Greg Maddux

Baseball Player

• Born: April 14, 1966
• Place of Birth: San Angelo, Texas

SPORT: Baseball

Early Life

Gregory Alan Maddux was born in San Angelo, Texas, in 1966. As his father was a career military servicememberMaddux’s family lived in many different places. His father began teaching him how to play baseball at the age of five. He played Little League baseball in Madrid, Spain.

In 1984, Maddux graduated from Valley High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. During his junior and senior seasons, he was an all-state baseball player. His career-long traits were evident early on. Maddux had amazing control rather than overwhelming velocity while pitching. Opting not to attend college, The Chicago Cubs selected Maddux in the second round of the 1984 Major League Baseball (MLB) draft.

The Road to Excellence

Maddux spent three seasons in the minor leagues prior to joining the Cubs in September 1986. One of the first games he pitched in the major league was against his older brother Mikea rookie pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. The occasion marked the first time rookie brothers had ever pitched against each other in the major leagues. To his great delight, Maddux defeated his older brother.

His first full season in the 1987 campaign was disappointing for Madduxhe compiled a 6-14 record and a hefty 5.61 earned run average (ERA). However, after following the advice of Cubs pitching coach Dick Pole to concentrate on making good pitches instead of trying to retire every batter, he had an excellent 1988 season. He was selected as a member of the National League (NL) all-star team and finished the season with an 18–8 mark and a 3.18 ERA. Four more excellent seasons ensued with the Cubs, culminating in 1992, when he won twenty games and the Cy Young Award.

The Emerging Champion

Maddux became a member of the Atlanta Braves when he signed as a free agent after the 1992 season. Joining a pitching rotation that already included Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery, Maddux soon emerged as the ace of the staff. In 1993 he pitched against the Cubs in Wrigley Field on Opening Day and won the game. In his first season with the Braves, he won twenty games, posted a 2.36 ERA, and won the Cy Young Award for the second straight year.

In the strike-shortened season of 1994, Maddux won sixteen games, pitched ten complete games, and claimed the Cy Young Award for the third year in a row. No one had previously won the award more than two consecutive years. His 1.56 ERA set a record for the Braves and was the third best in Major League Baseball since 1919.

Maddux had another remarkable year in 1995, compiling a 19–2 record and a 1.63 ERA. He became the first player since Walter Johnsonin 1919to pitch back-to-back seasons with an ERA below 1.70. For an amazing fourth consecutive year, he won the Cy Young Award. According to Maddux, his greatest moment in sports came when the Braves won the 1995 World Series against the the Cleveland Indians. Maddux pitched a brilliant two-hitter against the potent Indians’ offense in game one. Although the Indians defeated Maddux in game five, the Braves won the series in six games.

Although Maddux did not win another Cy Young Award, he continued to be one of the finest and most consistent pitchers in baseball. In 1996, he slipped to a 15–11 record but still maintained an excellent 2.72 ERA and helped lead the Braves to the World Series again. This time, the Braves would lose to the New York Yankees. In 1997 he compiled a 19–4 record and a 2.20 ERA. The 1997 season marked his tenth consecutive in which he had won at least fifteen games. In 232 innings pitched, he gave up only 20 walks, six of which were intentional. In 1998, he won his fourth ERA title with a 2.22 mark and struck out a career-high 204 batters. He also appeared in his seventh all-star game. In the following 1999 season, he won nineteen games and the Braves returned to the World Series, where they once again lost to the Yankees. Maddux finished the 1990s with a 2.54 ERA, the third-lowest ERA in any decade since the early 1900s, behind only Hoyt Wilhelm’s 2.16 and Sandy Koufax’s 2.36.

Maddux spent four more seasons with the Atlanta Braves and won another 68 games before signing as a free agent with the team that had originally drafted himthe Chicago Cubs. By this time his ERA hovered around 4.00. This was about 1.5 runs higher than in his glory days. Nonetheless, he was still a pitcher who could be counted on to be healthy, pitch over 200 innings per year, and keep his team in games. He gave the Cubs two and a half seasons where he reached the three-hundred-win and three-thousand-strikeouts milestones. In 2006, Maddux was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he helped clinch a playoff berth. He signed with the San Diego Padres for the 2007 season and compiled a 14–11 record and a 4.14 ERA while garnering another Gold Glove Award for defense. In 2008, near the end of the regular season, Maddux was traded back to the Dodgers and again helped the team clinch a playoff spot. During the playoffs, he pitched four scoreless innings for the Dodgers to wrap up his playing career. After the season ended he learned that he had won his eighteenth Gold Glove Award, adding to his record number.

