300th Post

I've reached another milestone here at Nine Pockets:  

300 blog posts!  

Because I add content here each Sunday throughout the year, 300 posts means this blog has been rolling along for almost six years now. And once again, I'm very happy that I've been able to come up with enough content to fill that many Sundays. I hope you've enjoyed doing the reading as much as I've enjoyed doing the writing.

And because this is a trading card blog, I wanted to tie in some cards with the number 300, using a sports-related milestone of some kind. 

For whatever reason, the first one that came to mind was 300 MLB wins for a pitcher. It turns out 24 guys have reached that milestone, which is too many to feature here.

Next, I thought about the same milestone for NHL goaltenders. Well, a whopping 39 of them have reached the 300-win mark. So I didn't really want to go there. However, after a little more digging, I discovered that only 6 of those 39 have accumulated all 300 of their wins with the same team. That's kind of cool.

Here's the short list:

Name	Team	Wins
Henrik Lundqvist	New York Rangers	459
Pekka Rinne	Nashville Predators	369
Carey Price	Montreal Canadiens	361
Tukka Rask	Boston Bruins	308
Turk Broda	Toronto Maple Leafs	304
Mike Richter	New York Rangers	301

 

Still, I wanted to keep thinking about that number 300. I figured there was another milestone out there that would better suit this blog post. My thoughts went back to baseball: How about relief pitchers with 300 saves?

Welp, there are 31 relievers on that list. Some are names you'd think of right away (Rivera, Hoffman, Franco, Eckersley), while others... 

Todd Jones?

Jeff Montgomery?

Jason Isringhausen??

Yeah, those were just some of the names that surprised me.

It was all interesting research and information to this point. But I still needed to find something else related to the number 300.

How about pitchers with 300 strikeouts in a season?

Okay, now we were getting somewhere. Only 19 pitchers have hit that number. And even fewer have done it multiple times. Let's represent the top few guys on the list with some cardboard.

1999 Upper Deck Victory #16 Randy Johnson, 1977 Topps #650 Nolan Ryan,
1963 Topps #210 Sandy Koufax, 1998 Topps #332 Curt Schilling

Nolan Ryan struck out 300 batters a total of 6 times across his career, as did Randy Johnson. As for Koufax and Schilling, they achieved the feat 3 times each. The rest of the list is full of two-timers and one-timers.

Now here's a question for you: Tell me which bit of additional information about these guys is the most impressive: 

• Five of Randy Johnson's six career 300-strikeout seasons came in a row, from 1998 through 2002.
• Johnson also had seasons of 290, 291, and 294 strikeouts. That means he almost hit the 300-K mark nine times. (That's terrifying.)
• Johnson and Schilling both struck out 300 batters while they were teammates with the Diamondbacks in 2002.
• Nolan Ryan went 12 years between his 5th 300-strikeout season (1977, age 30) and his 6th (1989, age 42).

It all leaves me speechless. So I'm going to just end this post right there.

Whether you've been visiting this blog from the start, reading it today for the first time, or anything in between, I'm sending a big thank-you. And an even bigger thank-you for the comments, emails, and trading card exchanges over the years. We've got a great community of bloggers and collectors, and if you're amongst that company, here's to more great milestones and trading card content all around!