Greg Maddux

First, let me say, I am one of the top 10 biggest Greg Maddux fans.  The other nine would be his wife and children, siblings and parents.   And because big bro Mike is the pitching coach for my beloved Texas Rangers, in baseball terms, we are practically family.

I was  a Braves fan in the 90’s because they were on TV every night so I got attached to their little but mighty pitching staff—Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Steve Avery.    No Big Unit arms in the bunch but consistently good pitching all around.  Yesterday Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas were announced as Hall of Fame inductees.  All great choices.  And Crag Biggio was .2 points from getting in too.  Maddux got the highest percentage of votes, 97.2 percent.   One of the baseball writers who did not give Maddux a vote says he knew he was a shoe in and wanted to make a statement that because he pitched in the PED era of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa…etc…that everyone from the era’s rep was stained.   Maybe I’m crazy but wouldn’t pitching to the steroid crew and winning 355 games, 4 Cy Young awards and 18 Gold Gloves  and absolutely not a sniff of controversy attest even more to his greatness? 

I remember reading that they did a survey in the league:  Who has the best fastball?  The best curve?  Who threw the hardest?  None of the answers were Greg Maddux until you got to the Who is the best pitcher in baseball?  Then his name was everywhere.  The man was an artist. Not a fancy, showy one.  Not one no hitter thrown his entire career.  But everyone knew how good he actually was.   Even the idiot baseball writer.  Heck, if you were not going to give him your vote, you should have given it to Craig Biggio!!  He deserves to be there too.

I hope to go to Cooperstown someday.  And now I can hang with the greatest pitcher I’ve ever seen.  I’ll get my picture taken with his picture.