A pitcher with 3,000 career strikeouts? That was territory only breached by the great Big Train himself, Walter Johnson, with a mind-boggling total of more than 3,500. Jim Bunning, at 2,855, was a distant second. Then Bob Gibson joined the 3000K "club" (membership at the time: 2) and Steve Carlton cracked 4,000 and Nolan Ryan, of course, lapped the field at 5,714, more than double Bunning's total!

As of last night, there are now 16 men to have reached that career milestone, including five who are active -- Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez and now, John Smoltz. The other names on the list -- Perry, Blyleven, Seaver, Sutton, Jenkins, Niekro -- they're all late-20th-century guys, so sure, you can make the argument that they are simply beneficiaries of pitching the Bobby Bonds/Adam Dunn/Jim Thome/Ryan Howard/Rob Deer free-swinging era.

But if that's the case, the questions remains ... and yes, this gets asked every time a Maddux or a Smoltz cracks the barrier -- who, if anyone, is next to 3000 strikeouts?

The next active hurlers on the current career total list are Mike Mussina (2,670) and Tom Glavine (2,576); Mussina is 39 and Glavine is 42, so neither seems terribly likely to get there. David Wells and Jamie Moyer are the next two active names -- and Boomer, not so much;  with both now 45 and 800 or 900 short, we can count them out too, right?

Tom Gordon, Kenny Rogers and Andy Pettitte are all shy of 2,000 career punchouts, so ... is our next legitimate possibility really Javier Vazquez, who at age 31 has 1,842 strikeouts? Really?? The highest-ranking active player under 30 is, no surprise, Johan Santana, who has 1,480 -- so he's not even halfway there! Next among the under-30 crowd is Jake Peavy, who at age 27, is currently 336th on the career list, with a relatively modest 1,119. Only two other under-30s, Ben Sheets and Carlos Zambrano, have even cleared the 1,000 mark at this point.

Wondering about Roy Halladay? He's 31 and has 1,102, which is good for 347th on the list.

So Bauxites ... 3000 strikeouts? Who gets there? Does it matter any more?