ESPN MLB

Originally Published: March 10, 2005

Maddux 'sees everything' ... and then some

Mike Maddux isn't widely known like his brother, Greg, but he's sure making a name for himself as a pitching coach.

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By Tim Kurkjian
ESPN The Magazine
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The Milwaukee Brewers' manager of human resources ran a demonstration on focus and distraction one day this spring. Roughly 25 coaches and front-office staff members watched a film of a three-on-three basketball game, and had to count how many passes were made. Pitching coach Mike Maddux, and others, got the correct answer: 14. "And I saw the gorilla," Maddux said.

During the basketball film, a gorilla ran into the middle of the screen, beat his chest, then ran off. Maddux and one other person were the only ones to see it. "When I said I saw a gorilla, everyone thought I was nuts," Maddux said. The film was then showed again, in slow motion. "I said, 'There's no way that gorilla was in there the first time,' " said Brewers third-base coach Rich Donnelly. "But it was. I don't know how I missed it. Mike saw it. Mike sees everything."

Mike Maddux, center, is entering his third season as the Brewers' pitching coach.

That's why he's one of the best pitching coaches in the game. It is why the Brewers, a horrendous offensive team last season, managed to win 67 games -- and finished with a team ERA of 4.24. He's one of the best pitching coaches because those Maddux boys are pretty smart. Younger brother, Greg, is a genius in baseball terms, he's The Computer Who Wore Metal Spikes. Mike wasn't nearly as good a pitcher as his brother, but he went 48-48 over 15 seasons for 10 different teams. The journey, the success and the struggles, is what he draws from as a coach.

"When I came up, I had good stuff, but two arm surgeries later, I said to myself, 'I better figure this out,' " Mike Maddux said. "I couldn't survive in the fat part of the zone. That's when I started getting into the mental part of the game."

He can spot a mechanical flaw a mile away, but he's best at talking to his pitchers and getting the best out of them. "He can relate to everyone, from Ben Sheets to the kid who's just up from minor-league camp," Brewers pitcher Brooks Kieschnick said. "No matter who you are, he can help you."

Maddux has been a pitching coach "officially for five years ... unofficially for about 10 years," he said. When a teammate was having a problem, whatever it might be, he often went to Maddux because he was a veteran player -- and had a really good idea about pitching. His first pitching coach job came in the Astros' system with Double-A Round Rock. "I was like a medic in Vietnam," he said. "They brought me in there and gave me a crash course."

He was so good at Round Rock, some of his protégés, including Roy Oswalt, would go to Greg Maddux, then with the Braves, and tell him how much his brother had helped them. A coach on that Braves team was Ned Yost, who was so impressed that, when he got the job to manage the Brewers two years ago, he remembered those endorsements and hired Maddux.

The results have been dramatic. Maddux took Doug Davis, a journeyman, and helped turn him into a 12-game winner last season. He helped transform another itinerant, Danny Kolb, into a 39-save reliever. He took a bunch of young kids and helped make a legitimate pitching staff. This spring, one of his projects is Derrick Turnbow, a former pitcher with the Angels who is throwing in the mid-90s. Maddux says Turnbow could be a closer someday.

"Our big thing we talk about is not power or strength, it's hiding the ball," said Maddux, who taught Davis to hide the ball better. "You know those pitching machines when the ball just shoots out? That's pretty hard to follow the ball. Same with pitching."

His philosophies come from playing for so many managers in his career. "I learned a lot on my own, by watching," Maddux said. "[Former Astros manager] Larry Dierker told me that there are some things that you want to pass on, and some things you don't want to pass on. I've got a big hat collection. I learned -- good and bad -- from every manager I played for."

And now the Brewers are learning from Maddux. A lot of their pitchers, Kieschnick said, are even learning to eat like Maddux: waffles lathered with peanut butter and bananas for breakfast. "I don't eat that; it gives me a stomachache," Kieschnick said, smiling.

The Brewers follow Maddux's lead because he has been where most of them have been, and he has been where most of them want to be someday. He has seen it all. Hey, he saw the gorilla.

Tim Kurkjian is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and a regular contributor to Baseball Tonight.