What a night for baseball. Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens will hook up tonight at 7:05 with their combined 667 career wins.
Here's an interesting trivia question. When was the last time two pitchers faced each other with more combined career wins? Click on "comments" link for the answer.
It was Christy Mathewson and Cy Young in either 1911 or 1912!
When they faced off, they combined for about 750 career wins. Cy Young had 500-something and Mathewson had 280-something. I heard it on the radio this morning while I was driving so I couldn't write down the exact numbers.
It happened on either April 12, 1911; April 12, 1912; April 17, 1911; or April 17, 1912. I'm having problems finding the exact date on the internet.
This is certainly great! It should be the highest ever win total facing each other, cuz c'mon, really, Cy Young. 500 wins. That's back in the day when pitchers would pitch both ends of a doubleheader.
Actually, I think these two faced each other in the past year or so.
Posted by: Walt on Jul 19, 06 | 12:20 pm
Walt, you are probably right, seeing that they are both in the same division, the chances of them facing each other before is very likely. But back then they didn't have as many wins as they have now.
Indeed...the date was April 29, 2005, with the Cubs (Maddux) winning 3-2. Both pitchers had over 300 wins at the time, as well.
Posted by: Walt on Jul 19, 06 | 12:27 pm
I heard that on the radio this morning as well. Gotta love ESPN 1000.
I would love to see what would happen if you were able to combine these two into 1 single pitcher. Clemens' power and conditioning along with Maddux's placement and intelligence. Could be the perfect pitcher.
I'd be happy if Clemens retired and never played again though. Until then, I think every pitcher in MLB should bean him every time he comes to the plate to bat.
Posted by: Mark R on Jul 19, 06 | 2:39 pm
Can you imagine getting beaned in five consecutive at bats? I wonder what the record is. It's probably three times in a row.
