tribute to greg maddux

We’ve known it for a few days but it didn’t exactly make things easier.

Greg Maddux is stepping away from the mound. He’s leaving the ball park and his name will no longer appear in the box score.

Four Cy Youngs, 18 Gold Gloves, and 355 wins (the most since the advent of the five man rotation) will be the numbers he is remembered by. Maddux pitched over 5,000 innings in his career, strike out over 3,000 and finishes as just one of two men, Ferguson Jenkins being the other, to win 300 games and walk less then 1,000 men.

Maddux didn’t have an intimating nickname like “The Rocket” or “The Unit”. He certainly wasn’t on first name bases with other players of his time like Pedro or Albert. Despite 23 years of big league experience it was still common to see writers or fans mistaking call him Greg Maddox or Gregg Maddux.

A 1984 draft pick of the Chicago Cubs his career began as a pinch runner in extra innings on September 2, 1986. He later took the loss in the game when he went to the mound. In his next start however Maddux gave everyone a performance that was almost to say more of this is to come. Maddux pitched a complete game allowing three runs. While he allowed 11 hits and his control wouldn’t be what it came to be a few years later Maddux had done enough to warrant being on the roster. He finished his first year 2-4 and was 6-14 the next. That was it. Maddux had done the learning, now he was about to teach.

At the age of 22 Maddux picked up his first 15 win season in 1988. Actually he won 18 games that year and along with a 3.18 ERA he became an All-Star for the first time. It may have been the first time he recorded 15 wins but it wasn’t going to be the last. Who would have guesssed that Maddux would record 15 wins in 17 consecutive seasons, and 18 times in a career that lasted 23 seasons.

1990 marked his first Gold Glove award, something we’d come to know Maddux by later on.

His first 20 win season came in 1992 with the Cubs, his 2.18 ERA and 268 innings made him the NL Cy Young winner. It was time for him to leave Chicago though. In December he would sign with the Atlanta Braves.

The legend goes from there. Maddux would win the Cy Young award the next three years, picked up oodles of Gold Gloves, and notched 194 victories all while leading the Braves to division title after division title.

When Maddux signed with the Braves he was 26, when he left Atlanta he was 36. Along with teammates Tom Glavine and John Smoltz the Braves were a constant force winning the World Series in 1995.

While the team never won another title it wasn’t to say that Maddux’s time there was for naught. Maddux posted perhaps the best two year span for any pitcher going 16-6 with a 1.56 ERA in 1994 and 19-2, 1.63 in 1995.

In 1994 Maddux set a record by being so far out and front of the league. In fact his 1.56 ERA was a Major League record 1.09 points lower then Oakland A’s pitcher Steve Ontiveros who had the second best mark. In total his ERA was 2.65 below the league average, the greatest differential in modern day history.

His 19-2 record of 1995 marked the first (and only) time anyone had posted higher then a .900 win percentage with more then 20 decisions in a season. Stepping back a bit it’s worth noting that the 1994 and 1995 seasons marked the first time since Walter Johnson (1918-1919) anyone had posted back to back seasons with an ERA under 1.70

Maddux would go 15-11 with a 2.72 ERA in 1996, 19-4 with a 2.20 ERA in 1997, 18-9 2.22 in 1998 before finally posting an ERA above 3.00 in 1999. Oh by the way his worst ERA season with the Braves came in 2003 while at the age of 37 with a mark of 3.96. Not bad huh?

As much as the Braves would have liked Maddux back for 2004 the team couldn’t afford to take a chance and offer him arbitration. It was a bittersweet moment for the club who had just lost Tom Glavine the year before.

Maddux rejoined the Cubs and on August 7 of 2004 Maddux picked up his 300th victory. On September 18 he became just the 18th pitcher to start 600 games.

With the Cubs out of the hunt in 2006 Maddux, now 40, was traded for the first time in his career. Maddux who was 9-11 with a 4.69 ERA before the trade finished 6-3 with a 3.30 ERA in 12 starts with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He would sign with the San Diego Padres in the off season. After going 14-11 in his first season with the club the Padres simply weren’t that good in 2008. However, after eight tries on May 10th of 2008 he became the 9th pitcher all time to record 350 wins. In July at the age of 42 years and 89 days he became the oldest pitcher to steal a base, after swiping second against Atlanta. The Padres traded him to the Dodgers on August 9th.

Things didn’t go as well as they did doing his previous stay in LA but the Dodgers did make the playoffs.

It’s almost baffeling that two innings of relief in Game 5 of the NLCS would be the last two of his career. It was the way Maddux was most of his career, under the radar.

