The Master. July 2, 1997
Posted: August 3rd, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 76 Comments »
I’ve always been a Greg Maddux guy. I’ve never been precisely sure what it says about me — I have these odd quirks in my fandom. You already know about my overwhelming love for Duane Kuiper.*
*A few of you mentioned this … the new Nebraska football coach, Bo Pellini, said in an interview recently that he grew up a Cleveland Indians fan and that one of his favorite players was Duane Kuiper. Well, obviously I was very excited about this, and so at the recent Big 12 Media Day, I went up to Pellini to ask him about Kuiper. Now, I should say that Big 12 Media Day is the wrong day to try to talk to a football coach about anything — they are running from one interview to the next, from newspaper reporters to television reporters to radio talk shows back to television reporters back to newspaper reporters, it’s one awful mess and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. So, I’m certain Pellini was a bit dazed. He LOOKED a bit dazed.
Still, I have to say that when I asked him about Kuiper, he eyed me very suspiciously, like I was trying to trap him into saying something that might get him in trouble. “Duane was a very good player,” he said cautiously, and then he talked about how he wasn’t just a Cleveland Indians fan, he also liked the “We Are Family” Pittsburgh Pirates (he grew up in Youngstown, which is sort of a Cleveland-Pittsburgh war zone). I don’t know, the conversation just wasn’t as fulfilling as I had hoped. I had thought we might reminisce a bit about Kuiper moments. It didn’t turn out that way. Maybe I’ll make another run at Pellini when it isn’t Big 12 Media Day.
But there’s more that just Kuiper. As a kid, I was, inexplicably, a huge Ivan Lendl fan. Friends liked McEnroe and Connors and Borg and Gerulitas and Roscoe Tanner*, but I was drawn to the taciturn and stern monotony of Ivan Lendl smacking forheands and backhands from the baseline. I couldn’t tell you why I was drawn to him. It isn’t like I saw something more in him than anyone else. No, I saw what everyone saw: He was dry, machine-like, strange, boring, and in his early days he would tank sets when he fell behind a break. But for some reason, he was mine, and I ached when he lost those two Wimbledon finals, especially the one to that fluke Pat Cash. So strange. It wasn’t until many years later, when I first came across my dear friend and colleague Mechelle, that I met another Lendl fan. She could not explain it either.
*Remember the days when you could actually NAME five or six tennis players off the top of your head?
Obviously, the Maddux fandom is not nearly as strange — lots of people like Greg Maddux. But I would say that i probably have taken that Maddux fandom beyond the realm of most non-Braves fans. For a few years there in the mid 1990s, I would never (if at all possible) miss a Maddux start. I would count down days. I would start to get psyched the morning of a start, I would plan my day around it, I would tell friends that I had plans when he was pitching. I never thought of this as weird — it just got to the point where I enjoyed watching Greg Maddux pitch more than I enjoyed going to a movie or hanging out at a bar or seeing some low-level band or most other things. Sure, it probably WAS weird. But it didn’t feel that way at the time.
And it was the bewildering logic behind my love of Maddux that compares to Lendl. I never was able to explain WHY I liked watching Maddux pitch. I just did. I figured everyone did, that it was universal. I never even thought about it until one day when I was talking with my buddy Vac, and I said something like: “Isn’t is just great to watch Maddux pitch?” And he said something like, “Eh.” I remember being stunned. I would soon find that a lot of people felt that way about Maddux — they respected him, of course, and they admired him, and they appreciated his artistry. But they were not going to cancel plans to watch him pitch. Vac said what they all said — Maddux was a great pitcher, but he was not particularly dynamic, and he got strike calls four inches off the outside corner, and Vac would rather watch someone else, someone who might strike out 20, someone who might throw a no-hitter, someone like Clemens or Pedro or Unit or Mariano.
That’s when I started to wonder: What is it about Maddux that speaks to me? In the end, I think it comes down to the eternal baseball riddle: What would be the ultimate game? We all know what a perfect game is — what would be the ultimate? Would it be a pitcher striking out all 27 batters on 81 pitches? Or would it be a pitcher getting 27 outs on 27 pitches?
Most, I think, would say that 27 strikeouts is the ultimate game — and that’s probably right. If a pitcher threw struck out every batter on three pitches — it’s hard to argue against that. Plus, we all know that there’s fortune involved when any ball is hit in play, so the whole 27 outs/27 pitches thing would require luck and good defense and all that.
But, I have to say I’m much more drawn to the second possibility. Why? Because it’s not really a possibilitiy. It cannot happen. Sooner or later a batter would take a pitch. Hypothetically, a pitcher could strike out 27, a pitcher could come along who is truly unhittable, who throws so far hard or who makes the ball jump or collapse so late that a batter physically cannot hit it. But no pitcher can ever come along who can actually control the batter to the point of making him swing at the first pitch every time, whether he wanted to or not.
Maddux, I think, is the closest we will ever see.
* * *
My favorite Maddux game happened on July 2, 1997. It was a Wednesday — two days before Independence Day, of course — and it was widely viewed as a revenge game. It was the first time Maddux faced the New York Yankees after losing Game 6 of the World Series. The Yankees scored three runs in the third inning of that World Series game — all the runs they would get, all the runs they would need. O’Neill doubled. Girardi tripled, Jeter singled and scored second. Bernie singled. That was enough. The Yankees were world champs.
