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As a retirement present, Maddux was gifted a dog. Legend has it that the poor thing still hasn't been walked.

As a 54 year old, lifetime Phillies fan, I can confidently say that Maddux is the best pitcher of my lifetime.

Going in the game, in the 18th inning, was simply because they were running out of players. A player can't return to a game, once removed. So, the longer the game, the more this comes into play.

I think the best quote attributed to Maddux was, "But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision. “Except for that (expletive) Tony Gwynn.” Gwynn had a .415 batting average against Maddux.

The late 80s through early 00s have a reputation as such a hitting-friendly era, but the era also produced four of the greatest pitchers of all time: Maddux, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez. Not to mention guys like John Smoltz, Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, Tom Glavine, and Kevin Brown. There were some truly incredible pitchers in the 90s.

A couple of my favorite Maddux anecdotes. 1) During a game he wasn't pitching against the Dodgers, he was watching from the dugout as infielder Jose Hernandez took his turn at bat. After a couple of swings, he noticed Hernandez change his stance slightly. He said to a teammate, "Look out, we might need to call an ambulance for the first base coach in a second." On the next pitch, Hernandez ripped a foul ball that hit the first base coach right in the chest. 2) The video you guys watched mentioned the 1989 NLCS game against the Giants when Maddux got lit up for 8 runs. A few of those runs came from the bat of Giants first baseman Will Clark. A couple of pitches into the at-bat, Maddux and his catcher weren't on the same page, so the catcher called time and jogged out to the mound. As Clark stepped out and took a couple practice swings, and read Maddux's lips as he said to the catcher "fastball in, right?" and the catcher nodded. On the next pitch, Clark hit the inside fastball over the grandstand in right field. Maddux realized what had happened, and started covering his mouth with his glove during on-field conversations -- the way pretty much all pitchers (and other players) now do.

keep diving into more Braves greats. the trio of Smoltz, Glavine & Maddux was insane

His 5000+ innings is super underrated.

Greg Maddux faced 20,421 batters in his career. Only 133 of them saw a 3-0 count.

I grew up watching Greg pitch for the Braves in Atlanta. Love those games. ⚾

When the 1994 strike happened Tony Gwynn was hitting.394. I believe if there was no strike he would have hit .400 for the season.

his teammates in Atlanta (Smoltz and Glavine) were dominant in their own right. Those Braves teams in the 90’’s were crazy.

One of the things that set Maddux apart was although he could throw a fastball 95 mph in his prime, maybe even a little faster, he often held back a bit, saving his top speed for when he needed it. This probably contributed a lot to his durability.

Yes 1994 season is considered by many to just be a wash. Strike Started in august and caused the rest of the season to be cancelled including post season/world series. Part of the ‘95 season was also cancelled I believe. Fun fact: Greg Maddux actually pitched in the final game of the ‘94 season. Can’t remember if he was the starter or relief and if he was actually the last pitcher to throw a ball of the season but I know he did play in that game! Also another fun fact the twins traded Dave Winfield to the Cleveland Indians for a player ‘to be named later’ but the transaction couldn’t continue because of the strike, the Indians hadn’t bought his contract yet and when management had gone to dinner to workout the deal, the Indians management payed the tab, so he was essentially traded for a dinner.

That intuition and mental edge things are the most incredible to me. I've never heard if he kept detailed logs or not. But that he could analyze a pitch in a hitter in real time and know what he'd need to do the same or different the next time. Just incredible.

For most of baseball history the two leagues didn’t play each other other than the All Star Game & World Series. They had slightly different rules (until recently pitchers had to bat in the NL). Given the differences and history of no overlap, there are two of every MLB award (except gold gloves). AL & NL MVP, Cy Young, Rookie & Manager of the Year etc. Great video; even I forgot how dominant he was and I watched it unfold. Thanks gents!

I saw him pitch in person once, in the late 1990s against my SF Giants, a pretty good team at the time. He was masterful--he could place the ball anywhere he wanted--and utterly shut the Giants down.

I grew up as a Reds fan, but I watched Braves games with my Dad. Maddux controlled the game like no one else. His placement was impeccable, and his fielding of the pitching position was truly remarkable. Also, he was a pretty excellent batter by pitcher standards. The best example of an elite athlete who didn't really look like one.

