Opening Day

The Doc and I are going out to Telephone Park tonight to see our first game of the season. I find it impossible to take the time to see a game before tax day, and the Giants have been out of town since then. The Doc had tickets to one of the rain out games and could not go to the rescheduled game later that week.

So for the Pickled Pecklers, today is opening day. And lo' and behold, the Mets will send up our very own Tom Glavine, old guy, and one of the great lefties. Before we were in BABI, the Doc and I played on Compuserve. In 1991 we picked him up for $4 after a bad year, and he was the ace of our staff. We had an amazing team that season, coming in second overall among all of their leagues, losing by a fraction to Mr. Rotisserie himself, John Benson. Benson threw his team away the following year, refusing to play having blown up his future. We won our league again the following year.

We've liked Tom Glavine ever since.

He and his former stablemate, Greg Maddux are pitching like it's 1996, not 2006. Maddux won his 4th straight yesterday, and holds a 0.99 ERA and 0.73 WHIP for the season. Glavine is 2-1 with a 1.38 ERA and 1.04 WHIP. Most interesting about Glavine is he has 26 strikeouts in 26 innings, not something you would expect from a guy who turned 40 last month. It will be fun to watch him, and we'll have that classic fantasy awkwardness when one of your own faces the Giants.

Maddux is also 40, and is 3 weeks younger than Glavine. He's a sure thing HOF'er, with 322 wins and a career 3.01 ERA and a career 1.132 WHIP and has 3070 strikeouts and counting. He won 4 straight Cy Young awards from 92-95, and in '95 actually came in 3rd in the NL MVP voting. Here is an amazing stat: he's won the NL Golden Glove every year since 1990, 16 straight years. He is as sure a HOF'er as there is, along with Clemens.

What about Glavine? He spent 10 years as Maddux's teammate from 1993-2002, and he played Ed Norton to Maddux's Ralph Kramden. All of his numbers are behind Maddux, but they are certainly more than respectable: 279 wins against 185 losses, a career ERA of 3.44, a WHIP of 1.302 and 2376 strikeouts. He holds two Cy Youngs (91 and 98), was second to Maddux in 1992 and finished in the top 3 three other times. He has no Golden Glove awards because of Maddux. But he does have 4 Silver Sluggers, and as we know, chicks dig the long ball.

He doesn't look like a first ballot HOF'er, but with a couple more good years, he'll reach 300 wins. I say he's already in, but 300 wins makes it automatic if not immediate. He has started 32 games in the post season (12-10) with a 3.58 ERA. He was never THE dominant pitcher in the game, but he was always among the best.

I took a look at the stats of some pitchers with some comparable stats. Here are the lines. Two of them are in the Hall, 4 are not. Glavine is X at the bottom of the list:

........W....L....ERA.WHIP..SO
A - 283-237, 3.45, 1.259, 2461
B - 209-166, 2.95, 1.148, 2486 (not Koufax)
C - 254-186, 3.90, 1.296, 2478
D - 287-250, 3.31, 1.198, 3701 (5th in strikeouts)
E - 288-231, 3.34, 1.283, 2245
F - 286-245, 3.41, 1.170, 2357
X - 279-185, 3.44, 1.302, 2376 Glavine

B and F are in the Hall. B is Don Drysdale, who was a kind of Ed Norton himself to Sandy Koufax. It is surprising that he only finished with 209 wins. F is Robin Roberts, who must have been in the voting for a while before he got in.

A is Jim Kaat. He is thought of as a guy who lasted a long time. Other than the higher number of losses, his stats are fairly comparable to Glavine's.

C is Jack Morris, who probably just doesn't have enough wins, though he does have one of the most memorable pitching performances in MLB history.

D is Bert Blyleven. I never thought of him as having these kinds of statistics, particularly the strikeouts. He is behind only Ryan, Clemens, Randy Johnson and Carlton, and ahead of Seaver, Sutton, Perry, Walter Johnson etc,. You would think that 3000 strikeouts would be automatic (there are only 13 pitchers who have reached it and they are all in except the active guys), but he's been eligible since 1997 and not a nibble. I'm not sure I get this one.

E is more famous for a medical procedure, Tommy John surgery. Too many losses, I guess, and not enough dominance.

One thing that separates Glavine: his 2 Cy Young awards. Only Drysdale had one (1962) among the guys above. Add to that his substantial post-season activity, and I think he's undeniable. Bruce Jenkins always says it's not always about statistics as to whether a guy is a HOF'er or not. The guy was either at the top of the game or he wasn't. Glavine has been at the top of the game, pitching big games for an awfully long time.

The Doc and I get to see him in the twilight of his career tonight, pitching for us again after all these years. It could be the last time we get to see him live. He's one of the greats. I hope it doesn't rain. And I hope he doesn't get a Bullinger.