Greg Maddux: The Smartest Pitcher In History

[@bravehome4276]

Maddux once setup a player in the regular season by purposely throwing him a pitch in the batter's wheelhouse (slightly inside) for a homerun (Braves were way ahead in the game). He told his catcher he did this so that when they met in the playoffs, the player would look for that pitch again -- which he never threw. Greg was always thinking 10 steps ahead....

[@lpluva1]

Pretty sure that was Jeff Bagwell, dude didn't even know how to play Checkers and he's facing a Grandmaster Chess player.

[@redsky8763]

Getting out of Chicago was a blessing for him. Heck, it's a blessing for most sports figures.

[@bravehome4276]

Unless you're a Bulls/Jordan era player :)

[@caseyjones9359]

Nineteen sixty six looks like 1996 apparently.

[@jamesrichardson381]

Had Maddux been a shortstop he would have won all those gold gloves there as well. He is by far the best defensive pitcher of all-time, like to the extent that it would be silly to pose the question. It's been so long since he pitched, I forgot how much his 2-seamer moved. It looks like an optical illusion. As a Braves fan I remember watching then and knew he was the ace but to part of me he will always be the pitcher whom when he pitched I wouldnt get to see Javy Lopez catch.

[@brandocalrissian3294]

Best athlete to come out of Vegas. Yes, better than Agassi or Bryce harper.

[@Matthew00049]

@4:00 he didn't drag his feet with the Cubs offer. He signed a 5 year $25 million dollar contract before the 1992 season started. The Cubs got cold feet and decided not to sign on their end and pulled the offer. Maddux told them if they didn't sign him now then he might as well go ahead and finish the season and talk to other teams. They had their chance and blew it. It was the Cubs that dragged their feet. Needless to say Larry Himes was never a GM again. He got demoted to a scout.

[@RTaulbee-n6n]

Circle change was filthy, he could put a flame out on a candle and not miss... And do it multiple times. What he did was fool every batter, he created a science of it and unfortunately nobody will be able to reciprocate this and highly doubtful there will be another 300 game winner

[@danieljohns1859]

THE BEST PERIOD

[@ryanrankin9555]

He was actually from Westport, Indiana.

[@ryanduhaime]

He moved around a bit but you aren't wrong. He is a 3rd cousin from my mother's side. Most my mom's side live in Westport or now Indy. I've seen his parents at reunions and have met him a couple of times. There are still family reunions there known as Moffests (my mother's maiden name) several times a year. Great little corner of the world with even greater people. I still visit and stay with my grandfather in Westport.

[@JesusIsOneOfOne]

How do they get the captions so wrong all the time

[@tomcooper6108]

Winningest righthander, 355, that ever played in the liveball era. There was one other Braves pitcher who had 363 wins and is the winningest lefthander.....Warren Spahn. Both are heads above anyone else who has ever pitched.

[@rentslave]

Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove would disagree.

[@hofmm]

Amazing

[@jgamez5023]

Texas baby !

[@Hjaal904]

How do you miss the 1996 mistake?

[@1luckybasstard887]

This has to be the worst AI generated tributes to one of the best live-ball era pitchers. The poorly worded, choppy delivery, is hard to stomach. Very uninspiring.😢

[@rentslave]

Mickey Morandini.

[@richdouglas2311]

The Maddux Magic was that his release point was the same for each type of pitch. Because hitters have such a short period of time to decide whether or not to swing (5 one-hundredths of a second), they do so with their "fast brains"--without conscious thought. See the ball, hit the ball. That means they're often reacting to the pitcher's release point. But this was impossible to do with Maddux, since his fastball, curve, change-up, and slider all emerged from the same release point. This left hitters guessing. They usually guessed wrong.