Greg Maddux the last 300 game winner?

Chicago Cub's Greg Maddux beat Philadelphia for his 300th victory this week. Why is this so important? Because not only does the win cement Maddux's spot in Cooperstown, but he may be the last pitcher to win 300 games in a career. When Grover Cleveland Alexander won his 300th game in 1924, Chicago Tribune beat writer Irving Vaughan didn't consider the stat important enough to mention in his game story. Times have changed and so has pitching in baseball. "The bar of excellence for pitching has gone from 300 wins to probably 275 or 250," said New York Met's left-hander Tom Glavine who, with 259 career wins, is the closest active pitcher other than Maddux to 300. "That's just a recognition by people that offense has been so enhanced over the last decade or so and it's harder and harder for pitchers to go out there and . . . succeed at a high level." But baseball's emphasis on offense is only one reason 300-game winners have apparently gone the way of flannel uniforms and the spitball. Five-man rotations have reduced the number of starts a pitcher gets, and pitch counts and relief specialists have reduced the number of innings they'll pitch once they get to the mound. Add in that lucrative contracts are making careers shorter and you wind up with a pitcher such as Boston's Curt Shilling, a six-time all-star and two-time runner-up for the Cy Young Award who has fewer career starts (359) than Alexander had wins. "That's just an unconceivable number to me," Schilling said of 300 wins. Which brings us back to Alexander, the only other pitcher to win his 300th game in a Cubs uniform. While 300-game winners hadn't become commonplace by the time Alexander became one in 1924, they weren't unusual, either. Alexander was the 11th to win that many and the fourth to do so in a dozen years, so perhaps the milestone didn't bear mentioning in The Tribune. But only 10 men have done it since -- with Roger Clemens, who won his 300th last summer, the only one to do so in the past 14 seasons. All of which makes Maddux's desire to treat today like just another start laughable. "You win as many games as you have over the years and now everything is supposed to change because you're going for 300?" he told USA Today. "It's not normal. I want to keep things as normal as possible." Maddux, 38, got his start in Chicago but won 204 games in 11 years with the Atlanta Braves before re-signing with the Cubs as a free agent this winter. And aside from his 300th win, with five more victories he can extend to 17 his record of consecutive seasons with 15 or more wins. That, Maddux told The Associated Press, is the record he's aiming at. "When it's all said and done, yeah, you might look back and pat yourself on the back," he said. "Right now for me, personally, I would much rather win 15 games and have a chance to pitch in the postseason. That means more to me than winning 300. "I know in order to do that I'll bypass [300] somewhere along the way. It's hard to say it's just another game, but it is." Here is the list of 300 game winners. 1. Cy Young 511 2. Walter Johnson 417 3. Grover Cleveland Alexander 373 Christy Mathewson 373 5. Warren Spahn 363 6. Pud Galvin 361 7. Kid Nichols 360 8. Tim Keefe 341 9. Steve Carlton 329 10. John Clarkson 327 11. Eddie Plank 326 12. Nolan Ryan 324 Don Sutton 324 14. x-Roger Clemens 322 15. Phil Niekro 318 16. Gaylord Perry 314 17. Tom Seaver 311 18. Hoss Radbourn 310 19. Mickey Welch 309 20. Lefty Grove 300 Early Wynn 300 x-Greg Maddux 300