Maddux has a ball

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 10:28 a.m.

In Anaheim last month, with a "What happens in Las Vegas ... " advertisement in front of him and the common half-blue, half-red Vegas banner ad off to his right, Greg Maddux tried some sleight of hand.

Maddux, a Valley High graduate, attempted the ol' hidden-ball trick, to try to catch an unsuspecting Angels player asleep, with Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee.

Didn't work, but it didn't matter. Just trying the ruse made Maddux, minus the baseball, break into a guilty smirk on his way back to the mound.

After striking out a Brewer during a 7-1 victory against Milwaukee on Tuesday night, part momentum and part exuberance led Maddux to hop-skip off the bump toward the visitors' dugout in one easy motion after delivering a devastating sinker.

His flatulence infatuation is legendary among the game's veterans.

At 38, forgive the surefire Hall of Famer if he appears to be acting half his age.

"Well, it is fun," Maddux said late Wednesday on his cell phone as he drove away from Miller Park with his wife, Kathy, and two children, Amanda and Chase, in tow. "I am having fun, and I've always had fun playing ... at least, I've tried to.

"It's OK to have fun. I'll know when I'm not having fun that I better do something to make it fun, or there's no sense in being out there. You have to enjoy what you're doing, and I'm doing that right now. That's half the battle."

His current battle is treating this weekend as if it's any other. Sunday afternoon against Philadelphia at Wrigley Field, Maddux can become the game's 22nd pitcher to win 300 games. Steve Carlton of the Phillies was the last National League pitcher to win his 300th game, on Sept. 23, 1983.

In 55 starts against Philly, Maddux is 27-17, with a 3.38 earned-run average and two shutouts among his six complete games.

Roger Clemens of the Houston Astros notched his 322nd victory Wednesday, and the other 20 members of the exclusive 300-win fraternity have been enshrined in the Hall in Cooperstown, N.Y.

"I don't know," Maddux said. "Really, man, I'm just playing and enjoying it. I look forward to going to the park every day. As long as I keep doing that, I'll be right where I want to be."

Maddux was swamped with inquiries about No. 300 on Wednesday, before and after the Cubs lost to the Brewers. His cell call, he said, would be his final conversation about the topic before he began his normal preparation routine Thursday.

"I got a little sidetracked today," he said. "But it's the day after I pitched, so it was not that big a deal. (Thursday), I'll start getting ready for my next start, do what I can to get back on schedule and stay on it without offending too many people."

Maddux would rather chat about how his brother Mike has transformed Milwaukee's pitchers as their coach this season, anyway.

"They're pitching, they're not just brain-dead," Greg said. "That starts with the pitching coach."

Or how Atlanta manager Bobby Cox once again has the Braves, in spite of an abundance of turnover, atop the National League East.

"The guy's a winner," Maddux said. "If players hang around him enough, they'll be winners."

Or how Chicago manager Dusty Baker is a players' coach in the same mold, or how slugger Sammy Sosa creates excitement with each trip to the plate and comes to the park ready to play every day.

Or how the Cubs can't let down in their battle for the NL wild card with San Diego and San Francisco.

After Maddux's victory Tuesday, Baker wondered aloud how there could be such little fanfare in the run-up to such an impressive achievement as a pitcher's 300th victory.

"It's been one of the quietest 'approaching 300s' that I've ever seen," Baker said. "I know when (Clemens) was approaching 300 last year in New York, that was like every day it was big headlines."

Maddux, who with five more victories will extend his current MLB record of 16 consecutive seasons with at least 15 wins, does not seek headlines. He even has difficulty listening to plaudits from his peers.

Fellow Cubs starter Matt Clement recently raved about being able to regularly tap such a "brilliant" mind for tips or strategy. Often in the dugout, Clement said, Maddux will predict what's about to unfold on the field.

"He'll say, 'If the pitcher throws a fastball away here, this guy is going to be caught looking. But if it's a breaking ball, it's gonna get crushed in the gap,' " Clement told ESPN.com. "And that's exactly what happens. If it's a fastball, he's looking. And if it's a breaking ball, even a good one, it's crushed."

Maddux brushed aside those accolades and the widespread preseason belief that his influence would be such a boon to Clement, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood.

"He's just being nice," Maddux said of Clement. "You get asked about players, and you say good things about them. I haven't thrown a pitch for him this year. Every decision he's made on the mound, he's made on his own.

"That's nice of him to say that, but he's the reason for his own success."

Maddux has enjoyed that dugout view of Wrigley even more than he believed he would when he rejoined the team that drafted him, in the second round in 1984, just before spring training.

He signed a guaranteed two-year Cubs contract worth $15 million. If he logs 400 innings over that stretch, Maddux will receive $9 million for '06. He's on pace to work 226 innings this season.

In his previous 16 years, Maddux has failed to break the 200-inning barrier only once, by only two outs in 2002 in Atlanta.

"It's been better than I had expected," he said. "Chicago is a great city and a great place to play. I forgot how great it is to play here. The more I go to Wrigley, the more I like it. It's great to sit on the bench when you're not pitching.

"And I'm really enjoying all the day games. I get to spend time with the family because I'm home by 5 o'clock, as opposed to 10 or 11 like Atlanta. And I'm not sleeping in til 10 (a.m.) after a night game. It's been a nice change."

As usual, Maddux jammed in July, winning four of his five starts to improve to 10-7 this season. Against the Brewers at Wrigley on July 17, he fired a six-hit shutout, his first in exactly three years.

The wind was blowing in, he said, and it wasn't hot.

"If there ever was a perfect day to pitch ... " Maddux said. "You don't have to be perfect. You just keep the ball down and let them hit it."

Over his past 30 innings, he has walked only one batter, whiffing 20 and allowing a stingy 22 hits.

"I'm making some mistakes, but they're getting hit right at people," Maddux said. "And I'm getting outs with my good pitches. That's kind of how it goes sometimes."

He's 62-24 in July, with a 2.70 ERA. The next-best month of his career has been August, in which he's 51-24, with a 2.83 ERA. He laughed when asked about flipping a switch in the second halves of seasons.

"I tried flipping a switch back in spring training," Maddux said. "I don't know, man. I don't know how to explain anything anymore. It just seems, in the last couple of games, they've hit mistakes right at people.

"It's just one of those things. When you play long enough, things will go your way for a while."

They have brought Maddux to the pinnacle of an epic accomplishment, one that he will be immensely proud to do in a Chicago Cubs uniform.

"To do it in any uniform is special, but to do it where you started makes it more special," Maddux said. "You know, my biggest concern right now is to treat it as another game. Behind all the hoopla, it is just another game."

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