The Cubs unveiled a haphazard afterthought of a Hall of Fame, using mostly work done by other people that nobody even knew had been done, and that seemed right up our alley. So Andy and Mike D. decided to break down the 56 inductees, and surely we put more effort into this process than any of them did. From King Kelly to Lee Smith and everybody in between, join us for a look at former Cubs’ great, plus Don Kessinger and Glen Beckert. We try to figure out what the process they used to pick the Hall of Famers, predict the next class and try to figure out if they’ll do the obvious with Sammy Sosa or just make things worse, like always.
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Here’s what I wrote about Maddux retiring with 999 walks.
It appeared when Greg decided to pitch again in 2008 that he wouldn’t be able to avoid going over the 1,000 walk threshold. He was sitting on 969 walks. Ridiculous, right. If he made 33 starts, his average for his career, he’d have to walk fewer than one guy a start, at 42 years old.
Guess how many he walked?
Oh, like you even have to guess. So his career totals end up, 3,371 strikeouts and 999 walks. Of course it did. That competitive little bastard wasn’t going to give anybody the satisfaction of being his 1,000th walk. Even in his 40s, with a little pot belly. His last walk was on September 8 to Brian Giles of the Padres. He made three starts after that and faced 71 more batters, but didn’t walk a single one.