Hi Everyone —
Clayton Kershaw did it! OK, yeah, it was a struggle to the very end, but he got to 3,000 strikeouts, and there was a big ol’ celebration at Dodger Stadium, and it was a great moment for the game.
What I do whenever something cool like this happens is think: How can I celebrate this in a way that fits what we do here at JoeBlogs? So I woke up super early this morning and thought, “I know, I’ll just write a little something about all 20 pitchers in the 3000-strikeout club! That won’t take long at all!”
Why I always think “That won’t take long at all!” is beyond me.
So yeah, it took a long time. But here it is: A series of little stories about 20 pitchers who struck out 3,000 batters in their careers. I hope you enjoy!
Here we go, for your enjoyment, a little bit about all 20 pitchers who have three thousand strikeouts!
Walter Johnson
Date: July 22, 1923
Strikeout victim: Stan Coveleski
Main strikeout pitch: Fastball (of course)
The young Walter Johnson barely ever threw anything except his otherworldly sidearm fastball. It wasn’t until his later years that he developed something of a curveball. Eddie Collins was unimpressed by the Big Train’s curve (“He didn’t have a curve, just a wringkle,” Collins wrote), but by the 1920s, Johnson would often throw it with two strikes to give hitters a different look. His 3,000th strikeout of pitcher Stan Coveleski might very well have been on that little wrinkle, we can’t know for sure.
The newspapers were aware of Johnson’s 3,000th strikeout, but saw it as nothing more than a piece of trivia. Johnson had surpassed Christy Mathewson’s strikeout record years earlier.
Anyway, they had their numbers slightly wrong — they thought that Johnson’s needed just one strikeout to get to 3,000, and so they thought the magic strikeout victim was actually Cleveland’s longtime catcher Steve O’Neill.
It would be 50 years before a second pitcher struck out 3,000 batters.
Bob Gibson
Date: July 17, 1974
Strikeout Victim: César Gerónimo
Main strikeout pitch: “It was said that I basically threw five pitches — fastball, slider, curve, changeup, and knockdown,” Gibson wrote in his autobiography with Lonnie Wheeler. “I don’t believe that assessment did me justice, though. I actually used about nine pitches — two different fastballs, two sliders, a curve, a changeup, knockdown, brushback and hit-batsman.”
It was a bigger deal in 1974 when Gibson got his 3,000th strikeout. But it didn’t matter at all to Gibson himself. He whiffed Gerónimo on his famous rising fastball in the second inning — so many of Gibson’s strikeouts were on that fastball that seemed to jump over the strike zone — but in total, he allowed four runs in seven innings, an unacceptable performance for the proud Gibson, even at the end of his career.
The Cardinals lost to the Reds in 12 innings, and by the time reporters made it to the clubhouse to ask Gibson about his achievement, he was gone.
Gaylord Perry
Date: October 1, 1978
Strikeout Victim: Joe Simpson
Main strikeout pitch: “A hard slider.”
Perry was the first pitcher in baseball history who went into the game THINKING about getting strikeout No. 3,000. He knew going in that he needed 10 whiffs to get to the magic number, and it was the last game of the season, and even though he was at the height of his spitballing powers (he would win the Cy Young in 1978), he was also 40 years old and knew that he couldn’t waste time.
“I had a good idea when the game started what I needed to do,” he said. “I had good stuff, and I was trying to work the corners.”
When he caught Joe Simpson looking with a fastball in the 10th inning, Perry got a five-minute standing ovation — everyone thought that was strikeout 3,000. But a recount has found that he got the number back in the eighth inning — he only needed nine strikeouts.
Fortunately for history, that eighth-inning victim was also Joe Simpson.
Nolan Ryan
Which 3,000th Strikeout Didn’t Even Record an Out?
Trick question — it's happened twice! To read the stories behind those Ks — and keep going with Ryan, Seaver, Unit, Maddux, and, of course, Kershaw — become a JoeBlogs premium member. Lots of fun awaits.
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