Every fraternity has at least one of those guys. The guy whose idea of fun could be considered grounds for having someone committed. Every depraved prank he pulls is horrifying in its own right, because what even halfway decent person would do those things? What’s worse, though, is when you realize that the pranks are also genius, and that you’re probably dealing with a high functioning sociopath. Thankfully those guys are, at least (mostly), benevolent. You’re lucky if, when he puts you in his perverted cross hairs, you escape simply with a bed full of unravelled condoms or a monthly web subscription to some porn site, on your card, whose name is a double entendre that is as disturbing as it is apt, like “Flapper Girls: Ladies of the 20s Still Roarin’ Today.” If you’re not so lucky, you’ll walk into your room with your mom and dad on Parents’ Weekend to find several positive pregnancy tests (HOW DID HE EVEN GET THEM TO SHOW POSITIVE!?!?) conspicuously sitting at the top of your trash can and a porn subscription on your parents’ card to some foreign site whose name translates into such broken English that it makes it sound even worse than it already is, like, “Moist Cornucopia Of Tween Japanese Cartoon Girls For Men With Distasteful Shame Pleasures.”
In the world of baseball, newly elected Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux was that guy. According to former teammates like Chipper Jones, Maddux is a “dirtbag” and “one of the grossest guys I’ve ever been around in my life.”
Maddux was renowned for clubhouse pranks to push the boundaries of human decency. Here’s a short list of the stuff his teammates have actually admitted to, which, according to them, is still far short of the worst stuff Maddux pulled. That, to say the least, is both terrifying and impressive.
– According to an interview on The Dan Patrick Show with John Smoltz, Maddux used to use his rental car to rear end other players’ rental cars until the bumper literally fell off. And, when in other people’s rental cars, like Smoltz’s, Maddux would spit tobacco everywhere while picking his nose and leaving it wherever he felt like it. In the clubhouse, Maddux would hawk loogies onto the ceiling and wait for them to fall on reporters and other innocent passersby. Maddux was also a fan of telling complete and total lies, such as claiming that any fly ball in the air for six seconds is caught 100% of the time, which would lead to lengthy teammate debates during fly balls immediately after.
– The following is from a Jerry Crasnick story on ESPN in 2007, after Maddux joined the San Diego Padres:
Maddux? For a guy with a CPA’s demeanor, he has a sense of humor that a 12-year-old would envy. Maddux is a master of strategically timed nose picking, sidling up to an unsuspecting rookie in the shower and urinating on the kid’s leg, and inventing just the right nickname for a teammate with big ears, a prominent schnozz or some other pronounced physical qualities.
“I call him ‘The Silent Scumbag,’” Wells said. “You would perceive him to be Einstein because he’s quiet and he’s always sitting there at his locker with a crossword puzzle. But he’s got a silent sickness to him, sort of like David Cone. Those quiet guys are the ones you have to watch out for.”
Greg Maddux pees on rookies.
– Kevin Towers, current Diamondbacks GM and former Padres GM, claims that Maddux used to do horrible things to the clubhouse chili.
“All I can tell you is ‘don’t eat the chili.’ I can’t go any further than that. (Maddux put) foreign objects in the chili.”
I don’t know what exactly Greg Maddux was doing to ruin his team’s chili night, but as a long time Braves fan I’ve heard stories (that I cannot currently find links to, sadly) that Maddux had a habit of taking craps in people’s shoes, and also on one occasion took a shit on top of someone’s birthday cake. So, uh, Greg Maddux might have been shitting in the San Diego chili.
– After Chipper Jones got his first hit, the then rookie wanted to hold onto the ball as a keepsake. When he got back in the dugout, he discovered that Maddux had hawked a loogie on it.
– Another story about Maddux’s lack of fucks comes from Scott Freeman, then of CL Atlanta:
When John Burkett was pitching for the Braves, he received a package in the clubhouse one afternoon before a game. Burkett opened it and was astounded to discover six baseballs inside AND one of those throw-away cameras. A note from the fan audaciously asked Burkett to get Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz to sign the balls. “And please take a picture of them signing it so I’ll have proof the signatures are authentic.”
Now, Burkett had no idea who this fan was. Had never met him or even corresponded with him.
When he went over to Maddux with the camera to tell him about it, Maddux responded, “Take a picture of this.” And he promptly turned around, dropped his pants and mooned the clubhouse as Burkett snapped a picture.
My thought at that instant: Wow, I’ve just been mooned by a Hall of Fame pitcher.
Did the fan get the photo of Maddux’s ass? Nope. Burkett dropped the entire package into the trash.
– Maddux also liked to pee in hot tubs, because of course he did.
I could tell you about how he (allegedly) urinated in the hot tub when he was a young Cubs pitcher, that story told to me years ago by Andre Dawson, who was in the big tub with a couple of other Cubs veterans when young Maddux informed them that he’d relieved himself in it a few minutes earlier.
– Perhaps out of an appreciation for irony, Maddux used to like to find different ways to soil the clubhouse bin of sanitary socks, so thoroughly that teammates would have to carefully reach in to find a still clean pair, like it was a basket full of cobras, so as not to touch the socks that Maddux tainted. The story doesn’t say what Maddux did to them, but my guess is there was a solid rotation of bodily fluids going into the sock bin.
– Once, Greg Maddux was apparently so worked up to pitch a game that former Cub Mark Grace caught him roaming the pitcher’s mound with a full erection, with no regard for where he was.
When they played together on the Cubs, Mark Grace once noticed Maddux walking around the pitching mound in a very strained, uncomfortable manner. Fearing his teammate was hurt, Grace approached the mound, only to find Maddux in an state of obvious physical excitement, the kind normally reserved for passionate endeavors.
“Man, you really do love to pitch,” Grace marveled.
– This story was sent in by a reader. It’s not verified, but at this point it sounds true, so I’m posting it.
Story about Greg Maddux, keep me anonymous – when he signed late in his career with the padres he wasn’t working out or running as much.. Because he’s fucking Greg Maddux – the GM told him to set a better example for the younger guys and to get into atleast decent shape to pitch. The next day he beat everyone to the ballpark early in the morning. He took a treadmill and moved it right behind the doors to enter the facility. He started running on it fully naked – junk flying everywhere telling everyone who came in, including people who worked at the spring training complex he was trying to get in better shape per the big boys upstairs.
– Most disturbing of all though, is that this is only the tip of the iceberg according to fellow Hall of Famer Tom Glavine.
“Unfortunately, you can’t write half of the stuff he did, because he wasn’t proper.”
Greg Maddux is a sick, sick bastard.
