My vintage card of the week: The 1987 Topps Traded Tiffany Greg Maddux. It’s not technically “vintage” by most standards, but the Professor is my favorite player of all time, so I figured I’d squeeze him in here. I watched every Mad Dog start I could on TBS and WGN back in the ‘90s and ‘00s. Saw him pitch a couple times at Wrigley when I was in grad school. He absolutely dominated the steroid era with a fastball that might touch 90 mph, because he changed speeds with movement and precise location. His advantage was outsmarting the hitters, so their chemically enlarged muscles couldn’t really help them. Four Cy Young awards (first ever to win four in a row); 355 wins; 3371 Ks; and a career WHIP of 1.143 over 23 years. Oh yeah, and 18 gold gloves. Baseball Egg has him ranked as the second-best starting pitcher of all time behind Walter Johnson, and I won’t argue against their statistical process. He was certainly the best I ever witnessed.