So the question, at least to me, was: What would Maddux come up with for the Yankees the Yankees this time? I had no guess. The beauty of Maddux has always been that mystery — nobody had ever quite understood him. With Seaver, you understood, the guy threw gas, and he broke off the nastiest curves, and he was freaking hard to hit. With Clemens, you understood, the guy threw gas, and he would stick it in your ear, and later he honed that split-fingered pitch that went cliff diving just before it reached home plate. With Pedro, you understood, the guy threw gas too only he also had the sick change-up, looked just like the fastball until you swung 12 minutes before the ball arrived, plus he would change arm angles and every now and then he would throw a hard slider because he did not want to strike out batters, he wanted to have them committed to an asylum.
Well, Maddux famously did not throw gas. Commentators never let anyone forget that Maddux’s stuff wasn’t anything special — and though they may have missed a few nuances (Maddux’s pitches ALL had dramatic movement) the truth was that frustrated hitters said the same thing after games. Guy had nothing. I suspect no pitcher in the history of baseball ever left so many batters feeling like they just missed. Maddux threw his fastball in the upper 80s, sometimes a little faster, often a little slower. He had a change-up that tumbled, a cutter that backed lefties off the plate (and was called for strikes against infuriated righties), a curveball that had nothing to it. It was an unthreatening arsenal, slingshots in a firefight, though that was part of the story. Maddux, as much as any great athlete, wanted to be underestimated.
His success came out of small, often unnoticed things — for instance, lefties could not hit him. For five years — 1994-98 — lefties hit .212 against Maddux, a little bit worse than righties each and every year. That’s just a quirky little thing, lefties struggling against a righty (lefties had real problems with Maddux because of his two-seam fastball, which chased low and away), but that was Maddux, a collage of quirky little things. He fielded his position brilliantly, he more or less never walked anyone he did not want to walk, he struck out more people than 3,000 batters but did it with that crazy change-up rather than a back-breaking curve or upstairs heater. There are so many fun little Maddux statistics. He did not throw a single wild pitch in 1997. He gave up four homers in 1994. He did not hit a batter in 2006. He did not balk from 1995 to 1999. In 1996, he recorded 71 assists — John Smoltz, a different kind of dominant, had about one-third as many.
That was Maddux, always trying something new, always finding an edge, always formulating a plan. He showed you the quarter, made the quarter disappear, pulled the quarter out of your ear only now it was a half dollar, and it was blue, made that disappear, turned it into a Buick, it was all an old-fashioned magic show and come to think of it that might be why I liked Maddux so much. I’ve always liked magic shows.
So, yeah, I wondered what Maddux would bring to that game against the Yankees on July 2nd, one day after Hong Kong was handed over to China. It didn’t take long. First batter. Maddux struck out Derek Jeter on three pitches, and I recall the last being a classic Maddux strike, outside to Jeter, outside corner to the umpire. It was obvious from the start: Maddux was bringing his his whole bag to this game. He got Joe Girardi to ground out to second. Then, he went to a full count against Paul O’Neill before getting him to ground out to second. The full count was significant. No Yankees batter would have three balls on him the rest of the game.
Maddux got Tino looking in the second. The Yankees looked dull and a step slow. In the third Hard Hittin’ Mark Whiten cracked a single up the middle and got to second on a groundout. Maddux promptly picked him off. That too was significant. No other Yankee runner would reach second base.
Maddux was mesmerizing. That’s all. In the fourth, Girardi managed a single against Maddux. O’Neill promptly hit into a double play. In the fifth and sixth, the ball never left the infield. The amazing thing about this game was that the Yankees were going down fast, it’s like they couldn’t stop themselves, couldn’t slow things down, you could almost hear Dick Vitale shouting, “Get a T-O baby!” You will hear announcers talk about a pitcher being in control — well, I have never seen a pitcher more in control than Maddux that day, not Kerry Wood when he struck out 20 or Nolan Ryan during one of his no-hitters or the many replays I’ve seen of perfect games. It was different because those pitchers overpowered hitters, tricked them, frustrated them, but Maddux almost seemed to be working WITH the hitters.
“Swing,” he said, and they swung.
“Look,” he said, and they looked.
Put it this way, Maddux started 20 of the 28 Yankees he faced with first pitch strikes, and still they seemed befuddled. “The best pitch you’re going to see is the first one,” Girardi said after the game, just like he said before the game, but it did not matter, they did not swing, they could not swing, they seemed stunned as the ball just crossed the plate. Maddux was pitching and hypnotizing all at the same time.
In the seventh, Maddux struck out Jeter swinging, then struck out Girardi looking. In the eighth, it was Cecil Fielder who went down looking. The game technically was not out of reach — the Braves led only 2-0 on a Ryan Klesko home run and a Chipper Jones single — but the Yankees were helpless. The ninth inning was the smile on the Mona Lisa. Hard Hittin’ Mark Whiten looked at strike three. Chad Curtis muscled a ground ball up the middle for a single, and Bernie Williams pinch hit to give the game a brief burst of tension. Bernie looked at strike three too. That made six strikeouts looking in the game. Jeter then grounded out to second to finish it off.
The final numbers: nine innings, three hits, no walks, eight strikeouts, one pickoff, one double play, 84 pitches. The whole thing took two hours and nine minutes, or 23 minutes less than the new “Dark Knight” movie.
