It was tough for the two Maddux boys to find enough kids to field a complete baseball team so they created games.

"Usually we had to play 'double or nothing,'" Greg said. "We'd close off right field and anything hit to right field was a foul ball. We had a pitcher and left fielder and the pitcher threw it and then covered second, and he would try to throw the guy out before he got to second. That's how we played."

Mike remembers a lot of competition between the two. "We made each other try harder," he said. "The other guys just weren't any good."

Most of the kids in the pickup baseball games were much older than Greg, who is five years younger than Mike. Playing against the bigger, older kids may have contributed to Greg's success in the big leagues.

Major League Baseball games were broadcast on Stars and Stripes radio once a week but those games aired around 1 a.m. in Madrid. The boys would tape the game and listen to it the next day. They also read The Sporting News, but it was a week late getting across the Atlantic. (Carrie Muskat & Adam McCalvy-MLB.com-3/17/04)

Greg was a Reds fan while growing up. "I was more into Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, George Foster, Tony Perez, the Big Red Machine. I was into hitters more than pitchers. I was a Cincinnati fan," Maddux said.

So, who were the pitchers he watched?

"Orel Hershiser. Mario Soto. Dwight Gooden. Mike Morgan. My brother (Mike). I had a chance to watch David Cone and Doug Drabek. Roger Clemens. I remember noticing the starters Kansas City had at one time -- Cone, Bret Saberhagen, Mark Gubicza and Charlie Liebrandt. They were all very good and each had a different style. There's no one way to go about this," Greg said.

July 31, 2006: The Dodgers sent INF Cesar Izturi to the Cubs, acquiring Maddux.

December 5, 2006: Maddux signed a one-year, $10 million contract with the Padres. Under the terms of the deal with San Diego, Maddux's option would increase to $7.5 million if he pitches 170 innings in 2006 and $8.75 million if he pitches 185 innings.

November 5, 2007: Greg signed a one-year $10 million contract with the Padres.

His 2006 move to L.A. allowed him to return to where he witnessed his first Major League game.

"I was 5 or 6 years old and sat over by the left-field foul pole," Maddux recalled. "One of the Reds players threw me a ball during batting practice."

When P Brad Penny and Maddux were teammates on the Dodgers the last two months of 2006, they had a conversation one day that led Penny to reach a stunning conclusion: "Maddux knows my stuff better than I do."

It was really eerie who easily Maddux dissected Penny's repertoire and suggested ways to maximize it. Penny, figuring he'd taked advantage of the situation, asked Maddux to call a game for him against the Cubs. And so, on the night of September 13, 2006, Penny glanced into the dugout before every delivery and found Maddux, who signaled the next pitchc by looking toward different parts of the ballpark. Penny threw seven scoreless innings with no walks and beat the Cubs 6-0.

"Maddux probably won't tell you that story," Penny said. He wouldn't. (Tim Keown-ESPN the Magazine-April 21, 2008)

November 19, 2007: Greg and the Padres agreed on a one-year, $10 million contract.

August 19, 2008: The Dodgers sent pitchers Eduardo Perez and Michael Watt to the Padres, acquiring Maddux.

October 30, 2008: Greg filed for free agency.

November 4, 2008: Maddux' agent, Scott Boras, said that Maddux was going to retire.

Former teammate/catcher Michael Barrett spoke of the "sick intensity" that Maddux displays. "Everybody thinks Maddux is crafty and a so-called 'professor of the game,. A lot of people don't realize that in order for him to win 300 games, he had to have some kind of edge, some kind of chip on his shoulder that makes him as nasty a competitor as there is out there. That's very misunderstood about him," Barrett said, early in the 2007 season.

Greg's textbook approach actually begins with his first pitch to the hitter. Nobody gets ahead in the count any better. He gets strike one with the best of them. You can talk about pitching and mechanics all you want, but strike one is the first step to success.

In 1995, Greg became the first National League righthander to lead the league in ERA for 3 consecutive years since Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1915-17.

In 2003, as much or more than any pitcher in the game, Maddux was penalized by the enforced strike zone. For his previous 17 seasons, Greg had lived on the margins of the plate. Now, those margins changed. He could no longer rely on getting his share of groundouts off the end of the bat. Those pitches were being called balls and, as Maddux said, his stuff has never been good enough to throw over the plate. "I never made them miss," he said. "I let them hit it."

Greg admits that age has diminished his stamina. Obviously, I'm not as strong as I was a few years ago," he said. When asked if physical training might help, he replied, "It's not about the treadmill."

He seems to kind of max out at about 85 or 90 pitches, whereupon Bobby Cox would send in a relief pitcher. "It's not about pitching for my ego. We're trying to win the game," Maddux said.

D'Backs pitching coach Bryan Price likes for his pitchers to watch Maddux. "You can learn something from the way he reads hitters, which is something he does as well as anybody in the modern era.

"You can learn something from the way he uses both sides of the plate. But it's the movement that makes him so good, not velocity. He pitches a glorified Wiffle Ball game, that's what it is. I have never seen anybody make the ball move the ball to both sides of the plate the way he does. It's amazing how much movement he has in his pitches, and that is something you can't teach. Everyone would love to be able sink it, cut it and create the deception and movement he does. Not everyone can"

Greg's brother, Mike, pitching coach with the Brewers, says, "You can't dismiss Greg's physical talent. People associate the greats of this game that way -- Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver -- because they all blew gas. Greg doesn't. He does have a good fastball. The difference is his (fastball) moves so much and he can contain that movement. He can throw a pitch that's a ball the whole way till the catcher catches it, and then it's a strike. That is physical talent. That is God-given ability to command the baseball."

BREAKDOWN VS. LEFTIES AND RIGHTIES

In 2004, Greg allowed a .271 average and 22 home runs in 96 innings to lefthanded batters; and a .268 average and 13 homers in 116 innings pitched to righthanded hitters.

In 2005, lefthanded batters hit .283 with 11 home runs in 364 at-bats, and righthanded hitters hit .270 with 18 home runs in 504 at-bats off Maddux.

In 2006, Maddux allowed lefthanded hitters a .254 average with 11 home runs in 366 at-bats, while righthanded batters hit .284 with 9 homers in 443 at-bats.

In 2007, Greg allowed a .280 average with only 4 home runs in 347 at-bats vs. lefthanded hitters, while righthanded hitters had a .289 average with 10 home runs in 429 at-bats.

In 2008, lefthanded hitters hit .272 with 8 home runs in 345 at-bats, with righthanded batters posting a .271 average with 13 home runs in 406 at-bats.

Maddux's career record as of the start of the 2009 season was 355-227 with a 3.16 ERA. He had allowed 353 home runs and 4,726 hits in 5,008 innings.

When Greg won 14 games in 2007, it meant he had 13 wins for the 20th consecutive season, passing Cy Young for the major league record. He also had a streak of 59 2-3 innings without issuing a walk.

He set a record for Big League pitchers April 29, 1990 when he made 7 putouts during a 4-0 win over the Dodgers. Cub 1B Mark Grace said of Greg, "He's the best pitcher I've ever played with as far as getting over to first base."