The Atlanta Braves yesterday acquired outfielder Nate McLouth from Pittsburgh for three minor league prospects. As if that wasn’t enough the Bravos then released 305 game winner Tom Glavine from their roster and lost a game to the Cubs in extra innings. Quite a day. 
What seems to have left many people surprised is the way Atlanta, the team Glavine played for for 17 years in total, were so quick to dump him in what was seemingly the latter stages of his rehab. I know there’s no room for sentimentality in sports and the Braves have prospect Tommy Hanson ready to step into the starting rotation but this does seem rather an inglorious end (if an end it is) to Glavine’s playing career and his relationship with the team he will be forever associated with and, frankly, a rather shoddy way to treat a 300-game winner and future Hall of Famer.
My own feelings towards Tom Glavine, are changed slightly after yesterday’s events. My joint first most painful baseball memory (the other occured almost a year later to the day) was sitting down to watch Glavine pitch for the Mets against the Marlins in the last game of the 2007 regular season. You all know the story. The Mets, slumping badly since the start of September, needed a win to go to the postseason. The ball was in the safe hands of Tom Glavine, he gave up 7 earned runs in 0.1 innings and the Mets lost the game  8-1 capping off the biggest collapse seen in baseball for quite some time.
Glavine, a figurehead of the great Braves teams of the ’90s, looked out of place in a Mets uniform and, despite winning his 300th game for New York in Chicago, will not be remembered too fondly by most Mets fans.
After that 300th win in Chicago I attended the Mets v Marlins at Shea on August 12th where Tom Glavine was officially recognised in front of the Shea faithful upon reaching no.300. On hand was another 300-game winner Tom Seaver who, as I recall, presented Glavine with a car and some golf clubs. There was a lot of polite applause and then boos from the crowd when congratulations messages from the likes of Bobby Cox and John Smoltz (who doffed his cap to Tommy G) were played on the scoreboard. Nice though it was, my subsequent feelings towards Glavine were always pulled back to those 7 earned runs on September 30th  2007 and his return to Atlanta that offseason. However, I do kind of feel sorry for the guy now, it’s seems pretty unnecessary that his and John Smoltz’s tenures with Atlanta both came to an end in such an underwhelming way.

As one 300 winner leaves another takes his first shot at joining that illustrious club tonight as Randy Johnson takes to the mound for San Francisco against Washington sitting at 299 career wins. Thankfully the game starts at 9.30pm British time tonight rather than it’s originally scheduled time of 3am last night, which was rained out. I’ll be watching the Big Unit tonight and hoping not only does he get his 300th but he hits and explodes another bird in the process. That’d be pretty awesome.