Retirement ceremony for him and Fergie on Opening Day?

No pitcher is going to get to that mark ever again. I’m pretty certain he did not use any performance enhancing drugs.

one more season and he could end up 5th on the all time wins list.

Maddux himself has made similar statements for years. It may be more likely than not but no done deal.

talk about a class act and the professor of baseball.

Any team in need of a pitching coach? I can think of at least a few.

Sent from a fellow Maddux obsessed friend. This from TODAY’S live ESPN chat with Josh Hamilton

Mike (Connecticut): Josh, who is the toughest pitcher you’ve faced in your career?

SportsNation Josh Hamilton: (1:54 PM ET ) I hate to admit it, but Greg Maddux. Throws 85, and it looks like it’s coming right down the middle, and you swing, and your bat explodes. You say to yourself, how could that have happened. you’ll look at video, and when the ball is halfway there, and you’ve started your swing, the ball moves about two feet.

…reading quotes from Greg. What a class act that guy is, I almost feel like crying.

He is my all-time favorite Cub. I am just happy I got to live through 2 tours of duty with Maddux as a Cub. I aspire to meet the man someday and have a cup of coffee with him.

A living legend is no longer playing. I am fortunate to have seen him pitch twice (once as a Cub in 05, and once as a Padre in 07).

…I remember it pretty well. Standing-O as he walked off the mound, he also hit safely on a hit-and-run I believe in the 6th. I wish I had a better pic, the one from the front shows him walking off the mound and his face is wrinkled up in a twisted cocktail of disappointment and honor.

him throw that two seamer.

If there were any pitchers with more smarts and instincts about how to play and pitch the game the way it should be, I don’t know of them ..

Maddog .. whattaguy .. A moment of silence needs to be held at 3:55 pm on Opening Day at Wrigley in 2009 if he doesn’t come back.

anyone on earth. He never had great stuff, be he understands what pitch to throw in any situation. The will probably never be anyone who got more out of less and at the top of his game, there was none better. He just knows how to get batters out. He understands that hitting is about timing and good pitching upsets timing.

I will say this without any bias—-maddux is the greatest player to ever grace the game in my eyes.

My next statement is this—fire rothschild and hire the maddog as our pitching coach!

I could watch him pitch all day. Always a pitcher, never a thrower. He is the master pitcher of our generation.

More from Boras

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081104&content_id=3664022&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.js

Seems fitting.

This is the boxscore of the first MLB game I ever got to go too. I was nearly 12, and I thought it was sooooo cool. Greg Maddux was the Cubs starter. I heard a rare event happened at this game. Ozzie Smith hit a homer (yeah, that’s pretty rare too) batting left-handed. A guy I was with told me that the only other time he did that was in the ’85 World Series. It was the shot everyone remembers… still, I remember this homer more because it was the first home run I ever saw at a MLB game. Also, Maddux got the win….

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN198806120.shtml

Not too bad. Your first MLB game and you get to see one of the greatest pitchers ever. I’m proud of that.

If he is not interested in being a full time coach I want his brain somehow involved in the Cubs organization. Maybe as a PT consultant? Maybe even as an assignment pitching coach (being called in to work with prospects or such which I believe is how Davis started with the org.)

He might do like Dunston and Dawson. Keeping their feet in the game but not FT until the kids are all out of high school.

I should post it on Youtube a tribute I made to Maddux to the song “Like A Rock” on the occasion of his 300th win.