The
next baseball great to get a card in my custom "Classic Baseball" set
is 300-game winner Early Wynn, a favorite subject of mine here on the
blog:
Just
a fun photo showing a bit of the Hall of Famer's personality: no
nonsense and a bit of an intimidator when getting down to business on
the mound.
Wynn's Major League romp towards 300 career wins didn't really pick
up steam until he was 30-years old and a member of the Cleveland
Indians in 1950, as he posted an 18-8 record with a league-leading 3.20
earned run average.
From then on he was hovering around 20-wins every year for the next ten years, topping the mark five times.
In 1959, now a member of the "Go-Go" Chicago White Sox, Wynn
anchored the staff that led the team to a World Series appearance
against the eventual champs, the Los Angeles Dodgers, by posting a 22-10
record, leading the league in wins and copping a Cy
Young Award at the age of 39.
However, the struggle to get that elusive 300th win is now
well-documented, as he hung on for the next four years until he got that
final victory in 1963 at the age of 43, thus joining the exclusive club
and pretty much sealing his Cooperstown induction
in his fourth year of eligibility, getting 76% of the BBWA vote.
All told, Wynn finished his 23-year career with a 300-244 record,
with a 3.54 E.R.A., 49 shutouts and 2334 strikeouts in 691 games, 611 of
which were starts, and was named to seven all-star teams.