AMERICA AT LARGE:Age has caught up with one of Beantown's most popular performers, writes GEORGE KIMBALL

IT IS such a familiar scenario in this day and age that it would resonate with any of us: the aging veteran, encumbered by an oversized salary, begins to miss significant time as a series of injuries take their toll.

When Jim is healthy he can still summon that old brilliance, reaching back into that bag of tricks that represents the accumulation of a lifetime of experience.

He retains the allegiance of many fans, who adjust their ticket-buying patterns to coincide with his scheduled appearances, only to be informed belatedly that he’s been a late scratch. Indeed, almost as often as not in recent years, even his most loyal admirers have been disappointed to find themselves instead watching one of his backups perform in his place.

The situation is further complicated by his $1.7 million annual salary, which he collects even when his arm is in a sling or he’s flat on his back in a hospital bed with another of his back ailments. This, in turn, raises the potential for internal dissent. Less prominent colleagues, not unmindful of the cult of celebrity which attends him, can’t help but notice Jim’s increasingly frequent absences and begin to wonder aloud, “Would they still be paying me if I didn’t show up that many times?”

On one hand, there is the sense that his hefty paycheck represents, at least in part, recognition of a career’s worth of accomplishments, a reward for those early years when he was probably under-paid.

On the other, there is the argument that the realities of the economic climate leave no room for sentiment in these important matters.

The natives may be growing restless. A season ticket-holder of 25 years’ standing told the Boston Globe this week, “I don’t think anybody, let alone anyone who is overweight with his handicaps, can continue with that kind of schedule.”

Online bloggers commenting on the situation have been even less kind.

Jim had been injury-free earlier in a career that had stints in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, San Francisco and Chicago, but the infirmities that would characterise its twilight date back to March 2006, when he was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder. He had surgery to repair the rotator cuff later that month, and didn’t return to action for another three months. In July of 2008, surgery to remove a malignant kidney cyst put him on the shelf until September.

Last fall he underwent emergency surgery for a herniated disc in his lower back. As a result, he missed 22 starts, or roughly 60 per cent of his scheduled 2009-2010 appearances, and the announcement last month that he would miss the final three weeks of the season due to “excruciating back pain” produced immediate speculation that he might be facing additional surgery.

That possibility would seem to have been confirmed as a reality two days ago when the organisation’s co-chairman, Stephen B Kay, released a statement that did not exactly represent a ringing vote of confidence for the future of the relationship: “Undoubtedly this has been a difficult year for Jim, and we now need to wait and see what the post-surgery prognosis will be. Then we can determine what changes will be necessary.”

Replacements had worked two scheduled appearances in New York last week and will take his place for three more slated in Boston beginning tonight.

His detractors had already begun to liken his status to that of another Boston icon, pitcher Curt Schilling, who followed the team’s 2007 world championship by signing, at the age of 41, a one-year contract. The ink was barely dry on the pact when Schilling announced he would have season-ending bicep surgery. He collected his $8 million base salary for 2008 without throwing a single pitch in anger, and announced his retirement the following spring. This year Schilling materialised in the broadcast booth as a rookie announcer for ESPN.

As for Jim, his fragile situation was further exacerbated by yesterday’s revelation that he has been performing this season without a contract. The Boston Globe reported that a proposal to extend his contract through 2012 was sent to his agent last year, but that he never signed it.

“Our hope is that he has a successful surgery, and everyone is wishing him the best,” managing director Mark Volpe ominously told the Globe. “He’s got to get through the surgery and then we’ll see.”

“This is not tenable, the uncertainty,” added Volpe. “We have to protect ourselves.”

“We have to protect ourselves” might, in this instance, be interpreted as front office-speak for “It’s time to fish or cut bait”.

The likelihood, then, is that the nine-year relationship between 66-year-old conductor James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra has come to an end.