December 8, 2008

| Piglet Agonistes >>

Greg Maddux is retiring, after 355 wins, four Cy Young awards for pitching, and 18 (!) Gold Glove awards for fielding. (Maddux has more wins than any living pitcher; does he have more Gold Gloves than any living player?)

The NYT story also links to this appreciation by sportswriter Joe Posnaski, who breaks down Maddux pitch-by-pitch in a 1997 Braves-Yankees game. I especially like his reading of Maddux’s fluttering “wiffleball” cut fastball; the way Maddux earned and got deferential treatment from umps; how three pitches strikes out Tino Martinez, who “was so baffled during this at-bat it was probably better to just send him back to the dugout where it was safe”; and how he managed to retire Mark Whiten:

When Maddux was going good, the only way anyone seemed likely to get a hit off him was if they could somehow fist his up-and-in fastball over an infielder