About Greg Maddux
Gregory Alan Maddux (born April 14, 1966), also known as "Mad Dog" and "the Professor," is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily with the Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs. Maddux was the first pitcher in MLB history to win the Cy Young Award four consecutive years (1992–1995), a feat matched only by Randy Johnson. During those four seasons, Maddux had a 75–29 win–loss record with a 1.98 earned run average (ERA), while allowing fewer than one baserunner per inning. An eight-time All-Star, he won the 1995 World Series with the Braves over the Cleveland Indians. Widely considered one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, Maddux is the only pitcher in MLB history to win at least 15 games for 17 straight seasons. He also holds the record for most Gold Gloves by any player with 18, and most putouts by a pitcher with 546, including a tied live-ball-era record of 39 putouts in a season (1990, 1991, 1993). A superb control pitcher, Maddux won more games during the 1990s than any other pitcher and is 8th on the all-time career wins list with 355. Only Warren Spahn (363) recorded more career wins than Maddux since the start of the post-1920 live-ball era. Maddux also has the most wins among pitchers who made their debuts after World War II. He is one of only ten pitchers ever to achieve both 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts, and is the only pitcher to record more than 300 wins, more than 3,000 strikeouts, and fewer than 1,000 walks (exactly 999 walks overall). Since his retirement as a player, Maddux has also served as a special assistant to the general manager for both the Cubs and Texas Rangers. In 2014, he was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, receiving 97.2% of the votes. In 2012, writer Jason Lukehart coined the term "Maddux" to describe when a pitcher throws a complete game shutout in fewer than 100 pitches; Maddux holds the record for most times accomplishing this feat (13) since pitch counts began to be tracked in 1988. The runner-up for this accomplishment is Zane Smith with seven such games. Maddux was the first pitcher in MLB history to win the Cy Young Award four consecutive years (1992–1995), matched by only one other pitcher, Randy Johnson.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.