Four New Milestone Trackers

As Barry Bonds closed in on Hank Aaron's home run record, I'm sure you noticed at least one site/newspaper maintaining coverage by some sort of countdown tracker. As you may well know, the pursuit is over, and Bonds is the new home run king.

But now that it's over, it seems a blasted shame not to track other incoming milestones in a similar manner. As such, I've chosen four players approaching milestones to cover their pursuit. Two are quite conventional, covering milestones projected by the end of the season. The other two are, shall we say, rather unconventional , tracking milestones that shouldn't occur until the next few seasons, and may not even occur at all.

First, the conventional milestones:

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Jim Thome: March to 500 home runs

         Current total: 490

       Amount needed to reach goal: 10

       Last Game: (8/12/07) 1 for 4, 2B, K

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Ken Griffey, Jr.: March to 600 home runs

       Current total: 590

       Amount needed to reach goal: 10

       Last Game: (8/12/07) 0 for 0, BB

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And now the unconventional milestones:

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Mike Mussina: March to 300 wins

       Current total: 247

       Amount needed to reach goal: 53

       Seasons projected: 4

       Last Game: (8/12/07) 7 2/3 IP, 8 hits, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 K's

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Luis Gonzalez: March to 3,000 hits

      Current total: 2,478

      Amount needed to reach goal: 522

      Seasons projected: 3.5

      Last Game: (8/13/07) 0 for 3, BB, K

      Bonus Milestone: 33 away from 600 career 2B's

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Updates will commence each day of the season I happen to post something else. Though I didn't include Manny Ramirez--as he's not projected to reach 500 home runs until next season--I'll make a milestone tracker as soon as he gets close.

All in all, it seems like close milestone coverage will not end anytime soon--at least on this blog.