![CC Sabathia struck out his 3,000th career hitter on Tuesday. [Image Source: Flickr | Keith Allison]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2019/5/1/660x290/b_502x220x82/cc-sabathia-struck-out-his-3000th-career-hitter-on-tuesday-image-source-flickr-keith-allison_2257223.jpg "CC Sabathia struck out his 3,000th career hitter on Tuesday. [Image Source: Flickr | Keith Allison]")
On Tuesday, New York Yankees starting pitcher CC Sabathia joined an exclusive list when he became only the 17th pitcher to ever record 3,000 strikeouts. As mentioned by David Schoenfield of ESPN, only two of the previous 16 to reach the milestone are not in the Hall of Fame: Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens.
Here are the 17 members of the 3,000 strikeout club in order of how many they finished their career with (Sabathia is the only one that is still active. According to Baseball Reference, the next three highest totals for active players are Justin Verlander's 2,759 strikeouts, Max Scherzer's 2,503 strikeouts, and Felix Hernandez's 2,496 strikeouts.)
Nolan Ryan - 5,714 strikeouts
Ryan's historic career consisted of pitching at least parts of 27 seasons and 11 times leading his league in strikeouts (nine times in the American League, twice in the National League).
Randy Johnson - 4,875 strikeouts
In an extraordinary four-year span from 1999-2002, Johnson finished each season with at least 334 strikeouts.
