Alex Rodriguez hit his 499th career home run yesterday. He's now just one short of becoming the 22nd player to hit 500. A-Rod turns 32 tomorrow. Barring some unforeseen incident, he will be the youngest player to hit 500 home runs. Currently the youngest player to ever reach 500 is Jimmie Foxx who was 32 years, 336 days old when he did it. Foxx was only the second player to ever hit 500 home runs at the time (1940.)

Rodriguez hopes to not follow the same path as Foxx after hitting #500. Foxx's career quickly fell apart after that and he only hit another 34 home runs before retiring at age 37.

The oldest player to hit #500? Ted Williams at age 41. Williams would have done it much sooner but missed much of the prime of his career due to World War II. Willie McCovey and Eddie Murray were both 40 when they hit #500.

The first member of the 500 home run club was Babe Ruth who hit #500 on August 11th, 1929. He was 34 years old. Ruth's feats are all the more impressive when you consider he started his career as a pitcher in the dead ball era.

Tom Glavine won his 299th game yesterday. When he gets to #300 he'll be the 23rd pitcher to do so.

While the 500 home run club seems to be losing it's luster with lesser players such as Rafael Palmeiro joining it, the 300 win club is becoming harder and harder to get into. 6 of the 22 current members of the 300 win club got to #300 before 1900. The club was founded by Pud Galvin in 1888, so it's been around 41 years longer than the 500 home run club.

It's very possible that by the end of this year the 500 home run club will have more members than the 300 win club.

A-Rod will become the 8th player since 1996 to join the 500 home run club. And as I mentioned earlier there are 3 more players who will likely join the club either this year or next. On the other hand Glavine will become just the 3rd pitcher to win #300 since '90. The other two? Roger Clemens (2003) and Greg Maddux (2004.)

While home runs have gotten easier over the years to hit. Wins have got harder to get (for starters.) This is because of the 5 man rotations and the fact that pitchers are taken out earlier in the games (which means more wins for relievers, and less for starters.)

The only other active pitcher who looks to have a shot at 300 wins (any time soon) is Randy Johnson. He has been plagued by injury problems and will be 44 years old by the end of the season. Johnson has 284 wins.

Because of this it's quite likely that Tom Glavine will be the last pitcher to win 300 games for a very long time.

Labels: Alex Rodriguez, Tom Glavine