[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24479-24480]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO GREG MADDUX

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as a little boy in Searchlight, as I was 
growing up, I used to listen every day to the ``Game of the Day'' 
baseball on the radio, and because there was no entertainment in 
Searchlight, I loved those games. I listened to them. Dizzy Dean was 
one of the announcers, and a guy named Al Helfer was one of the 
announcers. I thought they were very good, very entertaining. In the 
seventh inning stretch, Dizzy would always sing ``The Wabash 
Cannonball.''
  Now, in my youthful mind, one thing I wanted to do more than anything 
else was to be a baseball player. In Searchlight, we tried to play 
baseball. We had a little field there. We did not have enough boys for 
the team, so we had one girl who made up the nine players. Her name was 
Mary Ann Meyers. She still lives in Searchlight. She was really quite 
good--frankly, better than a lot of the boys. She rode a horse bareback 
as well as anyone could ride with a saddle.
  I spent a lot of my daydreaming playing baseball. I had a little 
paddle of some kind, and I would throw rocks in the air and hit them 
with that. That was part of my entertainment. I did that for a long 
time.
  As they had no high school in Searchlight, I went to Basic High 
School in Henderson, NV, which was 45 miles away. I stayed with people 
during the week and would come home on a lot of weekends if I could. 
They did not have a freshman baseball team. They had no baseball team. 
I guess maybe if there had been a freshman good enough--I do not really 
think that was the case; I do not think they let freshmen be on the 
baseball team. My sophomore year, I went out for baseball. I was one of 
two sophomores to make that team. It was so exciting for me. That team 
was so good, we were so good, we won the Nevada State Championship. The 
first year they had a championship, we won. We beat Fallon. We had a 
pitcher by the name of Rey Martinez who later became my chief of staff 
and was a left-handed pitcher who was very good. We were so good that 
we beat all of the Nevada schools and all of the California schools. 
Even though we were from that little industrial town in southern 
Nevada, we were the California Interscholastic Federation champions. We 
beat them all.
  Now, I would like to stand before everybody here and say that one 
reason that was the case is I was instrumental in getting hits at the 
right time and making stellar plays, stealing bases as I dreamed I 
would do as a kid. But I sat on the bench most of the time. I caught 
batting practice. I was a catcher. But I felt that I was part of that 
team and will never forget my experiences there playing baseball.
  My friend Don Wilson, who was the other sophomore, was a State 
batting champion. He was terrific, a great athlete. He went on the play 
at Arizona State. But we had tremendous athletes. We had Norman Craft, 
who was our center fielder, who was a Big 10 football player playing at 
Indiana.
  I went to college on a football-baseball scholarship. I was a lot 
bigger then than I am now. I weighed almost 190 pounds. But I got hurt 
early in my college athletic career--meaning football--and I came to 
the realization that I was not the athlete of my dreams. I was not big 
enough, fast enough, or good enough. So my athletic career, as a 
freshman in college, ended. I fought after that, but not as the 
baseball-football player I dreamed of being.
  The reason I mention all of this today is to tell everyone within the 
sound of my voice how much I love baseball. I love athletics. I think 
it is so good and it is so wonderful that women can now participate 
just like men--boys and girls can participate. When I was in high 
school, the only thing my wife could do--she was far more athletic than 
I am or I was--is be a cheerleader. That was all she could do. There 
was not a single program for girls. So now we have programs equally for 
girls and boys, and that is exiting and wonderful, and I am happy that 
is the case.
  The reason I mention all of this today is that yesterday in Las Vegas 
was a very big day for people who love baseball. It was an important 
day, but in some ways it was kind of a sentimental day because the 
great Greg Maddux announced his retirement.
  Gregg Maddux, one of the greatest baseball players of all time, 
announced his retirement yesterday after 23 seasons in the big leagues. 
Greg Maddux announced his retirement. He is such a fine person, 
unassuming. We see all of the negative things about athletes today, 
their taking steroids and fighting at bars and carrying guns into bars 
and shooting themselves in the leg and having dogs fight each other, 
not setting good examples for kids as to how they treat women. Greg 
Maddux stood for everything that they didn't--a wonderful family man, 
beautiful children, who prizes his family.
  This is not a speech about some guy who played baseball in Las Vegas. 
This is a statement about one of the greatest baseball players of all 
time. You take the thousands of people who have pitched in the big 
leagues, Greg Maddux, this small man, relatively small man, who never 
lifted a weight in his life, is eighth on the all-time list of 
pitchers, Cy Young, go down the list, Warren Spahn, Greg Maddux; he is 
10 games away from being in the top four or five--10 wins.
  Another reason it is so important is that Greg Maddux is from Las 
Vegas. He never left. He went away for 23 years, spent half the year 
playing baseball, sometimes more than that, but he