“As a fan, it had to be a boring game,” Paul O’Neill said when it ended. Maybe that’s how some baseball fans saw it, maybe that’s even how MOST baseball fans saw it, I don’t know. I just recall being spellbound. Like everyone else, I saw Maddux good on a lot of other days, but I never saw him THAT good, never saw him so entirely in command. He should have worn a tuxedo for that game. He should have had martinis shaken, not stirred between innings.
That’s not to say that I think Maddux is the greatest living pitcher — I look at our poll, and I realize that this is an impossible question. I think Pedro was awfully good. I think Clemens was awfully good. I think Koufax was preposterously dominant, and Gibson too. I think Tom Seaver should be getting more respect, and Bob Feller should be getting more love. It’s a tough poll.
No, Maddux is my just my favorite pitcher. If I had to explain it, I guess I would say that it comes down to this: Even now, all these years later, nobody quite knows how he did it. The magician always guarded his secret. After that Yankees game, he was asked why he was able to dominate. He said: “I was locating well.” That’s a perfect Maddux quote — probably sums up the wizardry Greg Maddux in four words. It’s true. And it doesn’t give away a damn thing.
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Regarding the “ultimate game,” you refer to pitchers striking out 27 men on three pitches each. Incidentally, a pitcher striking out just three batters on nine pitches has only happened 41 times in major league history, and only three pitchers (Koufax, Ryan, Grove) have ever done it twice. So I think it’s equally improbable that anyone would ever throw an 81-pitch, 27 strikeout game.
If you’re interested in these “immaculate inning,” check out my blog of that name, or see the related wikipedia site. I currently have a feature on the first man to throw one, John Clarkson in 1889.
There is a scene in “Manhattan” where Woody Allen’s character (Alvie Singer, I think) lists the things that make life worthwhile. My wife and I made up similar lists for fun … and Greg Maddux’s pitching was on my list. So too was Tim Wakefield’s. Thanks for the article, Joe.
Naming at least four tennis players is easy today (this is in response to the small aside asking the readers if they remember when you could name 5 or 6 tennis players off the top of their head):
Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick.
Tennis is pretty great nowadays, what with Federer slowly edging past his peak and Nadal entering the fat part of his prime, and Djokovic looming to possibly knock either of them off.
I waited with anticipation for this season to begin to see how many more majors Federer would pick up. For whatever reason, despite not being a devout tennis fan, I want to see whether Federer would edge closer to breaking Pete Sampras’ grand slam record.
Most every observer (including Sampras) seemed to think that Federer would pass Sampras with ease.
But, I really don’t want him to break that record, and I don’t know exactly why. I always liked Agassi better than Sampras, but when I grew up, Sampras was the best and he set a new standard of excellence. It seems like it would shade the Pete Sampras decade of my life with a bit fraudulence if his greatness is surpassed so quickly.
Also, tennis is a sport that brings out my patriotic side in sports. That part is usually dormant aside from when the Olympics come around ever four years.
Anyway, tennis is the best it has been is a decade when Agassi and Sampras were competing and I will be watching to see if Federer can inch past Sampras. His period of total dominance is clearly over and having only four shots at a grand slam each year leaves such little room for error— remember even Tiger went a couple of years without getting a grand slam.
Federer has one more chance this year and next year he will be 28 (clearly past the prime in tennis), and will have to face Nadal, Djokovic, and all other comers to get those last few majors.
I will inexplicably and darkly be hoping that he aged a bit too much, that the door closed on him suddenly and quickly and that the U.S.A.’s boring, uncharismatic Sampras retains the career grand slam record long enough for it to mean a little more.
I’d been withholding my vote in the poll, but after this essay, I threw my vote in for Maddux — other pitchers had tremendous arms, or beneficial home parks, or the benefit of circumstances.
Maddux didn’t have an arm kissed by Zeus, and his first two home parks were Wrigley Field and the Launching Pad; it took him ’til he was 40 to get to a legitimately good pitcher’s park. He pitched during the single greatest offensive era in baseball history, and pitched extremely well. He’s faced over 20,000 batters in his career, and still hasn’t walked 1000 yet.
Let’s compare two pitchers:
A: 22-9, 1.12 ERA, 268 K, 62 BB, WHIP 0.853, IP 304.2
B: 29-4, 1.07 ERA, 233 K, 38 BB, WHIP 0.728, IP 302.3
Pitcher A is Bob Gibson, 1968, one of the greatest pitching seasons of all time.
Pitcher B is Greg Maddux, 1994, transplanted to 1968 St. Louis by the power of baseball-reference.com.
Yes, it’s something of a gimmick in that there’s no way to know if Maddux really would have put up those kind of numbers in 1968. Still, his 1994 numbers compared to the league context are as impressive in their own way as Gibson’s best season.
My favorite Maddux story comes via Bill James; James writes that Maddux was asked once in about mid-career what the biggest change he’d seen in the game since he was a young pitcher. His response was that there were a lot more opposite-field home runs than there were when he was starting out in the mid-to-late 1980s. That was such a specific observation that James felt compelled to check it, and Maddux was exactly right.
Rob Neyer likes to call Maddux ‘the smartest pitcher who ever lived’, and very, very few athletes of any sport are on his level.
Maddux was great, but I have to say that I am with the majority of the population that was not won over by his clearly incredible, yet subtle, skills.
I think that part of it is because his mastery was rarely well explained and so many boneheaded announcers would just resort to constantly saying that he is “smart.”
“Look, he wears glasses on his days off. He’s called ‘The Professor.’ That’s all you need to know.”
