Jack Flaherty trolls old man Adam Wainwright with prank on his birthday

Jack Flaherty made it abundantly clear that Adam Wainwright is an old man.

Adam Wainwright had a birthday and teammate Jack Flaherty wanted the world to know about it.

Wainwright is still on the good side of 40, but only barely. He’s got another 365 days until he knows what being 40 is all about. Still a good decade and change from having any idea about what Wainwright is facing, Flaherty decided to show up to the airport and epically troll the elder statesmen of the St. Louis Cardinals rotation with a wheelchair for Mr. Adam Wainwright.

Wainwright was pleasantly surprised to see Flaherty to greet him with an easier method for getting around these days. He tweeted this out for the rest of us to enjoy his birthday: “What a surprise to see ⁦Jack Flaherty waiting on me at the airport like this… then I was wheel-chaired all the way to the plane. He respects his elders so much. Good one young fella.”

Nobody respects their elders while trolling them quite like Jack Flaherty.

After missing some time from playing baseball due to an internal coronavirus outbreak, the Cardinals are now taking it seriously, as seen by Flaherty’s massive face shield. With a 12-13 record, that’s good enough for second place in the NL Central thus far this season. If the season were to end today, the Cardinals would be in the postseason, so that’s exciting for the Redbirds.

If you want to know how old Wainwright is, he has been a fixture on the Cardinals’ pitching staff since 2005. He was part of two St. Louis teams that won World Series under Hall-of-Fame skipper Tony La Russa in 2006 and 2011. While Wainwright missed the entire 2011 campaign, he has put together a Hall of Very Good career in Cardinals uniform for the last 15 seasons.

Though Flaherty is seen as the future of the Cardinals’ staff, it’s great to see him respect his elder while simultaneously trolling him in this manner. While you want to take things seriously like the coronavirus, you also don’t want to take things seriously like getting another year older. Then again, it’s better than the alternative. Even though the clock is ticking on Wainwright hitting the Big 4-0 next year, he has a shot at winning a third World Series this October, so that’s terrific.

It was a nice gesture and a funny one that Wainwright and Flaherty will never forget.