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Greg Maddux, consummate Hall of Famer
After 23 years of undiluted excellence, Greg Maddux, baseball’s winningest living pitcher, bowed out Monday the same way he pitched _ modestly, with dignity and grace.
“That’s a nice compliment,” Maddux said Monday in announcing his retirement during baseball’s winter meetings in Las Vegas. “I hope I’ve played the game the way I would want my teammates to play.
“I’m very proud of what I have accomplished on the baseball field. But I’d like to think I’m the same person I was 20 years ago.”
As a player, Maddux never came close to receiving all of the accolades and acclaim that he deserved. But Maddux didn’t mind. He didn’t need that.
“He was one of the all-time greats,” Tigers’ manager Jim Leyland said Monday as Maddux took the stage.
Maddux didn’t make headlines. All he did was win, 355 times. It may come as a surprise to many fans in this age of hype and over-indulgence, but since World War II, only Warren Spahn won more.
Along the way, Maddux quietly accumulated four Cy Young Awards and 18 Gold Gloves, making him, arguably anyway, the best fielding pitcher in the history of the game.
He didn’t pop off. He didn’t make outlandish salary demands.
He didn’t use steroids. He was never caught carrying a gun.
His numbers were never once tainted by scandal.
In the history of baseball, only 17 players lasted longer. Only seven _ the immortal Cy Young (511), Walter Johnson (417), and Christy Mathewson (373), the great Grover Cleveland Alexander (373) and Spahn (363), and prehistoric Pud Galvin (364) and Kid Nichols (361) won more games.
Only nine pitchers struck out more hitters than Maddux’s 3,371. Only 12 threw more innings.
He did it with guts and guile and God-given talent.
Greg Maddux was a baseball player. A Hall of Famer in every sense of the word.
Nothing more. Nothing less. And that was more than enough for him.
Needless to say, five years from now, he’s got my vote.
By rights, it ought to be unanimous.
posted by Jim Hawkins at
12:44 PM
1 Comments:
I totally agree. An era of pitching has come to a close. Nobody else would come close to the achievements of Maddux. 355 wins, 5000+ innings pitched, 3000+ strikeouts and less than 1000 walks. In my mind, you should not compare Maddux to any of his contemporaries because its not even close. None had the work ethic, the love for the game, the enthusiasm of a 12 year old than Maddux. Not Clemens, not Johnson, not even Pedro Martinez.
Maddux has the best stuff in baseball - a well located fastball. He has that uncanny ability to throw balls for strikes and strikes for balls.
He should be a unanimous Hall of Famer. He is after all the greatest post WWII pitcher.
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