It’s the same type of reason why I will never fully except Peyton Manning. Brett Favre and his well documented “enthusiasm” present a similar problem.
My favorite Maddux story happened back when he first played for the Cubs. They were playing the Braves and David Justice was the big, stud rookie for Atlanta. As Justice dug in, Maddux supposedly mouthed the words “F**k you!” to him. Justice backed up and gave him a “you talking to me” expression. And Maddux repeated it.
Not sure what happened in the at-bat, but Justice said he showed up early the next day to kick Maddux’s ass, but he never found him.
Later on, when they were teammates in spring training, Maddux brought up the situation and they had a laugh about it. He said he was just testing Justice, mostly because he was crowding the plate.
What a great asshole!
Yes Maddux is the smartest pitcher in baseball… just ask him
Joe,
I’ve been reading your site and falling more and more in love with you (in a mostly non-gay way) for months, and I thought nothing could top your storytelling in “The Soul of Baseball,” (available for an absurdly low price with free shipping at Amazon!), but to find out that you are one of the 0.0001% of the population that woke up for Breakfast at Wimbledon to see my hero (and fellow Connecticut resident) Ivan Lendl, well.
Miracles do happen. And they happen thanks to a ridiculously consistent forehand from the baseline, and Snap-up!
SO MANY other pitchers have spoke over the years of the incredible impact maddux had upon them as a teammate and teacher. obviously there is no way to quantify this (or maybe there is???), but it seems he’s helped to win a lot of games without throwing a single pitch.
i’ve lived most of my life in chicago, and i can’t even say how many days i rode the train over to wrigley to find a ticket on a day he was pitching. i too have canceled plans to stay home and watch him on TBS or WGN. it’s not that i don’t find randy johnson or roger clemens interesting to watch, and i also rode the train to comiskey for pedro more than once, but it’s just different with maddux. he’ll always be my favorite.
My favorite Maddux story comes from when he was, briefly, with my Dodgers. Brad Penny on the mound, and apparently Penny and Maddux agreed that Maddux would call the game for Penny from the bench. Penny would look into the dugout, and based on where Maddux was looking, that would determine what pitch Penny would throw. Penny pitched 7 shutout innings before leaving the game.
Maddux had the Padres’ only stolen base in the month of July.
Great post, as always. I wonder if this will tip the scales in the very close race between Pedro and Maddux in the pole?
My favourite pitcher of my lifetime, and one of my three favourite players (along with Hammerin’ Hank and the Murph).
If you ever get a chance to talk to some of those mid-90s Braves, ask them for Maddux stories. They can tell you some doozies. He’s a bit of a legend for things like telling his teammates to duck before a pitch is delivered… only to see the next pitch fouled into the dugout with them. Or saying uh-oh, an the next pitch leaves the park. He once told Marquis Grissom that if he got to a certain count on a certain hitter, he wanted him to move in two steps and to his right three steps from where he would normally play. He reached that count on that hitter, and the next pitch was hit right to where he had told Grissom to stand. He once threw a pitch in spring training that resulted in a three-run shot or a grand slam… I forget which. Anyway, Javy Lopez swears he’d told him prior to the PA in a mound meeting that he was going to give up the tater to the guy, because that bad pitch was the one he wanted that batter to be thinking about when they faced one another in July, when the game would count. Every teammate from his prime seems to have a plethora of stories like that.
Joe Simpson was telling one on-air a few weeks ago. According to him, the Braves’ video guy who makes the tapes they watch of each batter cuts out all of the stuff in-between pitches. You see the pitch, the result, and then it skips to the pitcher about to go into his windup again. No steps off of the mound, no walking out of the batter’s box. That was fine for all of the Braves pitchers but Maddux, for whom he had to make a separate set of tapes. Maddux wanted to see that stuff, he wanted to see the hitter’s body language to see if there was a connection to a movement or facial expression and what he was trying to do with that next pitch.
But a couple of my favourite Maddux stories have nothing to do with baseball. The first involved a batboy who was driving home to see his parents. Said batboy apparently had a real junker of car, so Maddux tossed him the keys to his BMW and told him to be careful.
The other involved a fan who ran into Maddux in an Atlanta restaurant. He’d recently bought a glove online (with a certificate) that Maddux had supposedly used in ‘92 with the Cubs, while winning his first Cy. He asked Maddux if he could go home and get it and bring it back to be signed, and Doggie agreed. When he returned, Maddux looked at it and told him it was a fake… he’d never in his career used a blue glove. The guy was understandably not happy, until Maddux told him to follow him home. In his garage, he said, he had a glove he’d used in ‘93 with the Braves (his second Cy season), and the he’d autograph it for him and give it to him.
Those are the sort of stories I wish got more attention in general these days. We hear all kinds of stories about the jerks and bad boys of sports. I think the good guys should get more press.
I also understand that you should never, ever play cards with him with money on the table. He counts ‘em.
I can name lots of tennis players. Ana Ivanovic, Maria Sharapova, Ashley Harkleroad, Patty Schnyder, Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Kirilenko, Daniela Hantuchova, Elena Visnina–
Oh, wait, I think you meant something else entirely.
Joe,
I happened to have recorded your favorite Maddux start when it originally aired — that July 2, 1997 game against the Yankees — and have a copy on DVD. It is everything you say. And it wasn’t boring. Still isn’t when you watch it again.
It looks like someone in Chicago heard that quote from Girardi: “The best pitch you’re going to see is the first one”.
