These days, it would be unheard of: a position player in their late 40s ... signing a multiyear contract?

Not everyone can seemingly get better at their craft as others drift off into life's second act. Not everyone can hit home runs off pitchers half their age. Not everyone can be Julio Franco.

On Dec. 12, 2005, the 47-year-old professional hitter signed a two-year deal to play for the New York Mets. Yes, a few years before he hit the half-century mark and two years before he became a rare, baseball-playing grandpa, Franco was still in a Major League Baseball uniform. The man who played with Pete Rose and Tug McGraw would now be on a team with David Wright and Jose Reyes -- two stars who weren't even born when Franco made his debut in 1982.

"I've known Julio for a while," Mets GM Omar Minaya (also younger than Julio) said at the time. "He's put up pretty good numbers over the years."

Yes, there were definitely some numbers.

Franco had already been in the league for 20 seasons, appeared in 2,377 games and compiled 2,521 hits. He had a batting title way back in 1991, three All-Star appearances, five Silver Sluggers and a career .299/.366/.419 slash line. Those numbers don't include extremely successful stints in Korea, Japan and the Mexican League (he hit .423 and .437 during two separate seasons in Mexico in his early 40s). And he had amazingly kept that consistency going during his age-40 seasons, putting up a .292/.365/.428 slash line from 2001-05 for the Braves.

Franco's longevity was mostly due to his ability to stay in impeccable shape -- hitting the weight room after every game late into his career. Once asked by pitcher Collin McHugh if he goes to the gym every day, Franco responded, shaking his head, "Do you eat every day?"

Although the ageless wonder's big league career (finally) began to wind down after signing with the Mets, Franco still accomplished some major milestones. He became part of the oldest-batter-vs-oldest-pitcher homer when he clobbered this Randy Johnson pitch into the D-backs' pool.

He became the oldest player to hit a home run with this shot off the Padres in April 2006.

He also became the oldest regularly appearing player to steal a base at the age of 48 during a game in 2007. He's the oldest to pinch-run, hit a grand slam and holds pretty much every other "oldest to" record you can think of.

The 49-year-old was released and signed by the Braves in July 2007, finishing his MLB career with, what else, an RBI single.

Even though MLB teams didn't ask for his services any longer after '07, Franco continued to seek out any and every chance to take the field. He went back to the Mexican League in 2008, coached for a few years with the Mets and in Venezuela, and then went back to playing: first in 2014 with the now-defunct Fort Worth Cats and later with an independent league team in Japan called the Ishikawa Million Stars. He's currently on the coaching staff with the KBO's Lotte Giants, and he still shows off that unmistakable stance and swing he was known forever for.