Keown's Maddux feature in The Mag

This phrase bothered me more: "He was running some sort of low-stakes golf pool out of the corner of his eye ..."

How does he fit -- into one eye, no less -- the paperwork for an entire pool? Amazing.

 

Having paid particularly close attention to Maddux for years -- and knowing his sense of humor and the fact that he's easily the dorkiest player in the majors -- hell, I think he'd find the farting anecdote to be the best part of the story.

The "eyes-closed" story, to me, was the stuff of legend. I wish everyone reading that could understand just how hard that is to do. Wow.

 

I would have thought, from the way Maddux is portrayed by a lot of baseball media folks -- pitching genius, low-key, savvy veteran -- and probably a little from his subdued appearance and general absence from controversy through the years, that he would be the one reacting to some teammate's fart or golf pool.

So that he is the actor, rather than the reactor, in those clubhouse activities tells me something I didn't know about him.

I was waiting for some clubhouse clown to tip the bacon and eggs onto Maddux's crotch or something, I dunno. Guess he's just one o' the boys. Or trying to be one o' the boys.

 

Based on all the crap that passes (no bun intended) for journalism today, I'd say there is a vast market for a pub that specializes in the off-color behavior of athletes in the lockerroom.

The days of the clubhouse-as-Kremlin are numbered as the proliferation of mobile communication technology turns everyday life into one seamless reality show. You'll have MLB players holding farting contests on the air, mark my words.