Just 20 days later, against the Cubs, Maddux had a 76-pitch complete game. You don’t see many of them nowadays.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN199707221.shtml
I love Maddux….I probably wouldn’t vote him number one, but that’s just personal preference.
I do think it’s a bit silly how people always say “he wasn’t blessed like other pitchers”
Maybe it’s true that he wasn’t blessed like others, but he WAS blessed. That kind of command/control and life on your pitches isn’t learned. Far too many pitchers with excellent work ethics have proven that.
Total thread-jack here, but I’ll make it brief. Sept 10, 1999… Pedro vs the Yankees… 17 K, 0 BB, though he did give up a solo shot. Still, the most interesting part of the game: of his last 52 pitches, not a single one was hit into fair territory. Gotta campaign for ol’ Petey a bit here, just to make sure Maddux doesn’t overtake him in your poll
This post inspired me to write a long blog post of my own that both lamented my lack of a favorite picture and celebrated the fact that you have one. While I’m sure your intention wasn’t to get me to think of my childhood, that’s what happened.
Unintended consequences aside this is a great post.
What I meant to say there was favorite PITCHER. My favorite picture would be Dr. Strangelove. Sorry I just woke up,
This post makes me wonder, who has pitched a complete game win with the fewest pitches? I don’t know how far back they started counting pitches… is this something someone smarter than me can find out ?
Favorite Maddux game: Game 2 of the 1996 World Series. Eight shutout innings. Maddux got 18 groundball outs, struck out 2, walked none, and allowed two fly balls.
Quintessential Maddux and an underrated game that I think belongs in a discussion of the ten best-pitched World Series games ever.
Maddox is also my favorite pitcher, during his prime noone dominated the power era like Maddox did… He had my vote before this blog entry was written…
In the movie ‘The Scout’ –
Game 1, World Series, Yankee Stadium
Steve Nebraska enters the game via helicopter from the roof of the stadium, and has the ultimate game – “27 up, 27 down, 81 pitches, all of ‘em strikes.” He also batted in the game (presumably in place of the DH) and hit a home run out of the stadium.
Snowman, thanks for those stories. Can’t get enough of those. I wish we heard more of them. Too often you hear someone described as a HOFers (as in “Hall of Famer” Joe Morgan) without any context or color. We all know the numbers, but I want to hear about how Ted Williams swore he could see the seams on a thrown baseball or how Willie Mays could talk to the catcher and hit a HR at the same time.
Carlos Silva has the “modern” record for fewest pitches in a CG. 74. He had one three-pitch inning… with a hit.
Which brings me to my ultimate game…
9ip, 27 batters faced, 27 pitches, 9h, 9 gidp.
Aaron Cook tied Silva last year.
In 1944, Fred Barrett needed only 58 pitches.
Was watching a broadcast of a Maddux start one time and in the pre-game scouting report they simply said that he “could throw any pitch at any speed at any time in any location for a strike”. That makes it tough on hitters.
baseball almanac claims red barrett threw one with 58 pitches in 1944
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/boxscore/08101944.shtml
It always seemed that Maddux had a knack for getting a groundball hit back to him when he needed it.
I’ve heard the setup pitch stories as well. One goes that he gave up an early inning HR to Bagwell just to get him out later in the game / season.
You weren’t the only one scheduling his life around Maddux’s starts in the 90s. I did too. And I didn’t even like the Braves.
I also felt personally injured when he didn’t win the Cy Young award in ‘97 and ‘98. He was as good as Pedro in ‘97, though it was VERY close, and he was MUCH better than Glavine in ‘98. He could/should have won six of em. He’ll always be my favorite.
I remember reading somewhere that Bobby Cox went out to the mound to take out Maddux in a tight spot in the late innings, but Maddux talked him out of it by revealing his pitch-by-pitch plan for getting the next hitter. It ended with “and on the fourth pitch I’ll get him to pop up to third in foul territory,” and that’s exactly what happened.
Nate F, I was also going to bring up Steve Nebraska in the most ridiculous baseball movie ever made. Not only did he throw the 81-pitch, 27-K, perfect game and hit a HR out of the stadium in the World Series, but it was also his professional debut.
A Pirates’ farmhand named Ron Necciai struck out 27 batters in the Appalachian League in 1952, but he did have a BB and a HBP.
Maddox was my favorite non-Tiger pitcher on my favorite non-Tiger team.
Best pitched game I saw in person was a Frank Tanana one-hitter against the Brewers. Tanana was in the “crafty-lefty” phase of his career. He gave up a solo homer in the fifth, so the no-no buzz never really got started in the stadium. But I remember looking at the scoreboard at the end of the game going “Holy crap, he threw a one-hitter!”.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET198508020.shtml
Joe,
You are not alone. Maddux is my favourite player in any sport.
And i also gave myself a “Day off” in a lot of his starts in th 90’s.
The concept of a 27-pitch perfect game makes me twitch. It’s also the reason I love Zack Greinke. He told a reporter that that was his definition of a perfect game right after he struck out Barry Bonds a couple of years ago. I love that he’s a mid-90’s fastball pitcher but it’s clear that his favorite pitch is that sick 67-mph curve he’s got. I have desperate hope he keeps developing into our ace of the next decade.
