Milestones

Greg Maddux won his 350th career game over the weekend. I don't know why people aren't making more of a big deal about it. Only eight other pitchers have done this. Six of them pitched their last game before 1931, long before live balls, modern bullpens, and five-man rotations. Heck, John McCain wasn't even alive back then. One apparently only did it with the help of massive quantities of illegal pharmaceuticals and encouragement from underage country and western stars. Cal Ripken became a national hero just for showing up for work every day. 300 wins usually merits sports page headlines at the very least and occurs at about the same frequency as 500 career homeruns. But 600 homeruns is an even bigger deal, and 700 even more than that. Why the indifference to 350? It's almost as if it's always seemed so unlikely that anyone would ever pull it off that now that it's happened,  people don't quite know what to say. The only other person in the modern era to reach this level cleanly was the immortal Warren Spahn, and he averaged nearly 40 starts a year from 1947 to 1961. The most starts Maddux ever got in a season was 37, and a typical year was closer to 34. So this almost without precedent, a combination of sustained brilliance and unusual longevity that we may never see again.