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A former Bergen Jewish News writer/editor whose paternal grandparents were committed Zionists is soon to mark a literary milestone.

Dan Schlossberg, a Fair Lawn resident, has penned his 35th baseball-themed book. It's called "The 300 Club: Last of a Breed," which, as the title suggests, is about Major League Baseball's pitchers who've won 300 or more games in their big league careers. The 81,000-word book, with illustrations, is being published by Ascend Media, of Overland Park, Kan., as a hardcover edition and it's due out by February 2010 -- perfectly timed for the start of spring training.

"I picked this topic because it hadn't been written about very often," said Schlossberg, who describes himself as a "baseball fan since I was a little kid" growing up in Passaic.

While watching the games at home on TV, Schlossberg recalled that his dad, Ezra, "turned the sound off and explained what was happening."

Curiously, Schlossberg has been a longtime Braves fan and his baseball hero is Henry "Hank" Aaron. "Hank was better than any of the 'big three' New York outfield stars -- Mickey (Mantle), Willie (Mays) and the Duke (Snider) -- who were his contemporaries," Schlossberg said.

Playing in a relatively small town like Milwaukee deprived him of media attention, he said.

But it's pitching -- not hitting -- which commands the attention of Schlossberg's latest work.

Among the hundreds of big league hurlers, only 24 have managed to notch 300 or more victories during their tenure in the game, Schlossberg said.

Seven of them began their professional baseball careers in the 19th century and, of those, only one -- Cy Young -- spanned both the 19th and 20th centuries.

Young, who spent most of his career with teams in Cleveland and Boston, leads all contenders with a total of 511 wins.

"That could be the most unreachable record in baseball," Schlossberg said. "Walter Johnson (the longtime Washington Senators' pitcher) had 417 wins but nobody else ever won 400 games."

Bob Feller, the Cleveland Indians pitcher who collected 266 victories, probably had the potential to do it, since he'd averaged 26 wins a year by the time he entered the Navy for World War II, but he missed four prime years serving in the military, Schlossberg said. Among the 24 elite, four -- Tom Glavine (305 wins), Roger Clemens (354), Randy Johnson (303), and Greg Maddux (355) -- each won his 300th game in the 21st century, Schlossberg said. Clemens and Maddux are no longer active, Johnson retired this week, and Glavine, who sat out this past season, has not officially retired.

A few oddities about the 300-plus club, offered by Schlossberg:

"A bunch of guys, including Lefty Grove (who finished with exactly 300 wins), Warren Spahn (363), and Phil Niekro (318) didn't win their first game until age 25 and that makes it harder to win 300," he said.

Grove, who threw hard, pitched for 17 seasons; Spahn labored 21 seasons; and Niekro, primarily a knuckleballer, lasted 24 years.

Then there was Spahn, who played most of his career with the Braves. "Spahn was the only major leaguer who got a battlefield commission during World War II," Schlossberg said. "He was promoted to lieutenant for valor."

Despite missing three years for military service, Spahn accumulated 363 wins -- and the same number of base hits -- during his 20-plus years as a moundsman. As a 21-year-old rookie, he got into four games with the Boston Braves in 1942 and, after some seasoning in the minors, got called back to the big club in 1946.

Schlossberg said that Spahn "hit more career homers -- 35 -- than any other big league pitcher." Spahn finished his career with the Mets in 1965. He tried a comeback in the Mexican League but, by then, he was clearly over the hill, Schlossberg said.

Even after 35 books, Schlossberg shows no signs of slowing down. He recently flew out to Indianapolis to attend the annual winter trade meetings conducted by the big league clubs.

"Although my journalism experience includes works for the Internet (check out "BallTalk" on blogspot.com), broadcast outlets, books, magazines, and newspapers, I'm still willing to try new media, including blogging," he said. "I love variety, welcome heavy workloads, and have unlimited energy, enabling me to tackle many projects at once."

Schlossberg was born May 6, 1948, which, as he happily points out, is a birthday he's proud to share with the modern state of Israel, since that date is celebrated as Israel's Independence Day.

The author's hardy work ethic could be traced to a genetic predisposition, since his paternal grandparents were American-born Hebrew-speaking Zionist missionaries who traveled around the country promoting the cause.

"They'd go to Shaker Heights, Ohio; Lynn in Massachusetts; Chattanooga in Tennessee; Sioux City in Iowa -- all over," Schlossberg said.

Schlossberg's father, who lived in Lynn, Mass., for a time, commuted to Harvard University by streetcar while taking pre-med courses.

After graduating from Syracuse University in 1969, Schlossberg started his writing career with the Associated Press in Newark that same year. Since then, he's been a writer/editor for American Express, the Bergen Jewish News, Motor Club of America, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He's been a full-time freelancer since 1986.

Schlossberg is president of the North American Travel Journalists Association and travel editor of ConsumerAffairs.com. In 1981, he combined his two passions by creating baseball-themed cruises, which he continued to sponsor until 1994.

Among the ex-baseball greats who've sailed on those cruises are Bob Feller, Stan Musial, Ralph Branca, Jeff Torborg, Billy Williams, Jim Kaat, Fergie Jenkins, Darrel Evans, and Brooks Robinson. "I remember on one trip, Musial and I were flying a kite on the deck of the ship," Schlossberg said.

In 2006, he co-authored biographies of New York Yankees player Ron Blomberg and Hall of Fame broadcaster Milo Hamilton, wrote baseball articles for United and U.S. Airways' inflight magazines, and covered spring training, the All-Star Game, the winter meetings and other special events for his syndicated radio show, BallTalk.

The Blomberg book is called "Designated Hebrew," punning on the idea that Blomberg was used as a designated hitter.

"Ron (6 feet, 205 pounds in his playing days during the 1970s) is the personification of 'Little Abner,' a big fun-loving guy who wouldn't hurt a fly," Schlossberg said. "Even now, he works out three times a day and he still goes to play in Old Timer games. His son, Adam, recently graduated from Harvard Medical School."

"When I was interviewing him for the book," Schlossberg recalled, "Ron, who grew up in Atlanta, talked about the time he was playing amateur ball at Stone Mountain in Georgia, which is about 12 miles from Atlanta, and they were playing a team with members of the Klan and they had cross burnings after the game."

A baseball traditionalist by his own admission, Schlossberg said he misses the way the game was played during the 1950s and 1960s. "Things were simpler, more peaceful and more fun then," he said.

"I don't like the split into divisions and I don't like the wild card because the best team doesn't always get into the World Series," Schlossberg grumped. "Saturday and Sunday games should be played during the day -- the games always start too late -- and All-Star Games should be day games played on a weekend and they should get rid of the DH."

Although he hasn't yet written any movie scripts -- about baseball or otherwise -- Schlossberg can claim a link to the world of cinema. His cousin, Stephen Macht, played the real-life role of Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of then-future Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in the 1977 movie, "Raid On Entebbe," based on the freeing of hostages from Entebbe, Uganda, in July 1976. Yonatan Netanyahu was the lone Israeli commando killed in the raid.