Olympic gold in October of ‘68, George Foreman made his professional boxing debut in June of ‘69 at Madison Square Garden, and quickly went 32-0 before December of ‘71.

Foreman defended the heavyweight championship against a boxer who was born in November of ‘68, which doesn’t quite seem to count; but Foreman then went on to lose that championship in a fight against Shannon “The Cannon” Briggs, who was born in December of ‘71 like I was just saying.

As a Hartford Whaler, he also played with a teammate who had been named for him - Gordie Howe Roberts.

Pete Rose was Rookie of the Year in ‘63, and was still playing baseball in ‘86: even playing in the same game as shortstop Barry Larkin, who was born in April of ‘64.

Larkin’s in the Hall of Fame and Rose ain’t, which is an argument for another time.

That's just fantastic! Love it.

When I read the thread title, the first name that popped in my head was "Tom Brady". But his career began in 2000, and it looks like the youngest players on the Patriots are 23.

Yeah he’s in the same boat as Seabass; Brady popped in my head for the same reason. I went with Seabass though because I knew Green was really young (he wasn’t even drinking age yet when drafted last year) and Green had significant playing time on the field this year so he would count. Unfortunately like I said the timing didn’t quite work.

I think Seabass might have played his last pro season but Brady should have a few more years, so who knows, Brady might be an example in 2022...?

When Stan Musial finished his career at age 42, there were more than two dozen MLB players who hadn't been born when he started. Henry Aaron had an even longer career.

Phil Dawson played his first NFL game in Sept 1999. This year is starting QB was Josh Rosen, born in 1997. There are a few other AZ Cardinals born after Dawson's first NFL game. AZ is a pretty young team and Dawson started playing young.

Kevin Garnett played his first NBA game in Oct 1995. In his last season in the league he had two teammates (Tyus Jones and Karl-Anthony Towns) that were born after that.

Joe Smith Jr “rose to prominence in 2016 by scoring an upset knockout victory over Andrzej Fonfara, and later becoming the first boxer to score a stoppage victory over former undisputed middleweight world champion Bernard Hopkins, who retired after their fight.” Bernard Hopkins made his professional boxing debut in October of 1988; Smith was born in September of 1989.

The two sports I immediately thought of were golf (mentioned above) and...curling.

For instance, Glenn Howard started his career in 1985 and his son Scott (b. 1990) joined his team in 2015.

Not sure if you count Olympians as professionals or not. Regardless, there have been a half dozen pistol shooters that competed in 7 Olympics or about 28 years, so I'm sure that they competed against kids not yet born when they started.

Brett Harvey was born in 1978 and made his debut in 1996 for North Melbourne Kangaroos.
He retired in 2016 after 21 seasons and 432 games.

6 of Harvey's 2016 North Melbourne team mates were born in 1996
(Declan Mountford, Mitchell Hibberd, Sam Durdin, Ed Vickers-Willis, Daniel Nielson, Ben McKay)

The 1992 NASCAR season’s final race “was held on November 15, 1992, at Atlanta Motor Speedway and was televised live on ESPN. The race is widely considered the greatest NASCAR race of all time, with three stories dominating the race: the debut of Jeff Gordon in the Winston Cup Series, the final race of seven-time champion Richard Petty's thirty-five-year career, and the battle for the series points championship with six drivers mathematically eligible to win the title.”

Jeff Gordon was born in August of 1971 — after, in February of 1971, Richard Petty had won his third Daytona 500.

Dustin Fletcher was born in 1975 and made his debut in 1993 for Essendon.
He retired in 2015 after 23 seasons and 400 games

15 of Essendon's 2015 senior playing squad (48) were born after he made his debut.

Jaromir Jagr played in the NHL until age 45. Last season he was in Calgary where 14 guys on the roster at some point who were born after his NHL debut in 1990.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished in second in the 2001 Daytona 500, moments after Dale Sr. was killed.

I spent way more time than I'd care to admit trying to find an example of this in Formula 1. The problem is that while there have been a lot of older drivers, they generally got started later in life and in the early days of the sport, so they didn't have long careers. At the same time, young people weren't generally getting recruited because it was still a rich man's game.

After the aero advancements in the 70s, older drivers dropped out and younger drivers came in but the longest careers have only been 19 years and there have only been a few teenage drivers.

The closest I can find is in 2012, the last year of Michael Schumacher's career when he was 43 years old. Schumacher made his F1 debut at the Belgian GP on 25 Aug 1991, so we'd be looking for anyone born after that date who drove with him in 2012. The closest are 3 drivers born in 1990, Sergio Perez (26 Jan), Charles Pic (15 Feb), and Jean-Eric Vergne (25 Apr), so we're off by more than a year.

However, if we extend the rules to reserve drivers who participated in "free practice" sessions we pick up 3 drivers born in 1991 -- Max Chilton (21 Apr), Esteban Gutierrez (5 Aug), and crucially, Alexander Rossi (25 Sep).

So in 2 races in 2012 (Spain and US), there was a driver (Alexander Rossi) who shared the track with someone who started in F1 before they were born.

Per wiki, Archie Moore “was an American professional boxer and the longest reigning World Light Heavyweight Champion of all time” and “is the only man to have faced both Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali.” The fight against Marciano doesn’t count, but Ali was born in the ‘40s and Moore turned pro in September of ‘35.

(Moore also fought Willie Pastrano, who was born in November of ‘35.)

Nolan Ryan pitched until he was 46, and in his last season (1993) about one-third of all the players who appeared in the majors that year weren't born yet when he made his debut in September 1966. That includes Robin Ventura (b. 1967), meaning that Ryan had a famous fight with someone who wasn't born yet when he first pitched in the majors.

On September 27, 1987, Atlanta Braves pitcher Phil Niekro threw his final major league game at age 48. Knucksie debuted on April 15, 1964.

Jeff Blauser (11/8/65) was his shortstop in that game.

He had other teammates who were not in that game who were born after he began pitching. These include:

Kevin Coffman (1/19/65)
Tom Glavine (3/25/66)
Pete Smith (2/27/66)

Since careers last longer, you might be better off looking at the British Touring Cars Championship. I think they've had a couple of father / son combos there, but I'm not sure.

BTW if you look at the British Truck Racing Association, you'll see that Wayne and Joanne Eason - husband and wife - are competitors.

Sachin Tendulkar played his first Test match in Nov, 1989.

In his final test against the West Indies, Kieran Powell of the West Indies was born the year after his debut. On his own team, Kumar Singh is a similar age.

A lot of the Indian team were only born the year or two before Tendulkar's debut, including the current captain, Virat Kohli.

Not quite the same, but in Sunday's AFC championship game, one of the starting quarterbacks will be the same age as the other's mother.

And, from the other end, Tendulkar played that game against Imran Khan, whose debut in Jun 1971 was 2 years before Tendulkar was born.

Ha, Brady is Mahomes’s daddy. :D

I haven't done any research into it but Jamie Moyer pitched in the major leagues until he was almost 50. I'm sure he had a teammate or two along the way that were born after he made his debut...I'd be very surprised if he didn't.

Moyer's first year in the majors was 1986, his final year was 2012 although he only appeared in 10 games. But he had 13 teammates that year born in 1986 or later.