Happy Anniversary

The lead story in the Trenton Times sports section on the morning of Sept. 24, 1983, was Steve Carlton's 300th career win, which he achieved the night before by going eight innings and striking out 12 in a 6-2 win over the Cardinals in St. Louis. 

Carlton, as dominant a lefthanded pitcher as has ever lived, is one of four Major Leaguers ever with at least 4,000 career strikeouts. TigerBlog is pretty sure the list — Nolan Ryan (5,714), Randy Johnson (4,875), Roger Clemens (4,672) and Carlton (4,136) — will stay the same forever, as it's unlikely any current starters will throw enough innings or stay healthy long enough to get there. 

Justin Verlander (retiring after this season) and Max Scherzer are the closest among active pitchers, at 3,554 and 3,543. Even if Scherzer continues pitching in 2027, he has no chance of getting to 4,000 — he is 457 away and has had a total of 229 in his last four seasons combined. Both of these pitchers, by the way, are Hall of Fame locks. 

Behind them, only two active pitchers have at least 2,769, led by Chris Sale's 2,241. Sale is 37 and has struggled to stay healthy. Gerrit Cole has 2,734; he is 35 and also can't stay healthy. 

TigerBlog isn't here today to talk about strikeouts in baseball, though. He's more interested in what was further back in the sports pages of that Trenton Times from long ago. Back there, on Page 25, you'll see a story that starts this way:

"Between 1931 and 1933, the Pennington School football team compiled an 18-game winning streak, which has stood as the school record for 50 years."

And those 25 words are the first that TigerBlog ever wrote in a sportswriting career that turns 43 years old today. How about that?

Man, does this take TB back. And does it get his mind churning. 

First of all, he can still remember the amazingly encouraging words of copy editor Harry Chaykun who, upon reading it, had this conversation with TB:

TB: "How was it?"
Harry: "I'm still awake."

With that kind of inspiration, who wouldn't have wanted to keep going? Also, did you see the story next to TB's? It was written by Mark Eckel. Presumably TB met Mark that day in the newsroom; they're still friends to this day and in fact Mark is TigerBlog Jr.'s godfather (TBJ was nearly 14 years away from being born at the time).

Additionally, TB was struck by the fact that he began his career with a paragraph that talks about history. Was it because he was a history major? Did he have the remotest idea that his title would eventually have the word "historian" in it? Was he already fascinated by sports history or did this sort of thing bring it out in him? 

TB has shared the words of Jack McCaffery, the older brother of Penn head men's basketball coach Fran McCaffery and the one who got TB started in the business, many times before. When Jack, who was then a writer at the Trenton Times as well, asked TB if he wanted to cover a game, he cautioned: "Once you get the ink in your blood, you never get it out."

He was so right about that. Ever since that day, TB has only ever had two jobs — sportswriter and then college athletic communications. He has written a lot of words since those 25, many millions of them, the overwhelming majority of them about Princeton Athletics. 

He's seen the sportswriting world change dramatically, to the point where the Trenton Times no longer exists. The old building on Perry Street is now a Charter School. 

The world of sports information has done a 180, and then something of another 180 into a different universe. Back then, it was primarily a media relations business. Then it became its own media outlet, with the advent of the webpage. Today it's some sort of content creation machine, with an emphasis on social media and all that goes along with that. Story telling, mostly without the written words. 

TB understands that. He makes more graphics each week than he writes stories. He's learned PhotoShop. He's posted hundreds of photos on Instagram per month. He's grudgingly understood that for the most part you can get overwhelmingly more impact through these mediums than any other.

For the most part.  

You see, for TB, it's still a place where he can do what he does best, which is to create those written words and tell the stories of the amazing people who compete here or coach here or who used to do those things that way. 

There will always be a place for that, he believes. Hopes, at least. 

And while he might have had no way to even contemplate what he was stepping into 43 years ago today, he couldn't be happier that he did — and that he's still here.