Continuing the Story

After announcing his retirement in December, 2008, the forty-two-year-old Maddux could look back on his playing career with great satisfaction. He had won 355 games, four Cy Young Awards, a record eighteen Gold Glove Awards, and a World Series Championship. He had also passed Cy Young in the record books by winning at least thirteen games per season for twenty consecutive years. George Castle, in his book Throwbacks: Old-School Baseball Players in Today’s Game, entitled his chapter on Maddux “The Smartest Man in Baseball.” This was a reference to the veteran’s encyclopedic knowledge of opposing hitters. He not only studied hitting tendencies in game film, but he also had an uncanny ability to judge what the batter was going to do before he did it.

Knowing hitting tendencies, having a fastball with movement, possessing the ability to change speeds, and rarely walking batters all contributed to Maddux's continued success beyond his prime athletic years. He once told an interviewer that pitching was simply the art of “messing up” a batter’s timing. Apparently he continued to have that artistic touch late into his career. Although he did not dominate the 2000s as he did the 1990s, his yeoman’s work and invaluable intelligence and leadership persuaded contending baseball teams to continue to employ the future hall of famer.

Another factor in Maddux's success was physical competitiveness. He was arguably the best fielding pitcher ever. From 1990 to 2008 he won the Gold Glove Award for NL pitchers every year except one. He was extremely durable, with only fifteen days out of his entire twenty-three-season career spent on the disabled list—all in one stint in 2002. He also was one of the best hitting pitchers in the game.

Maddux and his wife, Kathy, who attended the same high school, became actively involved in community affairs in Las Vegas. The pair starting the Greg Foundation, which was involved in several charitable activities. The couple had two children, Amanda and Chase. Maddux also remained involved in baseball, working as an assistant in the Cubs organization beginning in 2010 before moving to the Rangers in 2012 and the Dodgers in 2016. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 and his plaque bore an unmarked cap due to his loyalty to both the Cubs and the Braves. Both organizations had retired his number thirty-one jersey in 2009.

Maddux remained active in baseball following his playing days. He joined both the Texas Rangers and the L.A. Dodgers in advisory roles and served as the pitching coach for the 2013 Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. He continued in this capacity for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (2016) where he helped coach his son. The Ranges would win the World Series this year. In 2024, The MLB Network released the documentary MLB Presents: One of a Kind, starring Maddux.

Summary

Greg Maddux was one of the most successful and durable pitchers in MLB history, with the eighth-most wins of all time and a .610 winning percentage upon retirement. With the exceptional movement he put on a baseball and pinpoint control rather than hard-throwing flash, he was the most dominant pitcher in the 1990s. An emblem of consistency, he won the Cy Young Award an unprecedented four consecutive years, led the Atlanta Braves to division titles every year he pitched for them, and won a World Series ring.

Bibliography

Castle, George. Throwbacks: Old-School Baseball Players in Today’s Game. Washington, DC, Brassey’s, 2003.

Christopher, Matt. On the Mound with Greg Maddux. Boston, Little, Brown, 1997.

Gardner, Steve. "Hall of Fame Pitcher Greg Maddux to Be Featured in Next MLB Network Documentary. USA Today, 4 June 2024, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2024/06/04/greg-maddux-featured-in-upcoming-mlb-network-presents-documentay/73968069007. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

"Greg Maddux." National Baseball Hall of Fame, 2024, baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/maddux-greg. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

"Greg Maddux." ESPN, 2024, www.espn.com/mlb/player/bio/‗/id/1800/greg-maddux. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Kisseloff, Jeff. Who Is Baseball’s Greatest Pitcher? Chicago, Cricket, 2003.

McDonnell, Wayne G. "New Greg Maddux Documentary Celebrates Prestige of Starting Pitchers." Forbes, 24 Aug. 2024, www.forbes.com/sites/waynemcdonnell/2024/08/24/new-greg-maddux-documentary-celebrates-prestige-of-starting-pitchers/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Miller, Scott. "The Maddux Brothers Want Their Pitchers to Laugh." The New York Times, 6 March 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/sports/baseball/greg-mike-maddux-rangers.html. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.

Saccoman, John. The Most Dominating Starting Pitcher of All Time? Cleveland, Society for American Baseball Research, 1998.

Torres, John A. Greg Maddux: Ace. Minneapolis, Lerner, 1997.

Wilbert, Warren N. What Makes an Elite Pitcher? Young, Mathewson, Johnson, Alexander, Grove, Spahn, Clemens, and Maddux. Jefferson, McFarland, 2003.