7:34 they did mention. He worked on his curve ball and eventually his change up. His off speed stuff eventually became better but he had a large pitch collection and added a lot of control to all those different speeds and movements. Makes it harder to guess the pitch and if you don’t swing you go down looking

As an Expos fan, the 1994 season still pains me. Hope you guys look into it one day.

The right-left combination of Maddox and Glavin was I think the best ever including Koufax-Drysdale. Eddie Perez always caught for Maddox replacing all star catcher Javy Lopez. Thanks for the video as usual stellar.

Watching Maddux pitch will teach you what pitching at the highest level truly is. It’s outthinking the batter. Maddux was unparalleled in that respect. It’s why you see such frustrated looks on hitters’ faces, he was always one thought ahead of them and it was as if he was reading their minds. He knew exactly what pitch the batter was going to look for in what location and how they would swing to try to do what they wanted with it, and then he knew exactly what pitch to throw in order to perfectly counter all of the hitter’s mental preparations and instead make them do what he wanted with the ball. He was like a wizard. Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz on the same team was not fair.

I'm an Atlanta Braves fan. Atlanta is known as a city whose sports teams always choke. Maddux helped us win our first ever championship in any sport so we treat him like a king whenever he's in town.

I'm glad they mentioned the golden gloves. Many of his outs were ground outs back to the pitcher. In fact, many of his outs were ground outs. He depended on his defense to back him up and they did.

Yeah The Expos in 1994. I am from Montreal and I still haven't recovered from it. That team was going straight to the World Series

Was always super impressed by him when I was growing up. He constantly thwarted my Padres though (except Gwynn, who hit a ridiculous .429 lifetime average against Maddux).

I paused the OG video of this and my brain said, "Thank you for shutting this guy up for one second!".

As others have said, best pitcher of my lifetime (I was born in the early 80's). I'd say the only knock against him was it took awhile before he was solid in the playoffs. His longevity was impressive. Towards the end of his career, he wasn't nearly the pitcher he was (for obvious reasons), but the fact he lasted as long as he did after pitching so many innings is incredible.

Awesome. Can't wait to get into this one. I grew up a Braves fan and those Maddux years with the Braves were truly magical. The guy was (is) a pitching genius.

I saw pitch the ‘92 ASG in his prime, and then later in his career when he played for San Diego and LA. Even though he had lost his velocity, he was such a master of control. And he deserved those 18 Gold Gloves, he was such a good-fielding pitcher. One aspect of his game that gets unmentioned is, he was one of the best bunters I’ve ever seen, he’d lay them down in perfect spots 90% of the time. He was never a weak point in the lineup when he came up to bat.

A great video here guys! ♣ The assertion that "there will never be another Greg Maddux." is the gospel truth! It is impossible to explain just how good Greg Maddux was to people who did not see him pitch during his career. Baseball fans everywhere watched helplessly year after year as Greg would carve up MLB teams (including my LA Dodgers) like a surgeon. He, Glavine and Smoltz were as unhittable a group as I have ever seen. It didn't seem fair to have all of that talent on one team. If I was a player at that time, I would have been terrified every time I had go up to bat against him. (BTW when you see a great curve ball being thrown on TV the TV doesn't do justice to just how much movement is actually happening from the batters point of view. As a batter you are ready to bail out of the batters box because the pitch looks like its going to hit you in the face. Then it breaks in over the plate and you are frozen because it all happens in a split second and have zero time to react. At least this was my experience, and by the time I was 16 I realized I could not hit one. Pitchers would literally laugh at me after I would strike out time and time again. It was embarrassing.) The man pitched with the greatest precision I have ever seen. He could consistently stay at the edges of the strike zone with such late movement and never give you a good pitch to hit. Even the best hitters could not touch this guy. And this went on for years, where the guy just seemed to get better and better. He was a nightmare to face and as close to an automatic win as I can remember. In my opinion, Maddux was the Ace of Aces on those Braves teams. Easily one of the best 5 pitcher I have ever seen in person. He dominated baseball without throwing 100 mph like Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Kevin Brown or Pedro Martinez. Loved this one!

He's the definition of what a true pitcher is.