[[Page 24480]]

always came home. Las Vegas is home. That is where his kids go to 
school.
  So this is a statement about a wonderful man who is a role model for 
anyone who participates in athletics but also someone Nevada is very 
proud of. He went to Valley High School, a high school that is still 
there. There are wonderful stories about this boy who went to that high 
school. A columnist from a prominent newspaper--I think that is where 
it was--a few years ago wrote a story, a column about Greg Maddux. He 
was a senior in high school. They had this skinny little sophomore who 
was going to pitch against him and his team. And he looked forward to 
batting against this skinny little sophomore who was pitching for 
Valley High School. And he describes in the column he wrote, he struck 
out every time he got up against this guy and they were, of course, 
beaten. Stories like that are all over Nevada about what he did in his 
youth.
  Greg will soon be 43 years old. Yesterday he held a press conference. 
In effect what he said is: Thank you to everybody in baseball. He said: 
I still think I could play this game but not as well as I would like 
to, so it is time to say goodbye. And that is what he did.
  His accomplishments are legendary; 355 games he won. He won more 
games than Roger Clemens, and he did it without taking any supplements 
of any kind. I repeat what he told me. He said: You know, I have never 
lifted a weight. He said: When I was in high school, a physical 
therapist said: Don't mess with your body. And Gregg may have pushed a 
few weights with his legs, but no way did he touch his arm, not because 
his arm had such great power, because he didn't throw as hard as a lot 
of pitchers, but his accuracy was nearly perfect.
  Of the seven men in front of him on the victory list, only Warren 
Spahn pitched in the second half of the last century. He is the only 
300 game winner to have more than 3,000 strikeouts and less than 1,000 
walks. He averaged less than 30 walks per year. That is a remarkable 
accomplishment; the first player in the history of baseball to win at 
least 15 games in 17 straight years; the only player in the history of 
baseball to win 13 games over 20 years.
  He won four straight Cy Young awards. He won a World Series with the 
Atlanta Braves. He won 18 Gold Gloves. What is a Gold Glove? That means 
you are the best fielder in baseball at that position. He won 18 of 
them. No one will ever match that. That is for his fielding excellence. 
That is the most of any player ever, 18 Gold Gloves.
  How did he do this, a man who didn't throw that hard, wasn't a 
monster on the mound being 6 foot 9? He was about my size, a little 
heavier than I am. He was able to do that because of his consistency, 
his control, and his mental acuity. He studied those batters. He knew 
their weaknesses and their strengths, and everyone marveled at how he 
could throw that baseball.
  The stories will go on and on about Greg Maddux, but one story is not 
legend. It is true. For a sportswriter's entertainment, he said: Have 
the catcher hold up his glove and then we will make sure the catcher 
can't see so he can't move his hand. Let's see if you can hit that 
glove.
  Think about that. The catcher is, in effect, blindfolded. He didn't 
do it once. He did it three times. Think about that. For those of us 
who have ever thrown a baseball, to hit that target is pretty 
significant. He is a man of humility. I just am so proud of Greg 
Maddux. I don't know what team I am going to root for now, because when 
he was with the Cubs, I was a Cub fan. When he was with the Atlanta 
Braves, I was a Braves fan. As difficult as it was playing for those 
losers, the Padres; they wouldn't get him any runs, I followed them 
because I knew Greg Maddux was on that team. And then he went with the 
Dodgers, and I became a Dodger fan. I don't know who I am going to 
cheer for. I really don't know.
  His brother is a wonderful man. He was a long-time pitching coach for 
the Milwaukee Brewers. He has now, I understand, gone with the Texas 
Rangers. Whenever he came to town, I tried to visit with him. He was 
also a major league pitcher, 5 or 6 years older than his little brother 
Greg, but always looked out for him and was always so proud of him.
  I want the record to reflect that America lost from baseball a great 
human being yesterday. But for us in Nevada, the place of his home, we 
still have Greg Maddux. His ties to Las Vegas make us all so very 
proud. Local historians will say--and rightfully so--that Greg Maddux 
is the greatest athlete in the history of our State.

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