Reports of the 300-Game Winner's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

With Randy Johnson’s 300th win on Thursday night, sports columns and radio shows are rampart with the speculation that he may be the last 300 game winner for the foreseeable future, if ever. At first glance, they seem correct – 46 year old Jamie Moyer is the next closest with 250 wins. Other prime pitchers seem too old with too few wins: Andy Pettitte (220 wins; 37 years old); Pedro Martinez (214; 37); Roy Halladay (140; 32); Roy Oswalt (131; 31); CC Sabathia (122; 28)

But, when looking at the history of 300 game winners since 1982, when Gaylord Perry became the first to reach the mark in nearly 20 years, hope begins to emerge. Even Andy Pettitte and Pedro Martinez, who may seem near the end of their careers at 37, has more wins than Randy Johnson did at that age, and also more than Phil Niekro.

To be sure, Randy Johnson and Phil Niekro were quite a bit behind the power curve compared to other 300 game winners of the era, but they made it. Their careers also started later than other 300 game winners, perhaps allowing for them to pitch further into their 40s as well. But, when one looks at some of the younger pitchers, there are a few promising candidates. Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt both are on pace with at least 3 other 300 game winners, as are Mark Buehrle, Johan Santana and Barry Zito.

Just from the perspective of wins vs. age, the best candidate is CC Sabathia, who has 122 wins at 28 years of age. That would put him ahead of the pace for Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro and Gaylord Perry. Indeed, the only recent 300 game winners he is not ahead of are Greg Maddux and Tom Seaver.

To be sure, he, and any of the others are still a long way away from the mark, need to stay healthy and need continued success. It may seem like a long shot for any of these pitchers to reach that mark. But it most have seemed like a long shot in 2000 when 36 year old Randy Johnson wrapped up his 13th major league season still more than 20 games short of 200 wins.

Language Foul of the Day

I just read an article about a man who "organized an impromptu pillow fight." Really? It wasn't very "impromptu" then, was it?

Best National Anthem Renditions

I just saw on the Time website that they had a list of the 10 worst performances of the National Anthem. I don't have quite the readership of Time, but I felt compelled to make a list of my favorite National Anthem performances. It's amazing how many of them are Super Bowl performances.

I've only listed 8, but it's getting late. They're in no particular order, except Whitney Houston, who is at the top.

- Whitney Houston

- Marvin Gaye

- Jimi Hendrix

- Faith Hill

- Beyonce

- Mariah Carey

- Carrie Underwood

- Combined Choirs from the US Naval Academy, US Air Force Academy, US Military Academy at West Point and US Coast Guard Academy

Whither Language?

I'm no Henry Higgins, or any sort of student of language, but I have been wondering lately what the English (or American) language will sound like in a hundred years. I recently got a Twitter account, which is an amusing little service (though of minimal use to me personally, some, like Gary Vaynerchuk, seem to be using it to great effect). The thing about Twitter is that one is limited to messages of 140 characters.

That got me thinking about the other pressures we have to compress our messages into the fewest words. Cell phone text messages are similarly limited; TV sound bites force public figures to over simplify their message; and the sheer volume of information available to people on the web reward those able to get their point across quickly and efficiently, if not comprehensively.

So, what does that mean for language structure? Our language patterns obviously change fairly rapidly, and to a more significant extent than just the shift in popular slang. Backed up by no research whatsoever, it seems to me that 50 to 75 years is about the length of time it takes for significant style changes to occur. Movie dialogue and political speeches from the 40s and 50s is decidedly different than today, to say nothing of the 1860s or 1770s.

It seems that the pressures of information flow will force us to strip language down to its bear bones, ensuring the essential meaning is communicated quickly as one may not have the opportunity to get further. Americans in general have the reputation of going straight at the heart of a topic, compared to other cultures who approach issues more leisurely. It may be that those cultures may have more of a language adjustment in the near term than we will. (a sampling of the latest Twitter messages often reveals at least a couple posts in Japanese and Chinese, and sometimes in languages I don't even recognize)

In all, I hope that we will find some sort of balance between the need to quickly share information with the benefits of being able to fully explain context, and the beauty of well written or well spoken words.



P.S.- For those disappointed in my lack of posting lately, I would like to highlight the "no periodicity" clause of my blog introduction. Sure, I'd like to be inspired more often, but such is life.