In 23 years of big league action Greg Maddux was 355-227 with a 3.16 ERA. More then the previously mentioned guys with the intiminating nicknames. I stopped mentioning his Gold Gloves after the first one, besides who would want to read Gold Glove winner seventeen more times? Maddux threw 190 or more innings every year from 1988 to 2008 and once said upon being put on the DL for the first time in his late 30’s that being a pitcher was like being on the DL most of the time. His back to back unamious Cy Young seasons of 1994 and 1995 marked just the second time a player won the award unamously in back to back years, Sandy Koufax was the other.

We aren’t trying to compare Maddux to Koufax. We know Maddux was better then Sandy K. It’s not just Sandy Koufax, theres a whole list of pitchers Maddux is and was better then but you won’t hear him in any of those arguments.

One day Cooperstown will be opening it’s door for him, it’s long been a foregone conclusion.

“You watch Greg Maddux, that’s an art,” said Juan Pierre, a latter-day teammate with the 2006 Cubs and the ‘08 Dodgers. “It’s just amazing what he does because he’s not throwing 94, 93 mph.”

He didn’t have that earth shattering fastball or the knee breaking curve. He had control and a mind that knew where to put the ball. Players felt like the strike zone was larger when facing Maddux and often found that even when they did put the ball in play he was there too. After all long ago he became the major league leader for putouts at pitcher.

He knew how to bunt and he liked to play jokes. Once he said his idea of a pregame workout was eating a Snickers while riding an exercise bike. He once wore a Mickey Mouse watch on his left arm, a gift from his daughter. A surgeon on the mound it would come as no surprise his favorite TV show was ER. A self proclaimed average Joe, he worked at Wendy’s during highschool.

Greg Maddux just wanted to play baseball. He said that 15 wins was his goal and seemingly never knew how good he was. When told he would respond that he thought that was kinda cool. Maybe the guy didn’t want to make a big deal about numbers. He said above all he just wanted to pitch.

Warren Spahn once said “I don’t care what the public thinks. I’m pitching because I enjoy pitching.”

Earlier this year Maddux commented “I don’t want to embarrass myself by any means, but I’d rather pitch bad than not pitch.”

Greg Maddux will officially announce what we all suspected. On Monday the future hall of famer will announce his retirement from baseball. Twenty three years in the big leagues and 355 victories Maddux very well could be the best pitcher anyone reading this ever got to see.

Maddux started his career with the Chicago Cubs in 1986 and after picking up his first CY Young award in 1992 signed as a free agent with the Atlanta Braves. From there Maddux picked up three more CY Youngs in a row and even a World Series in 1995.

The guy knew how to pitch and and it was something he loved to do. From 1988 to 2008 he pitched 190 or more innings each season and picked up 15 or more wins 18 times.

Maddux was an 8 time All-Star and likely would have been selected for more teams had he not let it be known he’d perfer to spend the break with his family.

He wasn’t just a pitcher, he was a player. He notched 18 Gold Gloves over the course of his career and took the time to work on his skills at the plate perfecting the art of bunting.

When Maddux joined the Chicago Cubs for the second time in 2004 he had began to tutor younger players. On August 7th of that year he picked up career win number 300 in San Fransisco. A midseason trade in 2006 saw him help the Los Angeles Dodgers to the playoffs. In 2007 he signed with the San Diego Padres playing with the team thru 2008 until he was again traded to the Dodgers.

Who would have guessed that the two innings Maddux threw in Game 5 of the NLCS would be the last two of his career.

There is so much that could be written about Greg Maddux we don’t even know how to do the man justice. When I started my online tribute to him at tireball.com I wrote a few things, one an In-Depth profile the other The Basics. I haven’t edited them much over the years even though I view my writing ability has grown.

A few things stand out from those passages. One that Maddux even considered himself an average Joe and the other a line where I said Maddux was “A model of consistency in the pursuit of excellence. Greg Maddux has yearly proved to be one of the best pitchers, not only in the Majors but of all time.”

He didn’t need 100 mph fast balls, or knew jerking curves. He used the ability he had and he put the ball where he knew best. Maddux knew how to hit his spots and he worked them better then any pitcher I’ve ever seen.

When the off season began and I looked back and thought that I may have seen the last of Greg Maddux pitch it brought sadness to me but I have to admit today hearing the news I’m not as sad as I thought I would be. Maddux did climb atop Roger Clemens on the All-Time wins list, his closet if full of Gold Gloves, and he did it clean.

Today baseball lost a role model, a player parents would want their kids to be like. Baseball lost a teacher for it’s younger players and baseball lost an average Joe who was anything but average when it came to baseball.