Hummm, Babe!

Lucky finally got Number 300. My favorite pitcher in the Bigs made it into the Hall of Fame. Greg Maddux (or Lucky, as his family calls him) is an old geezer—as a major league pitcher—and his days in the Show (the majors) are numbered. Lucky is a precision pitcher and I think that he was called Lucky because his pitches looked hittable, but Lucky just put his pitches barely out of reach. Greg Maddux thinks before he throws, but the ol' bod won't do at 38 what it did at 28. Lucky has come full circle back to the Chicago Cubs. I'm pulling for the Cubs to win it all (for the first time since 1908) so that Lucky can go out in style. I'm sorry that Harry Caray (the voice of the Cubs) didn't live to see it. If this is (fair & balanced) sycophancy, so be it.

[x NYTimes]
Fittingly, Team Effort Lifts Maddux to Mark
By VITTORIO TAFUR

The Cubs' Greg Maddux
became the 22nd pitcher
to win 300 games,
despite giving up four runs
on seven hits and three
walks on Saturday.
 
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 7 - All week, Greg Maddux said he was not going to get too worked up about his 300th victory.

His job, taking the mound every fifth day, was about team, not about him, he said. Which is a good thing, because Maddux's 300th victory Saturday had very little to do with him.

He struggled for five-plus innings, allowing four runs, seven hits and three walks, but he emerged victorious when the Chicago Cubs scored two runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings and defeated San Francisco, 8-4, at SBC Park.

"It was fitting," Cubs Manager Dusty Baker said. "It was a team victory. You don't win 300 games with your best stuff out there every time."

Maddux is the 22nd pitcher in major league history to win 300 games, and the first National Leaguer to do it since Steve Carlton 21 years ago.

A 38-year-old right-hander, Maddux improved to 11-7, and more important, he would say, the victory put Chicago three games ahead of San Francisco in the wild-card race.

San Diego, which played later Saturday, was a game and a half back.

Maddux wasn't on the bench at the end of the game (he never is) and didn't crack a big smile until after his postgame news conference, when teammates gave him a Champagne and light-beer shower.

"I didn't pitch all that good," said Maddux, who has averaged just under 16 victories a season during his 19-year career. "It was a total team effort."

The Cubs (61-49), who ruined Giants pitcher Brad Hennessey's major-league debut, have won five of six since trading for shortstop Nomar Garciaparra last week.

Maddux clearly did not have his best stuff from the start, but managed to survive a 29-pitch first inning

He gave up a triple to Ray Durham, a walk to J. T. Snow and a double to Edgardo Alfonzo, but was only behind by 1-0 after A. J. Pierzynski fouled out.

The Giants added two runs in the third when Alfonzo followed a Snow single and a Barry Bonds walk with a single to right.

That scored Snow, but Bonds was nailed at third trying to advance on the throw home. He would have scored, along with Alfonzo, on Pierzynski's double, which made the score 3-0.

Maddux left in the sixth ahead, 6-3 - to a standing ovation from the crowd of 42,578 - with two on and nobody out after Alfonzo and Pierzynski singled. Deivi Cruz singled off reliever Jon Leicester to drive in Alfonzo, but the Cubs' bullpen held the Giants scoreless the rest of the way.

Maddux, succeeding in his second attempt to get 300, admitted to being relieved that the quest for the milestone was over. Not that it was a long quest. Asked when winning 300 games became a goal, he answered, "When I got to 299."

He added, "I am just relieved that we can put it behind us, and do what we can now to get to the postseason."

Hennessey did not throw a pitch in 2002, missing a minor-league season because of two back operations. He had benign tumors below his neck, near his spine, and he needed two procedures to have them removed and his top two vertebrae fused.

A 24-year-old right-hander who was the team's top draft pick in 2001, he was called up by the pitching-poor Giants on Friday after walking seven batters in his latest start for Class AAA Fresno.

He was rolling along, allowing one hit and striking out Sammy Sosa in his first two at-bats, until the fourth inning, when the Cubs' formidable lineup woke up.

Aramis Ramirez doubled to right, Derrek Lee singled to right and Todd Walker drove them home with a double to right. That made the score 3-2, and Hennessey held on until the fifth, when Ramirez drove in Garciaparra with a two-out single to tie the score, and Lee knocked Hennessey out and Ramirez in with a double off the right-field wall.

The Cubs made the score 6-3 on Corey Patterson's two-run homer off Tyler Walker in the sixth, and Moises Alou put the game away with a two-run homer off Brett Tomko in the ninth.

Maddux, who got his 200th career victory against San Francisco in 1998, likely will not look back and let it all sink in until he is done playing. He knows he is in select company, with his 300-170 record, but prefers to focus on his next start, which will come on Friday against the Dodgers.

"I like to look ahead," Maddux said. "I never really look back. Pitching every fifth day, with four days off in between, is a good gig. It really is. To be able to pitch as long as I have is really special."

INSIDE PITCH

The last pitcher to reach 300 victories was Roger Clemens, who did it last year with the Yankees. Greg Maddux is a big fan. "I think basically we're the same kind of pitcher," he said. "We just throw at different speeds. We're doing the same thing on the mound, just subtract 10 miles per hour." Maddux, who was 38 years 115 days old Saturday, is the fourth-youngest 300-game winner. The three youngest are Christy Mathewson (31 years 328 days), Walter Johnson (32 years 190 days) and Grover Alexander (37 years 207 days). Steve Carlton did it when he was 38 years 275 days old. Barry Bonds flew out twice to the warning track against Maddux. He has more at-bats (121), home runs (8) and walks (23) against Maddux than any other hitter.

Copyright © 2004 The New York Times Company