Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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Tonight at Wrigley Field, Roger Clemens picked up career win number 343 as the Astros beat the Cubs, 4-2. The losing pitcher was Greg Maddux who remains "stalled" at 325 wins.
So two starters who came in to the game with a combined 667 wins is no mean feat, but it's not the highest total for any two starters.
I'm pretty sure the record was set in this game back on September 12, 1911 when Cy Young of Boston (with 508 wins) faced off against Christy Mathewson (with 283 wins). That's 791 combined wins.
The fact that Young and Mathewson were facing each other that day was not a big deal. The New York papers were more interested in the Giants maintaining their lead over the Cubs in the pennant race. Young didn't make it out of the third inning is one of his final appearances. There will be more about the Boston Rustlers (as they were called) of 1911 in a couple of weeks.
They were really bad. Really, really, really bad.
Now I'm really glad that I went to the game last night, since there's a less than 0% chance that we'll ever see a matchup with more combined wins ever again (unless baseball makes some incredibly dramatic changes that completely screw up the records anyway, like making the season 200 games, or there's some breakthrough medical discovery that allows pitchers to throw 400 innings and 60 starts a season without getting hurt). I'm also very proud of myself that I was able to find the 1911 game on my own, without using Bob as a cheat sheet.
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