THE MADDOG TO HANG 'EM UP

On Monday, Greg Maddux will announce his retirement from baseball. While the Bulldog has fallen into oblivion over the last six, seven years, he has accomplished things that will never be reached again. He won 15 or more games over 17 straight years that enabled him to finish with 355 victories in his career. From 1992-98, Maddux put up some of the best numbers the game has ever seen. Those were validated with four straight Cy Young Awards during this time frame.

Despite those mind-boggling feats, I have never been a big Maddux fan. No one can dispute those great seasons, but he was never a big time playoff performer. He also had a tendency of taking himself out of games after only throwing 60-70 pitches, and some of those were games in which he was dominating. So while Maddux is definitely a first-ballot Hall of Famer, I never considered him to be on the level of Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez in their hey day. Those are the best two pitchers I've ever seen. I would be stupid not to take Maddux over the long haul of a season, but there are countless pitchers I'd take over him in a one game scenario.

Like I said though, I can't dispute Maddux's numbers, and he is clearly the one that got away. After coming up in the Cubs system, it was one of the most crushing moments of my sports life watching him sign with the hated Atlanta Braves. He returned to Chicago in 2004, but that's like Arod getting lucky the current day Madonna. It will be interesting to see if Tom Glavine and John Smoltz decide to hang it up as well. It would be fitting to see those three pitchers go in the Hall of Fame together.

Pat Morgan