The Maddux start that sticks out to me came on Aug. 13, 2006 at Dodger Stadium. It was one of his first starts with the Dodgers after coming over in a trade, and he was facing the Giants on Sunday Night Baseball. This was obviously Maddux well into his decline, but on this night you wouldn’t have known it. He got himself out of a first-inning jam by making an incredible catch of a Barry Bonds liner and turning it into a double play. After that he proceeded to completely shut down San Fran, and it was one of those instances that Joe talked about where he completely bent the hitters to his will. He wound up working eight shutout innings in which he gave up just two hits and no walks. Even more amazing, he threw 68!!! pitches, including 50!!!! for strikes. He retired the last 22 batters he faced. It was the most amazing display of pitching I’ve ever seen, and he couldn’t have thrown a pitch faster than 87 the entire time.
Unfortunately for Maddux, Jason Schmidt matched him on the other side, and the game was scoreless when he got pulled after eight innings for a PH (although LA still won on a Russ Martin walk-off HR in the 10th). Still, I remember walking out of the ballpark that night thinking I would never again see a pitching performance that special, even if I see a no-hitter some day.
Paul O’Neill is an assmunch.
Way to bring the intelligent discourse Jhonny.
I love it that there is so much legend surrounding Maddux and yet he’s still playing. Just think, in 20 years what kind of stories will people be telling about Maddux? That is, assuming he’s not still blowing hitters away with a 79 mph fastball at age of 62.
greg maddux is my favorite pitcher, of my generation. i used to go watch him pitch for the peoria chiefs (AAA) in the 80’s when i was a little kid.
Another Maddux story: When Maddux joined the Braves, he told Leo Mazzone to warn Bobby Cox that he’d be giving up some hits on 0-2 counts and that Bobby shouldn’t be upset. Because 0-2 was the best pitch to put guys away, he wouldn’t just waste pitches, but then he’d also give up some 0-2 hits. Leo saw the wisdom and explained it to Bobby, who went along.
April 10, 1998 I took the train from NYC to Philadelphia to watch Maddux pitch against Schilling at the Vet. I hated both teams but had to see this game. I took a woman who’d never actually been to a game. I only told her that this was a really good pitching matchup which portended a potentially low-scoring game.
Maddux was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the top of the ninth after going eight– allowing no runs, no walks, five hits, five Ks. He got a no-decision because Schilling went a complete game, allowing no runs, one walk, two hits and ten Ks. Philly won 1-0 scoring off a reliever in the bottom of the ninth.
Most ridiculous duel pitching performances I’ve ever had the pleasure to see. Needless to say, my friend found it all a little “boring.” I could only laugh. You can’t explain all of that in two hours.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1998/B04100PHI1998.htm
Well, Jhonny is right. If not very nice.
Maddux is one of those guys I will always be in awe of because, whether it’s true or not, I felt he was a great pitcher through sheer force of will. He doesn’t have that blistering fastball we tend to expect from our great pitchers, and in a way, it seems like if I had just worked harder or studied the game more, i too could be Greg Maddux.
Which of course isn’t true. But his is the odd greatness which actually seemd attainable by mortal men. His was (is) a greatness which we related to. It didn’t seem like he was given a divine gift of athletic freakishness, he made himself great. i like that more.
And, what? No love for Stefan Edburg? While we’re on the subject of boring 1980s tennis players who I liked for no particular reason. Or Mr. Boring himself, Mats Wilander.
AMR -
I was at the game Silva pitched (against the Brewers I believe) — I’m not even going to waste my time looking it up because it had to be one the luckiest games I’ve ever seen. Milwaukee grounded into 4 or 5 double plays, and they hit the ball hard all over the place, just right at people. Silva has had a few of those absurd starts over the years, and I feel really bad for Mariner fans who watched their inept FO sign him to a $48 million deal this offseason – the average Twins fan knew how Silva worked, and it could be awful to watch. Maddux, even in his older years, is a beautiful thing to watch because you are aware of what he’s trying to do as a pitcher as far as location, speed, tempo, etc. Most young pitchers you see right now make awful decisions, even when they are ahead in the count — I’m looking at you Kevin Slowey, who interestingly enough, has very similar stuff to Maddux but not nearly as much movement.
Remember when a 100+ MPH serve made you remember a tennis player’s name?
In that 76 pitch complete game against the Cubs that Pete R posted I noticed that Maddux only threw 13 balls. 13! I was going to joke “who was the home plate umpire, Eric Gregg?” but figured I’d better check first to make sure it wasn’t actually Gregg…It was.
I like the way Jhohnny thinks.
Help Save Baseball. Stop the Pitch Count.
Please sign our petition and share this website with every baseball fan you know
http://stopthepitchcount.com/
** “Duane was a very good player,†he said cautiously, **
No. No he was not.
You should have identified yourself as a fellow Kuiper’ian, Joe, he might have loosened up a little. Big 12 Media Day could also more aptly be titled “Big 12 When The Media Tries To Get You To Make An Ass Out Of Yourself For Some Juicy Quotes Day”
“Help Save Baseball. Stop the Pitch Count.”
Dusty Baker, is that you again?
Btw, I was also a big fan of Ivan Lendl, but for me it was just because I thought his name was supremely funny. And he was really good at Tennis.
(and he was #1 at the time that I first heard of him. I was one of those “I’ll root for whoever’s best” kids… In my defense I WILL stick with those guys until they retire! )
“Hypothetically, a pitcher could strike out 27, a pitcher could come along who is truly unhittable”
I’m sorry to say that even in my baseball video games, where I routinely make a pitcher with a goofy name and a selection of pitches that include
- Fastball, 101 mph, with movement.
