Tom Glavine and 300 Wins

Last night Tom Glavine won his 300th game and now it seems like everyone wants to call him a blue-collar, lunch-pail pitcher. I don't like those types of descriptions because they're not true. Tom Glavine is an elite pitcher at the end of his career. People like Jeff Passan want to portray Glavine as some sort of workman's hero but that diminishes who Glavine is.

Tom Glavine has won 20-games 5-times, he was top 3 in Cy Young voting 6-times and he won it twice. Glavine may not be the strike-out pitcher he once was but don't lose track of the fact that his 2,544 strikeouts are good enough for 28th place on the all-time list. A pitcher doesn't get to be in the top 25 in wins and top 30 all-time in strikeouts simply through grit and hard work. To call Glavine blue-collar or lunch-pail is to sell his talent short.

Another Tom - Tom Seaver finished his career at age 41 too. Seaver had just 103 strikeouts his final season but I don't recall anyone calling Seaver a "lunch-pail" pitcher because to do so would have been insulting to Seaver's great talent.