by Ron on March 30 at 8:24AM

Some baseball milestones may fall this baseball season by the old men of the game.

  • Barry Bonds, 42, Giants, of course is chasing Hank Aaron’s home run record. Bonds is 21 shy of tying Aaron’s mark of 755. But Bonds is also closing in on another record. There are just three players in the game who have 2,000 RBIs: Babe Ruth, Aaron, and Cap Anson. Bonds needs 70 RBIs to join that illustrious group. In 2006 Bonds had 77.
  • Tom Glavine, 41, Mets, needs 10 wins to join the 300–win club. In 19 seasons Glavine twice failed to win ten games in a single season. Incidently, Randy Johnson, 43, has 280 wins and will have to win 20, either this season or over the next two to reach the 300 club.
  • Kenny Lofton, 40, Rangers, is one stolen base shy of 600. Lofton entered the majors in 1991 with Houston and has played for a multitude of teams since then, including the Indians, Braves, Blue Jays, White Sox, Giants, Pirates, Cubs, Yankees, Phillies, Dodgers and Rangers. There are 16 players ahead of Lofton in career stolen bases with Ricky Henderson at the top with 1,406 swipes. Henderson, by the way, is 468 stolen bases ahead of second place Lou Brock.
  • Craig Biggio, 41, needs 70 more hits to reach 3,000. It’s possible that Biggio could accomplish it this season, and if he does he will be the 26th player to have 3,000 or more hits. Exiled Pete Rose is at the top with 4,256 career hits.
  • Roger Clemens, 44, team to be announced, needs just two wins to have 350 major league career wins. There are seven former players ahead of Clemens with Cy Young at the top with 511 career wins.
  • And how about the Mets Generalissimo (Julio Cesar) Franco, the ageless wonder, still playing at the age of 48. When Franco made his major league debut, two current Mets players, David Wright and Jose Reyes, were not yet born. But Franco has a ways to go to catch the oldest player ever to play the game: Satchel Paige pitched in a major league game in 1965 at the age of 59. Generalissimo was dealt by the Phillies for ole' Five-for-one,' Von Hayes, in 1982. The other four players were: Manny Trillo, George Vukovich, Jay Baller and Jerry Willard.

The mind is a powerful tool for good or evil. When you use your mind for positive imagery or visualization you will increase your effectiveness as a hitter. If your mind pollutes your body with thoughts of failure, your body will respond in a negative way. Lack of confidence and fear can destroy a good hitter. To make sure you are conditioning your brain in the right way, it's highly important that you replay mental video clips of yourself succeeding offensively. This is easy to do, many of you do it all day long in other areas. Sometimes your mind wanders in church or school and you lose focus as to what is occurring around you. If you can slip into this mode and daydream about your performances, you can truly become a master of the mental game of baseball.

Posted by: pitching machines | May 13, 2010 11:53 PM