Wake Up With Steve Carlton Striking Out 12 Batters In His 300th Career Win (1983)
Way back in 1983, when I was negative six years old, Steve Carlton became the 16th member of the 300-win club. The group has since grown to 24 members with Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro, Don Sutton, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson following after Carlton, but what are the odds that we’ll ever see another 300-game winner again? The active wins leader in the majors right now? Bartolo Colon, 233 wins. He ain’t getting there. After that? CC Sabathia, 223 wins. He ain’t getting there, either. He hasn’t even won 20 games over the last three years combined. He’d need to average 20 wins through his age-39 season to reach 300 wins, or 15 wins per year through his age-40 season. No other active pitcher has more than 200 wins. Next in line is John Lackey with 176 wins, and I don’t even need to say that he has no shot. Hey, if Randy Johnson’s the last 300 game winner that we ever see, I’m totally cool with that.