CC Sabathia went from a man you easily would have imagined reaching 3,000 strikeouts to one who would’ve needed a miracle to do it. He ended up there anyway, through his wiles and sheer force of will, dutifully grinding away.
When Senators righthander and future Hall of Famer Walter Johnson struck out Indians pitcher Stan Coveleski on July 22, 1923, to become the first man in MLB history to reach 3,000 career punchouts, there was no celebration. At least, there’s no record of such in the nation’s newspapers, which dutifully reported Johnson’s achievement with a short Associated Press story in their sports pages but provided nothing beyond that. If the game stopped so the fans at Cleveland’s…