Coming in in the 18th inning for your first game is actually pretty prime. Everyone on the field is tired, but you're fresh and ready to go. And if you lose, who cares, they all just wanna go home at that point anyway. There's no real bad time to make your first appearance in the big leagues. Loved Maddux! Even though I'm a Brewers fan the Braves would always be on TV in my area because of the channel TBS, so I ended up follow them as much as the Brewers (and well the Brewers weren't good) throughout the decade. Even to this day whenever the Braves are good it makes me happy, not as much as seeing the Brewers good (no even close), but still puts a smile on my face.

The reason I started loving baseball how I miss these days

One of the names that is synonymous with baseball. Love to see you guys reacting.

Maddux was incredible at 'playing' with hitters at the plate. You were going to hit the ball because he wanted you to and you were going to hit it where he wanted you to. Mix that in with the control, change of speed, etc. Maddux was one of the best to ever do it.

Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine made the league change the strike zone to the now north and south strike zone from the east to west strike zone they used in that day.

I'm biased but Maddox is my favorite pitcher to watch. Mesmerizing and he went right at guys with that 88mph fastball. Go Braves!

IIRC had an entire season where he never once had a 3-0 count to a hitter. Walks were really rare for him. Glavine and Maddux both thrived on pinpoint control and lived on pitches on the “corner” of the strike zone. During the playoffs umpires tended to “shrink” their zones, and since they didn’t throw as hard, their pinpoint accuracy wasn’t as effective - forcing them to pitch more to the center of the zone.

The 18 Gold Gloves is one of the most incredible things. One of the reasons is BECAUSE he didn't throw as hard as he can, and he was always facing the batter ready to field just like an infielder, not falling off the mound.

Other than Pedro in 2000, I've never seen anyone who wasn't linked to steroids pitch as well as Maddux. His consistency was staggering.

The professor is the perfect nickname for Maddux he was amazing

Hope you guys check out Randy Johnson who's another all time great pitcher

46 year old Boston Red Sox die-hard fan here.... Maddux was the best pitcher I've seen.

Watched Greg pitch many games in Atlanta. Absolute mastery of his craft.

Damo with the inspirational words. Nick is clearly showing some big growth in his baseball understanding too. Real good video, guys!

Never heard about Maddux letting a hitter do well in a game that was already lost -- and then turn this against the hitter in a later game. Genius.

You're correct, there's a Cy Young Award, MVP, Rookie Of The Year, and Manager of the Year each for the AL and NL. For Gold Gloves and SIlver Slugger Awards, there's one each per position, per league, so there's a Golf Glvoe for AL for 1B, for NL 1B, for AL 2B, for NL 2B, etc etc.

Remember when watching this, that this was the era of Steroids. Where Bonds and McGuire hit 70+ Homer's a year. My favorite Braves pitcher was Tom Glavine. Maddux was a Genius, Smoltz had the great "Stuff"(hard to hit because of late movement). Glavine was just tenacious. His best pitch was a change up that he could throw at about 5 different speeds, from slow to OH My God that's slow. He was relentless and never gave into batters. Maddux though was like watching a guy who knew the future pitch.. it was almost like games were pre-scripted. He actually pitched to contact. He WANTED batters to hit the ball, he just made it so they hit into outs. Loved this, Braves fan since 1969. Rick Charleston SC

As a lifelong Braves fan Maddux is my vote for the greatest pitcher of all time

Great vid of one of a kind pitcher. Back to back years UNDER 2.0 ERA!!!! Under 3.0 you're a good pitcher. Also all those gold gloves (best fielder at your position). 4 CY`s in a row! Gregg was truly awesome.

Maddox was fascinating and fun to watch because he only threw around 87-90 mph. Yet, hitters rarely hit a hard ball against him. 87-90 mph was slow in major league baseball , then and now. Yet it was so hard to hit off of him.

When he tricked the catcher and snuck back to touch home to be safe mightttt be his best highlight actually

Maddux was a catcher’s dream since catchers rarely had to move their gloves whenever they caught Maddux.

The best part of watching maddux with the braves, was his off speed stuff..how he just froze batters with his off speed..they would just stand there while maddux was walking off. You could tell they were thinking what the he'll was that lol

He was a great hitting pitcher too

The Yankees vs Braves World Series matchups of the late 90’s are classics

There's a story about how he once also said that the 1B coach might need an ambulance bc the lefty batter would pull the ball and that the pitcher was throwing inside. Few pitches later the 1b coach got hit by a foul ball I personally think he actually caused many coaches to teach the wrong thing, that velocity cannot be taught but control can, but his control was just unteachable.