- Curveball, 82 mph, 12 to 6 hammer.
- Slider, 94 mph, breaks more than Randy Johnson’s.
- Changeup, 72 mph, 100 movement.
- Cutter, 95 mph, like Mo’s. Only better.
- Knuckler. 68mph. The perfect strike 3 pitch. No video game hitter has ever been able to hit a knuckler after eating a 101 mph fastball right on the bottom inside corner, followed by a slider that breaks four feet out of the strikezone. Throw the knuckler high, and they’ll swing and have their bat back on their shoulder before the ball even gets there.
Also, the guy has a 100 arm, and 100 endurance. So after the 7th inning, his endurance is still at 97%. I tell ya, Dusty would love this kid.
Even with this ridiculous monster of pitching, I have never gotten beyond 7 straight 3 pitch strikeouts. I’ve thrown back to back perfect games with the guy (in consecutive starts), but never more than 7 straight strikeouts in a row on 3 pitches.
Though maybe that’s just the “no effing way!” mode that activates. Like the game saying “okay, that’s ridiculous! Here!” and then Jason Kendall hits a homerun or something.
Also fun in videogame baseball : Watching the Chicago White Sox outfield with Ken Griffey Jr rob 7 homeruns in one game. Jermaine Dye. Ken Griffey Jr. Nick Swisher. (I think videogame Ozzie gave Quentin the day off.) Rob 7 homeruns.
and finally : <3 Maddux. greatest living pitcher. Sure, Pedro in his peak was better. Maddux has been doing it for 18 years. Where’s Pedro now?
Joe, did I miss the post explaining why Nolan Ryan wasn’t lisited?
Thanks, Joe, for a great piece on my favorite pitcher (still part of my BB watching schedule), and my favorite game of his. Among other favorites are 4/11/01 against the Mets, when he went 7 innings, facing only 22 batters (1 H, 0 BB) — and threw 21 first-pitch strikes.
In response to some other commenters:
Jerry — Actually, if you “Just ask him” about being the smartest pitcher in baseball, he would probably just blow it off. When a reporter congratulated him on setting the all-time MLB record for putouts by a pitcher (record previously held by Cy Young, with about 3000 more IP), his response was, “Yeah, and the only people who care are you and my mother.” Oversize ego is not one of his problems.
JW — Maddux is also the active stolen base leader among pitchers with 11 (out of 14 attempts). Adam Eaton is second with 5.
Michael — Do you make copies of that game DVD and sell them? Because I would sure pay money for a copy. Which reminds me of one last note about that game: my best friend is a huge Yankee fan, and someone who enjoys an adult beverage or two (or 12) while at a game. He was actually in the stands for this game, and to this day, has not forgiven Maddux for pitching such a short game that he couldn’t get his regular allotment of Yankee Stadium refreshments.
So, of course, I never cease to remind him about it, and sent him a link to this posting with the subject line “Your favorite game (and mine)”. I will no doubt get a lot of grief at work about that tomorrow.
My all time favorite Maddux game is this one:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN199508200.shtml
Obviously he was just toying with people, needing 88 pitches to get through 9 innings.
The best part is how the Cardinals pitchers only threw 94. Check out the time of game (1h, 50m)…this was the ESPN Sunday night game, and it ended before 9 pm. They had to scramble to get a really, really early SportsCenter on the air.
Snowman,
That’s because his father was a Vegas card dealer. So not only did he teach him the mental game of baseball, but apparently he made him into a wicked card player as well.
Glavine always got like 4-5 inches off the corner, which made him just frustrating to watch. But Maddux was a joy – I’ll never get tired of seeing him throw that 87-mph “fastball” to a lefty that starts off inside and then somehow tails back over the corner for strike three. I remember that 7/2/97 game. I remember Joe Girardi saying something like he’d never seen so many guys come back to the dugout after grounding out who said he (Maddux) had nothing.
Seeing that this entry was about Maddux, I wanted to mention the passing of Skip Caray who announced so many of his wins. For baseball fans in my age demographic (currently 34), WGN and TBS were always on and the Carays (Harry and Skip) served as my voices of summer. RIP, Skip!
Hi everyone, quick question I was hoping someone could help me answer. I was trying to find somewhere that lists average innings per start for pitchers. Anyone know of one that would let me figure out the top 10 in the AL this year, etc?
Joe, I agree about Maddux, and I think that is whay you have such a crush on Banny, he tries to pitch like Greg, think like him, change speeds, all that. Maybe he will get there maybe he won’t but I like the fact he tries to get by by PITCHING, not just throwing. Great Post.
Semi-hijack — or at least a sidetrack. For all cricket followers, I’m calling Greg Maddux the Glenn McGrath of pitchers.
Reading this entry made me think back to those TBS days when the Yanks weren’t on and all you had were the Braves. I still remember to this day thinking that Greg Maddux was the one pitcher who miraculously made the batter take the strikes and swing at the balls.
Couple of things about Lendl:
1: Never saw him and Martina Navratilova in the same place at the same time
2: Ambidextrous, scratch golfer. Not kidding. Lendl shoots par both lefty and righty.
My favorite story about Maddux:
Supposedly one season — ‘97, ‘98 or so — there were two occasions when Maddux, sitting on the bench, told his teammates, “watch out, the next one is coming our way.” And both times the very next pitch resulted in a screaming liner into the dugout.
