Glavine's Milestone

By Shari Forst
Posted Saturday, August 11, 2007

I can't let this week go by without saying something about Tom Glavine finally notching his 300th win. I believe he is the 23rd player in baseball history to do it. I am glad that monkey is off his back and he can concentrate on just helping the team win. It seems like whenever these guys have these impending milestones, it takes their concentration away. We all remember Mike Piazza struggling to get to his most home runs by a catcher record.

So Tom Glavine has cemented himself in the baseball history books. Let's face it, if you don't win 300 games in 20 years in the big leagues, there is something wrong. Do we chalk it up to mastery on the mound or just good old fashioned longevity? With Glavine, I think it's a mix of the two. Glavine was always a guy who lived on the corners of the plate, swaying the umpires to give him the calls. He was never a hard thrower even when he was a young guy. He used finesse, and nibbled at the corners.

He cruised along pretty well during his years in Atlanta, but when he came to Mets I honestly thought he was on his last legs. Why else would the Braves not have opted to keep him around? No less let him go to a hated division rival? With his opening day pounding of 15-2 his first year here, I just rolled my eyes and said "It figures... ." Typical Mets -- trading for a superstar of yesteryear.

Glavine's first and second years of his four-year contract were pretty bad, I thought. Now granted, in 2004 he had a pretty awful team playing behind him. I used to see his eyes roll back in his head when his infielders would make errors that make what appeared to be an inning-ending double play a disaster.

Questec was another problem for Glavine. He could no longer rely on the kindness of the umpires anymore, but he seemed to refuse to conform. He continued to be stubborn, and kept trying to nibble at those corners. The end result was walking a bunch of batters. Then he was forced to throw his mid-80s fastball right down broadway. The end result of that being the ball sailing over the centerfield wall.

In his third year with the team, Glavine decided to get with the program and adjust the way he was pitching, and it worked. He started to win again in 2005 with some additions made in the field by Omar Minaya to minimize the errors. In 2006 Glavine looked like he did with Atlanta, coming up big in the playoffs and pitching good consistent baseball.

We didn't know if he would sign on again for this season, but he did and I have to say I am glad. The first time around I hated his signing.

Even though he had his share of ups and downs on the mound in 2007, he still pitches well. You may only get six or seven quality innings from him in most cases, but you can't take away the fact that he earned his place in baseball history. Now that this 300 career wins business is over and done with, I think we will see a lot more great baseball out of Tom Glavine from here on out.

And finally, one interesting bit of trivia as concerning Glavine and Bonds and their respective milestones (even though as far as I am concerned Hank Aaron still holds the home run record but I digress) -- I think I have this correct, that in one of Glavine's first games with Atlanta pitching against Pittsburgh. Barry Bonds was the first guy Glavine ever hit with a pitch in the major leagues!