by Evan T. Pritchard
As followers of Amazine know, lefty Tom Glavine has always been haunted by the ghost of lefty Warren Spahn, even while Spahn was alive. And yet Tom "The Professional" Glavine has beaten most of Spahn's lifetime records, and even has a slightly better ERA. The good news is he is only 17 strikeouts short of tying Spahn's lifetime strikeout totals. The bad news is that there are only 7 games to play in the regular season, and Tom G can't pitch them all. He'll be lucky to pitch two. He also never gets more than 5 whiffnpoofs a game, so he can't possibly get more than 10 strikeouts during the rest of the year. That leaves 7 unaccounted for.
So he obviously can't really tie Spahn this year, an event that we have been building the hype for over a period of 22 years. So, World Series or none, Glavine has to come back, preferably with the Mets, to complete the remaining 17 (or less, depending) strikeouts. That is a big disappointment, but having the Mets in the post season should help soothe our furrowed brow.
And you can forget what I said about Reyes having a shot at beating Babe Ruth in the hits department, his batting average fell about 30 points this month, and he only has 186 hits, and will probably end up where he did last year in the hits department.
Its such a shame, but nothing beats winning, and Randolph professes that he for one does not care about individual records. He wants team players.
Go figure!
