Hall of Famer Greg Maddux Talks Pranks, Bonds, & More w/Dan Patrick | Full Interview | 1/17/19"

Greg Maddux will join us for the first-ever Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions, the first game of the LPGA season scheduled for this weekend. Greg participates among the 50 celebrities you have John Smoltz, Roger Clemens, Larry Fitzgerald and, of course, Greg Maddux, who joins us on the show. Greg, thanks for joining us. Good morning, what kind of photo would you be at today's baseball game? Well, you know, that's very hard to say, you know, I think you grow up learning to pitch one way and as you get older you know how to start pitching. to change it up a little bit, you know, I think you know, I was taught to throw strikes and get hitters out of the strike zone and now the pitch is, uh, kind of turned in the other direction, where they're trying to get hitters out. of the strike zone. zone so I think you know, I don't know if I would adapt him to that or not, you know, I'd like to think he could, but who knows what would happen, but you came up, he's a pretty strong pitcher, I don't know. what was the maximum of your fastball, but you know if you threw 95 or 96 and then something changed and you became a different style of pitcher, yeah, I think you know I threw hard enough when I was younger and you know you learned. that you know it's not so much the speed, his location and the ability to change gears and I think you know he had a better chance of winning if he pitched two locations for the hitters' weaknesses rather than just coming back and leaving it. fly and you wanted to catch the batter, the batter was going to come out like you didn't.

I mean, that's how you won 18 Gold Gloves because you expected them to fight the ball, that was the strategy, well, it was just the way it was, it wasn't necessarily the strategy, you know, I didn't really swing or miss things. , you know, so I had to rely on trying to keep the ball in front of the fielders, you know, I wasn't really worried. Giving up singles and stuff, but I did my best to try to keep the ball in front of the outfielders and you know, not walk anybody and you know, get him three singles to score.

I also look at these starters and it feels like you go five, you did a great job, I mean we have this quality starting standard, are we pampering the pitchers too much here? Well, you know, the quality start, you know, I would love to see it be seven innings and three or fewer runs, I mean, you know. a four and a half was a is uh you know that's average maybe slightly below average you know you think you'd like to know that you have to do better at four and a half runs a game to be considered quality you know that's the hardest to Your career, well, there were a lot of them, Dan, I mean, there was one or two guys on each team that beat me up pretty good, you know, Luis Gonzalez, Mickey Morandini, Tony Gwynn, I mean, you could pick a team. and I'll give you two guys that were tough to get out, you know that for me personally and you know, fortunately, you beat the lineups and not the hitters, you know sometimes you have to pick your fights and know where. your 27 outs are how did you do against Bonds?

Did you know? I didn't do well against them in the first half of the race in the second half of the race. I did pretty well against him. Know? I think he was easily the best hitter. in baseball, I mean, he, he, he was the guy when I played and you know, like I said, you gotta pick your fights, oh, you know, you think you gotta do what you can to take out Jeff Kim and the rest of the boys. I got you striking out 16 times in your career, that's the most of any pitcher versus Bonds.

Congratulations Greg, well you know what, thanks, but you know, I think it took me over a hundred and to do that, I think if some guys had done it. I faced them as much as I did, they probably would have struck out a lot

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. I remember having conversations with Smoltz and Glavine and they talked about Tony Gwynn and they just said that sometimes it didn't matter what you could say to him. what you were throwing like you were there didn't matter did you ever get that feeling like it didn't matter what I know what didn't matter mattered because you wanted to keep it in a single usually if you kept the ball down as it moved away from him.

Very rarely would you allow a double and you know he goes back into losing lineups. You know you had to get Ken Caminiti out after him. If he did it, you'd be fine. how much baseball was, Tony was easily the best pure hitter in baseball, you know, he very rarely swung and missed how much baseball are you involved in now, how much do you watch? Well, you know what I don't see in its entirety. I saw a lot a little. I'll definitely watch the postseason last year. I enjoyed it, but now I'm the volunteer coach at UNLV.

This will be my third year there and you know my son goes there. I have the opportunity to coach him and then 17 other pitchers and it's kind of a part-time job, we only play 50 games, we only practice five days a week and it's not eight 10-hour days like in the Pro Bowl, so that I'm enjoying. that I have the opportunity to stay in the game and at the same time try to pass on what I learned. Can you show your style? You can absolutely teach it. You know you know you teach the style. Style is style.

I hope the boys do it. or throw 95 and not 85, you know what I mean, I mean, it's just a philosophy about knowing how to be able to locate your fastball and change speeds, you know, and the pitcher who does it best will win, it's not always a speed contest. . You know the strongest pitcher doesn't always win, the best pitcher wins and I think that's going to continue to be the case as long as we play baseball, but you know guys do it nowadays, you know fastballs are electric and you know. you're seeing 97-98, you're even seeing a hundred from a couple of guys and the speed is impressive, man, I sit on my couch and watch it and go, these guys are sucking, you know? and I've got the nasty sliders for Go ahead and it's hard to hit right now, this is Greg Maddux, the big famous, four-time Siyoung winner, 18-time Gold Glove winner, joining us, but one of the most statistic What I found out is that Greg has 14 successful stolen base attempts 11 times, yeah, thanks.

