Ham 'n' eggs

Celebrated Greg Maddux's 300th career victory with a late lunch of ham and eggs at the local diner, or maybe it was the other way around and Mr. Maddux just wanted to make my lunch special. Either way, the win and the lunch were one and the same: a workmanlike creation that sits ok and gets the job done. Nothing special. No frills. 83 pitches and a couple of close calls -- Maddux had a little too much grease on pitches thrown to Edgardo Alfonzo and A.J. Pierzynski in the 3rd inning.

But Maddux gets the notch in his belt; he's now the first National League pitcher to reach the milestone since Steve Carlton did in 1983. Did it almost as fast as Roger Clemens, too -- in his 594th career start -- and it'll be a long time before we see another 300 game winner in the bigs. The next-closest pitcher, Tom Glavine, has 259 career victories -- but he's 38 and has only won a combined 17 games in his last two seasons. Glavine has won 20 or more games in a season 5 times in his career; he'd have to do it twice in a row to go the distance. Randy Johnson's 40 and still has 241 career victories -- and is also coming off a career-low 2003 win total.

Sure, plenty of 300-gamer Hall of Famers -- Sutton, Seaver, Niekro, Perry -- have pitched reasonably effectively beyond 40, but Maddux's career is pretty special. Of course, no one's preparing a ticker-tape parade through the city or anything like that because everyone expected him to get there and the Cooperstone plaque was etched years ago. But I'd be awed to see anyone reach 300 again in my lifetime, not that more careers in the vein of Jim Palmer are anything to sneeze at. S'ok, too.