Probably bullshit, but the fact that Maddux’s teammates repeated the story somehow makes it truer than the actual truth.
That’s happened in more than one season, Brian, and it’s a story that has been told by teammates from both the Cubs and the Braves. Dunno bout the Bastards in Blue and the Pads, though.
There is one point which I think everyone would acknowledge, but I want to make anyway. While Maddux’s phenomenal success may have SEEMED like a glorious triumph of the every-man, it really wasn’t. Maddux’s phenomenal baseball intelligence, and almost superman control and ability to locate, are at a level that no matter how much you or I or almost anyone in the world worked at them we would never even come close to Maddux’s ability. He is, in his own way, just as much of a freak of nature as Randy Johnson is.
Michael – I too would appreciate a copy of said game.
Anyways, I wasn’t much of a Maddux fan growing up, mostly because I was an Indians bandwagoner in that magical 1995 season, and then Maddux & Co. promptly came in and ruined everything. However, I eventually warmed up to him, around the time when he won his 300th game. And you could say I became near-obsessed. I compiled all of his starts in Excel spreadsheets and got printouts of all of his wins via Microfiche, so I’ve read about this Yankees game, but it’s different to hear it from the best baseball writer in the country.
I like watching Maddux pitch whenever I can, but I’m at that precarious age when it’s difficult to spend time in front of MLB.TV. I’m still hoping that Maddux would make a start at the new Nationals Park, so I can finally watch him pitch in person. I’ve always wanted to ask him if he still plays Nintendo in his free time, like what he reportedly did in the 1990s.
Thank you. I still map out my week based on when Maddux pitches. Hope you start a Mad Dog Log too.
This says more about being a Royals fan, but the best pitched game I have ever seen in person was Appier against the Blue Jays. We lost 1-0 on a moonshot by Delgaldo. God, Appier was good that night, Clemens was just a little bit better.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/KCA/KCA199704300.shtml
Joe, did I miss the post explaining why Nolan Ryan wasn’t lisited?
Jerry, you’ll want to go back to the post entitled “Koufax and GREAT Pitchers”; in it, Joe lists all of the pitchers with four or more seasons with 33 Runs Saved Above Average.
Nolan Ryan doesn’t make the list. Bret Saberhagen does, Dave Stieb does, Bert Blyleven does, Phil Niekro does, Mike Mussina does. Greg Maddux is tied for second with Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove. Ryan isn’t even on the list.
People tend to forget that Ryan pitched a lot of years in situations that made his numbers look better than they were. He first became a starter in 1968, then moved to Anaheim to a good pitcher’s park, then to Houston to one of the most extreme pitcher’s parks in history.
I’m not going to say he wasn’t a Hall of Famer, but better writers than I am have questioned whether he was really one of the all-time greats.
[...] Posnanski wrote a great piece on Greg Maddux and the best piece of pitching he’s ever seen. You can read the full story here. Some of the commenters had some pretty impressive stories about Maddux from his early days with [...]
I too would dodge reponsibility for Maddux starts. But I was only 15 when this gamed happened… it was hard for me to catch every start, but from 94 – ??? I did my best.
I forgot the reasons why, but I was forced to watch this game in my mother’s room in Rhode Island. I remember sitting at the edge of the bed, not moving until the Bernie at bat.
I assume the other televisions with TBS were being used up by scheduled VCR tapings of forgetable shows. Mom’s bedroom tv was the last stop. At 19 inches, it was the less ideal screen to watch Maddux.
For years I would site that game as the best I’ve seen ever. (The best I’ve seen live was Pedro fanning 17 Braves at Fenway. THe experience was intensified, but Fenway had a lot to do with that. I also remember seeing Maddux warm-up in the bulpen at Fenway when the Braves visited Boston for interleague play. 99 I believe. I got to shake Maddux’s hand and that was the pinnacle moment of my childhood)
I talked baseball more when I lived home and was surrounded by family and friends – most of whom were former teamates. Since moving away, I find that I talk baseball less often. When I do reference my favorite game ever, I forget specific details. I simply remember it as the game Maddux shut down the MF Yankees… the one where Yankee fans got all excited for Bernie Williams to pinch hit and strike out looking… look it up.
Thanks for helping me revisit that game.
Sure is something weird about Maddux, but I’m glad enough people ‘get it.’
I was lucky enough to have been at Yankee Stadium for this game. I remember watching Maddux warm up in the bullpen before the game (we had box seats near the left field foulpole, right by the visiting team bullpen.) I don’t keep score while I am at the game but I remember being compelled to count pitches in my head as it became clear that Maddux was toying with the Yankee hitters.
I was at Dwight Gooden’s no-hitter a few years earlier and also was present when Bartolo Colon, then with the Indians, one-hit the Yankees. I have also been present for 2 different games that ended with walk-off grand slams. But I remeber this one as the most special game I was ever actualy present for. You don’t often get to see one of the best ever at this chosen profession have one of the best days he ever had.
I’ve had a mancrush on Mr. Maddux since he came to the Braves so much that I named my son Maddux in 2002. I would take a well pitched Maddux game over a well pitched Clemens game every time.
As Skip once said “He is the best folks. He is the best.” RIP Skip and there will never be another like Mad Dog.
[...] case you missed it, I wrote a post on that game not all that long ago. That was my favorite ever Greg Maddux game. And yes, I do rank my Greg [...]