Golf is the perfect sport for those who can no longer strap on a pair of metal spikes and sprint out between the chalked lines on a baseball diamond.
In a lot of ways, golf is like the light version of baseball. You still have to put together a lot of moving parts and get your mechanics just right to hit a little white ball. The game is still played outside, under the sun, and wind can wreak havoc on a typical outing.
And in golf, people typically get together in groups of four to go shoot a round.
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With Ron Santo's induction into the Hall of Fame Sunday, the Cubs' legendary foursome is now complete, only they won't ever be able to play a round of golf together as Hall of Famers.
Santo joined fellow teammates Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins and Ernie Banks in the elite class of baseball players, but it came roughly a year-and-a-half after his death.
"I think it's outstanding," Jenkins said. "It's kind of bittersweet. It's 10 years too late. Seeing Ron Santo go in and have a fellow teammate and now four of us off that same ballclub that played together for such a length of time to get voted in, I think that's outstanding."
The foursome were a dominant group in the 1960s and early 1970s. They combined for 29 All-Star game nominations and nine Top-5 finishes in the NL MVP race, including two wins from Banks. The three sluggers combined for almost 1,300 home runs.
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But despite their prowess on the diamond, the Cubs never even made it to the World Series, a fact that was brought up often by those who argued that Santo should not be in the Hall of Fame.
"It's about time he got in the HOF," said Glenn Beckert, Santo's longtime roommate on the Cubs during the '60s. "His credentials should have had them in there while he was living. Due to the fact that we already had three guys in the Hall of Fame -- Fergie, Billy and Ernie -- and we never played in a World Series as a team.
"You can't have four guys, I guess, and that was the theory in the voting. You hate to say it's not fair and it wasn't fair, but now the seniors have taken over the voting for old-time players. It's satisfaction now for his family and all his grandchildren."
It was also satisfaction for guys like Beckert and Jenkins, who returned to Cooperstown to see old friends and former enemies on the diamond.
"When you come back for a fellow teammate, that's what it was all about," Jenkins said. "We played together, we ate together. We went through the wars together. You knew each other. That's the fun part of it, to know that your teammate was that good an athlete to make the Hall of Fame."
It's been almost 40 years since Santo stopped playing but at long last, Jenkins can finally say the third baseman on those legendary Cubs teams is a Hall of Famer.