I love Jayson Stark’s Weird & Wild columns from The Athletic. Today, the first W&W column of this year contained this gem.
IT WASN’T A MADDUX — OR WAS IT? When Sandy Alcantara spun off a spectacular 1-0 shutout against the Twins on Tuesday, it took him exactly 100 pitches. That means the nitpickers in our midst undoubtedly told you it didn’t officially qualify as “a Maddux” — because the definition of “a Maddux” is a complete-game shutout in under 100 pitches.
We protest!
Here’s the part of that gem that caught our eye: The reigning Cy Young Award winner won a 1-0 game in an hour and 57 frigging minutes — and went all nine innings!
So of course I set out to find the last time that happened. And the answer was …
Right! Greg Maddux himself. Except he did it twice in 16 days — on Aug. 20 and Sept. 5, 1995 — both times against the Cardinals (1:50 and 1:57, in that order). Now that’s a Maddux.
Some guy named Brian Anderson also made an appearance in the column as part of back-to-back homers.
Maddux was just a different Dude.I love to hear Chipper talk about him,just some hilarius stuff.there will never another like him.never seen anybody have the ball on string like he did.
He did not throw hard, but he had incredible movement on his fastball. Control was freakishly good. He was small for a pitcher, but could high jump close to 7 feet. He looked like Wally Cox, but played like Cy Young.
That was a pretty salty pitching staff. Maddox, Glavine, Smoltz and Avery. Of course Avery didn’t have the longevity of the others. Any one of those guys could give you a complete game.
Maddox was a magician on the mound. They all fielded their position and could hit too.
I wast he’s way back to the Horner, Murphy, Treadway ans Blauser says. Pendleton from the Csrds to the Braves. The SA from the Pirated Billiard, I can’t remember the catchers.
But I do remember palm ball blue light special Pitcher what’s was his name?
When I first got to the ATL in 1984 you could go the braves game(only lived 25 miles from the stadium)and spend 10$ for Field level ticket …I did several times and sat 20-30 rows behind Ted Turner.The Team was awful,wouldn’t be 5Kin the stands but was fun for me.
Pasquel Perez(missed a start driving around 285 which makes a complete circle around ATL so if you don’t exit off you will just keep going in circles lol) was with the Braves around that time.Biff Pocoroba caught for a while …Greg Olsen was Catcher when we went from worst to 1st in 91…
You had Eddie Lopez catching for a while Javy Perez caught for a long time and was very good.
Also Berryhill came along and caught some later.
I forgot about the missing start. Bobby Cox sure could make the right moves with putting players in the right spots to make things happen.
The outfielders durning that run changed a few times. Andrew Jones didn’t last a real long time.
Furcal the SS flames out after some trouble in his personal life. They were fun to follow and were really good for a long time.
Ah yes, future college basketball referee Bruce Benedict. Last Hog game he worked was in 2014. Or at least the last one in which a technical foul was called (on an opposing player), per HogStats.