Sunday, Aug. 25 at 8 p.m.
ET, MLB Network Presents returns with another must-watch special for die-hard baseball fans. It's "One of a Kind," the story of Greg Maddux. Maddux finished his 23-year career with 355 wins, 3,371 strikeouts and over 5,000 innings.
He won four Cy Youngs and four ERA titles. Through a heightened offensive era, he posted mind-boggling pitching stats and is widely considered one of the best pitchers ever. He received 97.
2% of the vote in his first chance on the Hall of Fame ballot, flying in with one of the highest vote totals ever. CBS Sports got the chance to watch an advanced screening of the special and it's well worth your time, assuming you're a big baseball fan (otherwise, why would you still be reading this?). As always, with these specials, the behind-the-scenes stories are what make this so fun.
Maddux has two nicknames that were pretty widely used. One is "Mad Dog" which basically was just derived from his last name. I prefer "The Professor," because it's a perfect encapsulation of Maddux.
Not only did he look more like a college professor than one of the greatest baseball players ever, but he was a cerebral assassin on the mound. We've all heard the stories for years and this special tells several very good ones. Here's a clip that sums it up rather nicely with his personal catcher from those days, Eddie Perez, taking part in the explanation of why Maddux essentially allowed Jeff Bagwell to hit a home run.
That's the good stuff. Maddux had a.