At 22 years old and in his second big-league season, Rick Monday of the Oakland Athletics struck out 143 times in 1968, second in the American League to teammate Reggie Jackson at 171. Eighteen players fanned 100 or more times that year.
Times have changed but not even Monday, a longtime Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster after finishing his playing career with that club, had any idea how much. When Monday, here last week for the Dodgers-Cardinals series, was asked if he knew how many players reached the 100-strikeout plateau, he thought a moment and then offered, “Forty.”
How about 140?