King Kaufman's Sports Daily

300-game-winner Tom Glavine: Last of a dying breed? Don't be so sure.

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Aug. 7, 2007 | Thoughts on a pet peeve while waiting for Barry Bonds to break a record that a lot of people thought would never be broken -- which replaced a record that a lot of people thought would never be broken.

Tom Glavine of the New York Mets won his 300th game Sunday night, and there was talk that we might never again see a 300-game winner in the major leagues.

It's true, we might never see another 300-game winner. We might never see another light bulb. Almost anything might be true if you put the word "might" in there. But it's a pet peeve of mine that this idea is so common, that boy, we're not likely to see this sort of thing again, whatever this thing is.

If you learn nothing else watching baseball, you ought to learn this by the time you've watched one generation turn over: If you keep watching, you'll probably see it. Name your own "it."

When Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games streak there was a fair amount of coverage that in one breath laughed at the generations that had said Gehrig's ironman streak would never be touched, then in the next proclaimed that Ripken's record was beyond reach for future players.

The game had changed, the thinking went. There just weren't any more old-school guys like Ripken who'd go out there and play through injuries, never take a day off. Players made too much money, had grown too soft.

Of course, if you'd cared to, you could have heard people saying these things in the late '70s, when Ripken's streak stood at zero because he was in high school.

Now we're hearing, from the Associated Press and others, that the game has changed, that we aren't likely to see anyone else join the 300-win club.

The four-man rotation is dead, we're being reminded, even though Glavine has pitched in a five-man rotation his entire career. Pitch counts and the current offensive era means pitchers come out of games earlier -- as if this offensive era, unlike all the others in baseball history, will never end.

Nobody who's within shouting distance of 300 wins is likely to get there. Randy Johnson has 284, but he's 44 and just had back surgery. Mike Mussina has 246, but he's 38 and slowing down. Everybody else who's active and has more than 200 wins also needs at least 65 to get to 300 and is either in his 40s or is 35 and named Pedro Martinez. It's not going to happen for any of those guys.

Next page: A lot has to go right, but C.C. Sabathia is 19 wins ahead of a similar-age Glavine