It was a lot of fun, you know, I think you know, I think Chipper caught me twice at third base, it was a first and a second 3 2, count one, you know, he's kind of an easy target coming into third, so, yeah , would surprise and run. on the bases and you know if you have the opportunity to stay on a base and they don't hold you down or pay attention to you, why don't you try to take advantage of it? No, I can't lie to you, you didn't look very quickly. You don't have to be faster even being a point guard, sometimes you know, especially if you're on the back of a double robbery, you don't have to be that fast at all, oh yeah, well, yeah, unfortunately I was on the back end. front of Those, have they ever played a joke on you?

Since you were one of the

pranks

ters of yesteryear, someone understands you. You know, they gave me what I learned from looking at ridiculous clothes and shoes on airplanes. About it, you know, there's just a lot of verbal insults and abuse like that and it's all in good fun, you know? But you know we have fun with each other and you know sometimes what goes around comes around, so you know it's a long season. and you do things to keep yourself relaxed and have fun and you know Smoltz was good at that and Steve Avery was good at that those guys back in the day and you know I used to sit back and watch and enjoy, give me what you can actually tell us on the air what it is did you I really didn't do a lot of things oh no you don't you know I really wouldn't do a lot of things for guys you know I might put certain items in his locker that might have been make mistakes not just and and you know, well, well, disgusting, humorous things. the clubhouse like that, but you know it's all fun.

David Wells once described you as the silent bastard and it was a compliment, no boomer boomer, he wasn't actually the cleanest guy on The World Can Be Honest With Me, but he was fun to play with. You know, I enjoyed my last few years playing with Boomer. It was good to have a guy my age still in the game and you know, we had some good times. a good time sitting on the bench and also playing golf from time to time. Did you ever feel like you had to sell the game? You know the Commissioner came out and said Mike Trout needs to sell the game?

Do you know you were one of the highlights? Pitchers, did you ever get that pressure from Commissioner Selig that you had to be out there selling the game and selling yourself as a personality? No, no, I never understood that, you know, I think I tried my best to try. respect the game and do the right thing, you know it every day and you know it personally, you know you're doing what you can for your team, you know there's a lot of things individually in baseball, but the bottom line is it's a team. game and I always tried to remember that and at the same time respect the game respect your teammates respect your opponents I mean they have as much right to be on the field as you do and you know I just tried to do it the right way with what How often do girls like the long ball?

That commercial you did. How often does that appear on a weekly basis? Appears. It's amazing how often it appears. You know, I'm in Orlando playing in this Time and Resorts tournament and it came up around two. times yesterday of people just walking around, of course, so, I mean, it's God, it's been over 20 years since we did that and it's, you know, it's cool that people still remember it. Heather Locklear was in that one, yeah, she was, yeah. I remember you describing a home run to me as if it sounded like a car accident, like it was a car accident.

That's an apt description of a home run, well I don't know, I went back in time, but there's definitely a certain sound when it hits. the back, you know you don't need to worry about backing up third, but you told me you'd rather deliver a bomb, you could hit it at 450 feet, but don't hit it at 309 and have it go over the wall, well, yeah, It is always so. a little easier to take you know you're not you know it's always easier you know when the ones that will end up scraping the wall you're thinking the outfielder might actually catch it and if he does and I need to make it be in a certain spot on the field in in case there's a play for you to know that makes your life a little bit easier if you know, don't hesitate, but do you remember one of those home runs where you just hit it and then you don't?

Even turn around, did you have one of those moments? Oh yes, quite a few. I think I gave up over 200, so you know, I gave up a lot of home runs, but Gary Sheffield had a couple that were like McGwire hit one, Sammy Sosa. hit a couple, I mean, Larry Walker hit some Galarraga, I mean, there's all kinds of guys, what's your favorite sports memorabilia, are you wearing it, probably my World Series trophy, okay, you know, I think we got one, you know, and yeah, that was It's kind of the ultimate award in baseball and you know the Gold Gloves inside Young's are nice, but that World Series trophy is much

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special.

Would you know if one of your Golden Gloves was missing? If I snuck in and had one. I know, probably not. I know my dad and mom have had one from time to time and you know you can tip the pizza guy with a Golden Glove. You're eighteen, well, yeah, I mean, you know I take pride in myself and I think it's It is important to be a baseball player and not just a pitcher and you know how to do it, those are your ground balls, one of them we will have fun at the golf tournament.

It's good to catch up with you and thanks for joining us, Greg, we appreciate your time, absolutely thank you Dan. Okay, we'll see, but for more Dan Patrick shows for the audience, channel 239 on DirecTV or download the Dan Patrick Show app.