LAS VEGAS — Even in retirement, Cy Young-award winner and certain Hall of Famer Greg Maddux was reluctant to disclose the complete details about how he made his pitches wiggle, jig and dart so effectively through 22 full seasons and 355 victories.

He said he learned early that velocity was secondary to movement. Heck, it was tertiary to location.

Whatever the case movement was primary to his longevity as the winningest active pitcher … until today.

“I still think I can play the game, but not as well as I would like to,” Maddux said during the press conference here at the Bellagio to announce his retirement. “So, it’s time to say goodbye.”

In opening remarks, Maddux’s agent Scott Boras described how Maddux set “a standard that, well, I think most likely will never be set again.” Maddux holds 18 records. He won 15 or more games in 17 consecutive seasons, breaking the record held by Cy Young, whose namesake award Maddux won four times. Boras ran the numbers, as usual, and argued that for a pitcher to echo what Maddux did he would have to pitch 22 full seasons, average 16 wins, 33 starts and 226 innings.

“When I was just learning how to pitch when I was 15, 16 years old, I had a pitching coach, Ralph Medar, that taught me that movement was more important than velocity,” Maddux said. “I don’t know why I believed him, but I believed him. You are only as smart as the advice you receive. You know how that goes. I was very fortunate at a young age to have Ralph teach me about movement.

“And when I started learning how to pitch I wasn’t learning how to throw harder. I was learning how to get more movement on the baseball. I threw hard enough, but we learned movement was more important than velocity and changing speeds was more important than velocity and location was more important than velocity. We learned in that order.”

Maddux went on to explain how that approach led to the holy tenets of today’s pitching (certainly around the St. Louis Cardinals): low pitch counts and throwing to counts.

“I never changed,” Maddux said. “You locate your fastball and you change speeds no matter who is hitting strikes or what is going on around you. … When you see pitchers with electric fastballs and big breaking balls and stuff like that, they are going to throw more pitches. It’s that simple. I think the guys that kind of throw a little bit under the radar and rely more on movement and location, their pitch counts are going to be a lot lower.”

Maddux did not rule out returning to baseball someday as a coach, like his brother, Texas Rangers pitching Mike Maddux. He said he tee times in his near future and a year off, a year away from the game. He does have a trip to Cooperstown planned — to see his son play in a tournament there. Asked if he believes there will be another 350-game winner, Maddux cited longer careers and better health as a reason why somebody, somewhere, some time could reach what seems unreachable.

“There might be some kid in seventh or eighth grade right now who will do it, who knows?” Maddux said, “Physically you have to be able to do certain things with the baseball, and sometimes you can’t let your brain get in the way of allowing you to do that. …

“Baseball is all I know,” Maddux concluded. “I really don’t know a whole lot about anything, but I do know a few things about baseball.”

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