This didn't really get into his streak of Gold Gloves. Maddux was amazing at finishing his delivery squared up perfectly to the plate, he was always ready for anything that came back to him. I seem to remember him being regarded as a good hitter for a pitcher during his prime but could be wrong, numbers don't necessarily back that up.

i would like to say that you should read some more of the stories about him predicting what the next thing is about to happen, there are tons of stories like that.

A great fielder--probably the best ever as a pitcher fielding the ball. But his game was a combination of cerebral with a lot of pitches to choose from and really really really otherworldly control.

Watching Maddux and Pedro Martinez in the 90's was fantastic

As a Mets fan Greg Maddox is the greatest pitcher I’ve ever seen up until the 7th innng

The 1994 Strike was caused because players felt they were undercompensated in Free Agency and felt the owner were holding back on paying. So they filed an injuctuon in federal court that was upheld and forced the owners to pay out more money under a new collective bargaining agreement. This unfortunately led to the Montreal Expos going bankrupt within a decade and after selling off all of their high profile players, to move to Washington D.C. to become the Nationals in either 2004 or 2005, I believe. It's actually a very interesting topic that caused a lot of backlash from the MLB fan base as it was the longest work stoppage in baseball history. Love the content as always guys! #TheNastyOne

I’m an Atlanta Braves fan, and if Maddux was pitching, you knew you needed to get there on time. Occasionally we’d linger and have an extra beer and walk in slightly late only to find the game was already in the fourth or fifth inning. Maddux had just mowed down the opposing lineup

Quick tidbit in case you didn’t know… when there’s a “+” after the stat( ERA+ or OPS+) 100 signifies league average for that season. So if a player has a 150 then they perform 50% higher than league average in that category.

The Braves/Indians series was epic! I was actually cheering for Cleveland at the time, because my Yankees weren't there!

That starting rotation of the Braves was the greatest rotation ever, in my opinion.

Maddux did a great job of disguising his pitches. His motion was the same regardless of what he was throwing, which meant batters had less time to figure out what each pitch would do.

Madduxs control was unreal. He could put the ball exactly where he wanted to almost every single time. He's in the running for greatest pitcher of all time. It's based on what you value. If you value the best "stuff" you can go with like randy Johnson or Nolan Ryan but if you want an absolute technician there is nobody to ever do it better. One of his most overlooked traits was he was an unbelievable defender (pitchers usually aren't) he got 18 gold glove awards which is best fielder at the position in each league voted for by the coaches and managers. There are at least 2 of almost every award. 2 MVPs 2 Cy young 2 rookie of the year etc one for each league

1994. So much was going on when the strike ended the season. Tony Gwynn was batting .394 when mlb shutdown on Aug 12th and Matt Williams had 43 homeruns, do the pursuit of .400 and 61 was very doable and the expos had the best record, which to my recollection they always finished last...so a historic season ended up historic for the wrong reasons

the 4 Cy Young in a row stretch of his career was as good as it gets. nobody else like him

It's difficult to describe how good Maddux was in his prime. He was inevitable, like a slow moving freight train running towards some team tied to the tracks. If he gave up 3 runs in a game, you'd consider that an bad start; 2 walks was a very rare happening. Maddux made dominating good lineups look about as exciting as a man mowing grass.

Niiiice! Hope you watch him prank Kris Bryant now that you have context (and Kris Bryant pranking college kids before) That Braves roster with Maddux, Smoltz, Glavine, Avery was the most dominating pitching I've ever seen. We'd just gotten a team (The Rockies) and they destroyed us EVERY YEAR. And you're right, in the 18th they were probably just out of pitchers, once a pitcher leaves they can never come back.

My favorite pitcher and just a mild-mannered likable guy.

This is the guy I modeled my pitching style as from age 9 to college. I never through harder than 91 so I had to work on my control and my Change up and curveball

There are two awards, one for each league, for all of the awards except the World Series championship. BTW, the Foolish Baseball video about Maddux 78-pitch CG is worth the watch.

Yes there is a AL and NL Cy Young and MVP. There are golden gloves for every position also for both leagues. There is also a silver slugger award for each position but no one really pays attention to that. The CY Young MVP and Golden gloves are the most important individual awards in MLB. Also recognized is the al and nl batting champs (highest avg) hr champ and rbi champ. With the later three being determined statically and the others being voted on by one selected member of the media from each city that has a team.

