12.08.2008 9:56 am

Baseball Winter Meetings Begin with a Goodbye

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

LAS VEGAS — The National Finals Rodeo is in town and all over the sports page here. The Oscar De La Hoya fight and its maelstrom just left town, taking the big headlines with it. But the front page of the Saturday paper told a lot about what today’s event at the Bellagio means locally.

No, not the beginning of the annual Baseball Winter Meetings.

The ending of Greg Maddux’s career.

At 11:30 a.m. local time, the righthander who grew up here and still lives here will announce his retirement after 23 seasons and 355 victories. For the moment, he is the active career leader in both categories.

This morning, the front office staffs and think tanks for 30 major-league clubs will snake through the casino floor and head to their club suites for the start of baseball’s yearly swap meet and free-agentapoolaza. Two aces figure to attract the most attention — as the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres discuss a swap for Jake Peavy and CC Sabathia continues to weigh offers (including the New York Yankees’) — while teams like the Cardinals will drill-down on the next tier of starting pitchers, like Randy Wolf or Andy Pettitte.

Yesterday reporters from around the leagues loitered in the lobby here waiting for a glimpse of an executive or a few minutes with an agent. There will be a lot of that in the labyrinthine hallways and byways and frontways and circularways of the Bellagio and its convention center. If you haven’t seen Ocean’s 11 recently, here’s the opulent place where all this big-ticket baseball stuff will be going on:

The Bellagio: Home to the 2008 Baseball Winter Meetings

It certainly is a plush setting, but fitting for the sort of announcements scheduled for today. The news that Maddux would retire was an above-the-fold story in Saturday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal. The righthander won four Cy Young Awards, starting with the Cubs but starring mostly with Atlanta, and he won 18 Gold Gloves, including one this past season. He’ll retire seven wins shy of passing Pud Galvin and Kid Nichols for sixth all time and 19 wins short of moving into third-place all-time by leapfrogging Pete Alexander and Christy Mathewson. Odes to Maddux are the measure of the day (from ESPN to The Los Angeles Times and www.LADodgers.com to The New York Daily News.)

There is a place in Cooperstown already reserved for Maddux. He’ll be in almost the moment he’s eligible. A few others will learn if they are getting a long-awaited invite to the National Baseball Hall of Fame today. The Hall has an announcement scheduled for 10 a.m. Las Vegas time, at which point we’ll learn if the Veteran’s Committee elected anyone this year. The candidates include: St. Louis Cardinals great and manager Joe Torre, the Cubs’ Ron Santo, Gil Hodges (long overdue), Dick Allen and Jim Kaat.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, with Maddux’s retirement today imagine some of the ballots that are going to be coming out four and five years from now. Mike Mussina will be with Maddux as first-time eligibles five years from now, and they could also be joined by Frank Thomas, Jeff Kent, Tom Glavine and, depending on injury and comeback, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling and/or Pedro Martinez. That 2014 ballot will come the year after a doozy of a ballot that forces voters to consider Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens with Sammy Sosa and Mike Piazza and compare all of them with a gentleman like Craig Biggio. Busy times in Cooperstown ahead.

But first there’s Vegas.

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Check out Bird Land for Ryan Ludwick’s Guide to Las Vegas and a survey of some of the below-the-surface statistics for the Cardinals in 2008.

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Blog Comments: Rules of the Road

Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Cards are a “serious” player for AJ Burnett. That can’t be true, can it? He’s a Type A and is demanding a five year deal. Would the Cards give up their first rounder for an aging, injury prone, but intriguing veteran power arm? Please share your thoughts dg.

— Todd

10:29 am December 8th, 2008

I would like to see Glavine and Smoltz leave this year as well, that would make an excellent trio to go if they become eligible at the same time.

The 2013 ballot makes me cringe in fear. I only hope McGwire is still a ballot option by that point so that voters will have to display hypocrisy if Bonds, Clemens or Sosa go in and not McGwire. I’ve maintained that as disappointing as the Steroid Era can be, its still a widespread part of baseball. Its impossible to wade through the did he didn’t he of most players and the time, and because action hasn’t been taken by the League office regarding records or careers then voters shouldn’t make the attempt. All that doesn is add more human frailty to the issue as each individual voter tries to make a personal judgement on if a guy used, how much and what effect it had. Not only that, but some voters will also be overwhelmed by numbers into ignoring “moral” issues that are supposedly at the center of the ban from the Hall. With all of the complexity involved in making this sort of “moral high ground” judgement, bad choices are going to be made.

I’m a firm believer in all or nothing. I personally feel that McGwire, Bonds, Sosa and Clemens belong in the Hall. They played better than anyone else in their generation, and in a generation where a high percent of players were using. But if someone thinks one of these guys should be held out for using, then they should all be held out and I have no problem if you maintain that opinion across the board. The only problem is that you have to make a decision yourself who was and who wasn’t. A lot of people thought Bonds, Mac and Sammy were but were shocked about Clemens. How can we know, then, about Frank Thomas or Randy Johnson or even Cal Ripken or Tony Gwynn? We assume because they are nice guys or not bulky that they didn’t? I’m not ready to make those sorts of judgements.

Let the numbers stand and vote on those. Plenty of renowned cheaters and racists are in the Hall. Why should their crimes be absolved? Besides, all Mark and Sammy did is make us enjoy watching the game before we knew. They weren’t oppressing an entire race (cough Ty Cobb cough).

— RCJ

10:36 am December 8th, 2008

Mr. Goold,

Thanks for the article acknowledging one of the players that I feel privileged to have been able to watch. Greg Maddux always conducted himself as an extremely classy competitor on the field. I don’t know anything about his life off the field, and I believe that is the way it should be. He was the ultimate technician on the mound. It would have been great to have seen him wear the Birds on the Bat, and it is unfortunate that he has toiled in relative obscurity over the last few years. I remember a time, not so long ago, that it was his name that was synonymous with pitching excellence. That was before the chemically-enhanced Clemens took the spotlight away.

Thanks,
Elliott

— etp_stl

12:31 pm December 8th, 2008

Baseball Winter Meetings Begin with a Goodbye

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