Writing the Pine

If you were to quiz baseball fans on who they thought were the three most dominant pitchers in the past quarter-century, not a single person would leave Greg Maddux off his list. At first thought, you may be skeptical about my selection of Greg Maddux. Maddux is perhaps the greatest precision pitcher in history to ever take the mound and dominated hitters by studying their weaknesses. He overmatched his opponents with mental toughness and accuracy rather than physically overpowering them. Maddux is the owner of four consecutive Cy Young Awards and 18 Gold Glove Awards – all obtained without ever pitching a 100-mph fastball.

He’s won 15 or more games in 17 consecutive seasons. If his legacy were to be tainted by PED-abuse, it would be more shocking than it was for Roger Clemens (look at his pictures from his Sox/Jays days and compare them to his Yankee days… He and Bonds are the perfect examples of us baseball fans closing one eye and optimstically, and illogically, hoping that our enormous superhuman baseball stars were accomplishing great feats without PEDs) or Randy Johnson (another great pitcher who dominated the past quarter-century, but he possessed more overpowering “stuff” than Maddux). Fans and players alike claim that the past two decades have been clouded by PED-abuse, but everyone has their own list of players that they think have never taken PEDs. If a player of Maddux’s size, stature and non-power playing style were to be guilty of PED-abuse, it would be ground breaking and no one will EVER be safe from the cloud of the “steroid era” ever again.