The best, smartest pitcher I have ever seen has officially retired. If I were a GM, I’d make Maddux the highest paid pitching coach in the game.
Tim Keown’s wonderful ESPN the Mag feature from earlier explains the awe-inspiring legend of Greg Maddux:
How many times had he heard someone say it? How many times over the past 22 years had some catcher or coach or broadcaster said, “Greg Maddux? I bet you could catch him with your eyes closed”? Sounded plausible enough, maybe coaxed a chuckle or two from the pitcher, but mostly it was just something to say. Nobody realized it was just a matter of time before somebody decided to prove it.
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Right. But when Brad Penny and Maddux were teammates on the Dodgers, during the last two months of 2006, they had a conversation one day that led Penny to reach a stunning conclusion: This guy knows my stuff better than I do. It was eerie, really, how easily Maddux dissected Penny’s repertoire and suggested ways to maximize it. Penny, figuring he’d take advantage of the situation, asked Maddux to call a game for him against the Cubs. And so, on the night of Sept. 13, Penny glanced into the dugout before every delivery and found Maddux, who signaled the next pitch by looking toward different parts of the ballpark. Penny threw seven scoreless innings with no walks and beat the Cubs 6-0. “Maddux probably won’t tell you that story,” Penny says. He’s right.
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With the Cubs, the story goes, Maddux once sat in the dugout and watched José Hernández of the Dodgers set up in the batter’s box. After two pitches, Maddux turned to the guys around him and said, “We might have to call an ambulance for the first base coach.” On the next pitch, Hernández whipped a shot that hit first base coach John Shelby in the chest.