1994 was the worst with that strike. I was 8 years old in San Diego, going to games with my dad and grandpa all the time. We were watching Tony Gwynn chasing a .400 season. The season ended early and he finished at .394. He was raising his average at the time, he would’ve had it.

Maddux is legendary for conserving pitches. He wasn’t trying to get batters swinging on strike 3, he’d get a ground out on the second or third pitches. He also had one of the funniest endorsement commercials of all time: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p7J1drB0xtjLlGw.htmlsi=4OEXLEmAsqo4sSWf And my favorite Maddux story: Barry Bonds was going to break the all-time home run record, and because of their longevity, Bonds had his most home runs against Maddux. They were schedule to face each other with Bonds closing in on the record. For years most pitchers would walk Bonds intentionally, especially not wanting to give up a record-breaking HR. Maddux went right after Bonds even with his velocity all but gone and held him to 0-3 with a strikeout. Ballsy performance from a legend.

I met Maddux once and got an autographed ball when I was very young. He was in high-A minor league ball, playing for the Peoria Chiefs. Hadn't hit the major leagues yet.

Here's what I think is one of the most insane Greg Maddux stats: during his 4 straight Cy Young seasons, he pitched more complete games (37) than he allowed home runs (33).

Born and raised in atlanta and my dad had season tickets to the braves Every year while I was growing up. The three headed monster the braves had was something to see but maddux Stood out above the rest. One of the crazy things he would do is in spring training He would purposely Hang breaking balls and Throw stuff down the middle to batters To give them the idea of he wasn't that difficult to hit against. But when the regular season rolled around He would make them look like fools lol

Runor has it that Maddux started a painting company, but it went under because customers complained when he only painted the corners.

Yes! I've been waiting gentleman!

Born and raised in Atlanta, watching that pitching staff in the 90's was amazing, too bad we had shit hitting for the most part.

Spencer Strider, also a Brave, smart as any other that played the game. He's young though and still figuring it out. But you HAVE to watch him strike out like 16 batters.

The Braves are the best team in baseball right now and I'm really enjoying catching as many games as I can this year (and the last 2-3), but I still cherish the 90's when I would come home from school and flip on TBS to see if the braves were playing and hoping if they were that Maddux, Smoltz, or Glavine were pitching Great times.

In my opinion the best pitcher ever saw. A scientist on the mound.

Maddux tried to become a house painter after retirement but failed because he could only paint the corners:) The movement on his pitches was ridiculous. You should watch the video of him pitching undercover to Chris Bryant.

There's 2 of each trophy, 1 in each league. Maddux was a huge prankster. There should be a video on it but I haven't seen it. You should check out Tony Gwynn's crazy unbelievable stats... he's one of the only players who Maddux didn't strike out with a certain amount of at bats against.

"Throwing a Maddux" - A complete game shutout under 100 pitches

He has said that stopped trying to throw hard and focus on movement and placement. The circle change and 2 seamer kept hitters off balance. And he could put that 2 seamer on the outside black almost every time. It's a great example of pitching and not just chucking it up there as hard as you can. And he was actually an exceptional athlete even though he looked like a banker.

It was said by many commentators over the years, the best pitch to hit you'll see the entire at bat is probably the first... and hitters were so afraid of looking foolish against Maddux, they'd just take the first pitch. I believe that the video just started to cover "stealing strikes."

Maddox loved pitching againat Tony Gwynn!😂

Greg Maddox boiled his pitching philosophy down to: I make the strikes look like balls and the balls look like strikes. Simple and brilliant.

Maddux was the epitome of a pitcher . He didn't have a huge 100 MPH fastball . He had pinpoint control and he studied the batters and knew how to set them up for pitches they would hit off the handle or the tip of the bat or miss-time the pitch altogether . Watching him was like taking a master class on the art of pitching .

Thankfully, I got to grow up as a Braves fan during this era.

The 1994 strike did damage to baseball fandom, and the 1998 homerun race was credited with bringing fans back. There's a legendary commercial you can look up with "chicks dig the long ball" Glavine and Maddux, jealous of McGuire and Sosa, try to become power hitters