Greg Maddux special on MLB Network: An inside look at ‘The Professor’ and his 23-year Hall of Fame career

Sunday, Aug. 25 at 8 p.m. ET, MLB Network Presents returns with another must-watch special for die-hard baseball fans. It’s “One of a Kind,” the story of Greg Maddux.

Maddux finished his 23-year career with 355 wins, 3,371 strikeouts and over 5,000 innings. He won four Cy Youngs and four ERA titles. Through a heightened offensive era, he posted mind-boggling pitching stats and is widely considered one of the best pitchers ever. He received 97.2% of the vote in his first chance on the Hall of Fame ballot, flying in with one of the highest vote totals ever.

CBS Sports got the chance to watch an advanced screening of the special and it’s well worth your time, assuming you’re a big baseball fan (otherwise, why would you still be reading this?).

As always, with these specials, the behind-the-scenes stories are what make this so fun.

Maddux has two nicknames that were pretty widely used. One is “Mad Dog” which basically was just derived from his last name. I prefer “The Professor,” because it’s a perfect encapsulation of Maddux. Not only did he look more like a college professor than one of the greatest baseball players ever, but he was a cerebral assassin on the mound. We’ve all heard the stories for years and this special tells several very good ones.

Here’s a clip that sums it up rather nicely with his personal catcher from those days, Eddie Perez, taking part in the explanation of why Maddux essentially allowed Jeff Bagwell to hit a home run.

That’s the good stuff.

Maddux had another nickname, or, I suppose, we could call it an alias. He was “Johnny Vegas” when checking into hotels. MLB Network plays off Maddux being a Las Vegas native to note that he was tantamount go a magician on the hill.

“Everything he did on the mound was an illusion and he wanted it that way,” said former teammate and fellow Hall of Famer John Smoltz.

The special takes us through Maddux’s rise in high school, to getting drafted and bouncing around in small towns in the minors before his debut at age 20 with the Cubs and throwing a complete game in Cincinnati. It also details Andre Dawson getting hit in the face with a pitch in his 1987 MVP season, leading to Maddux retaliating with the first pitch the following half-inning and being ejected immediately. The Cubs famously demoted Maddux to the minors, but he gained the utmost respect of his teammates in the long run. Rick Sutcliffe’s discussion of the situation was excellent.

Then, of course, Maddux made his way to superstardom, winning a Cy Young with the Cubs, signing with the Braves and winning three more. Along the way, there’s good stuff on:

• The grand slam he allowed to Will Clark in the 1989 NLCS and the fallout.
• His free agency, which included the Cubs low-balling him multiple times.
• Interactions with famed Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone.
• Getting booed in Wrigley Field in his first start back there after signing with the Braves (he dominated).
• The manner in which Maddux called his own pitches, which no other teams knew about at the time.
• The Maddux-Smoltz-Tom Glavine trio of aces.
• Maddux’s personal rivalry with Barry Bonds, including interviews with Bonds. Watching them both break down matchups was one of the highlights of the show. They each won a few battles and it was beautiful seeing them say similar things about the at-bats, pitch-by-pitch, they were watching back on tablets.
• Maddux’s legendary sense of humor.

Of course, the over-arching theme was how big a professor Maddux was on the mound.

It wasn’t nearly as much a pleasure as watching his career unfold when it actually happened, but it was plenty of fun nonetheless.