Last three to 300

NEW YORK – Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina should pose for a photograph at Yankee Stadium today before the New York Yankees and New York Mets part ways. They could be the last three pitchers to win 300 career games.

Glavine has 286 victories, Johnson 272 and Mussina 233.

“It’s a special group,” Yankees pitching coach Ron Guidry said. “You won’t see too many like them come down the road. Not the way pitching is these days.”

Guidry believes that modern pitchers cost themselves victories because of their willingness to go six innings and call it a day.

“I don’t blame them because that’s the way the game is,” he said. “If you’re a starter and you’re behind after six innings, the manager almost always takes you out. But how many times does the game change in the seventh or eighth inning and you lose a win because you didn’t get a few more outs?

In his first season as pitching coach, Guidry is most surprised at how little starters expect from themselves. His most memorable moment of the season came on May 31 in Detroit when Joe Torre came out of the dugout to lift Mussina in the ninth inning and was waved off.

“The kids now, they’re happy to go six or maybe seven,” Guidry said. “That’s why you won’t see anybody get to 300 after guys like Randy and Glavine are done. Maybe there’s some phenom out there, but I don’t see it happening.”

Money also plays a role. Glavine made “only” $1.1 million over the first five years of his career. The first pick in the draft this season, right-hander Luke Hochevar, will get a signing bonus of roughly $6 million.

“Money shouldn’t be a motivation, but it is,” Mussina said. “If you’re a young pitcher now, you can make in two years what it used to take five or six years to make. How many of them do you think will hang around for 15 or 20 years?”

Glavine has said several times this season that reaching 300 is a goal of his. Now 40, Glavine has a $5.5 million player option for next season or a $12 million club option.

Either way, he is likely to be pitching for the Mets next season and should get to 300 in April or May. He would be the 22nd pitcher in history to reach that plateau.

“It’s the magic number for pitchers,” Glavine said. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something that I thought about.”

Johnson’s situation is a bit more complicated. He is signed with the Yankees through 2007. He turns 43 in September and isn’t sure whether he wants to pitch beyond the end of his contract.

“Obviously, I would love to get to 300 because that would mean I’ve pitched pretty well,” Johnson said. “But I won’t know until the time whether I’d want to keep pitching to get there if I’m short.”

Johnson said the four days between starts have become tedious for him. Unlike Glavine, he relies on his velocity – and the work needed to maintain that has become a burden.

“You need a lot of things to go right to win and the biggest thing is your health,” he said. “I’m proud of the fact that I’ve pitched as long as I have and pitched well. But I’m not sure I would want to keep going just to get a few more wins.”

Mussina, 37, laughed when asked about getting to 300.

“I’d probably need to stick around another five years at least and I’m not sure I’d want to do that,” he said. “That’s a long way away. The way the game has evolved, there are many more pitches thrown in a game today. It becomes harder and harder to win games.”

Will Carroll, an author who has done several studies on pitching, believes better conditioning could give one of today’s younger starters a shot at 300 wins.

“I think that we’ll always have people making a run at it,” Carroll wrote in an e-mail. “Careers are longer for many upper-level players. Pitching to 40 and beyond isn’t uncommon anymore and there’s always room for a (Seattle Mariners pitcher) Jamie Moyer-type of guy in the game.”

But even Moyer is 90 wins short. After Mussina, the active pitcher with the most victories is 43-year-old David Wells with 227. He isn’t sure whether he will pitch again this season because of his bad knees.

“If you ask me, the only guys with a shot are Glavine, Randy and Moose (Mussina),” Guidry said. “They can make some history.”