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Baseball’s history sets it apart from other professional sports in America. Fans use comparisons of players of different eras to debate Hall of Fame worthiness. Because of the history, great players from the present-day become intertwined with legends of the past.

In the collection is this lineup card that hung in the Braves dugout during Atlanta’s contest vs. the Houston Astros on August 7, 2001. The game brought Braves starter Greg Maddux into a conversation that included the mythical Cy Young, a man from Cooperstown’s inaugural class of 1936 in Christy Mathewson, and Hall of Fame hurlers Red Faber and Jack Morris.

Maddux came into the game with 64 1/3 consecutive innings without a walk, just 3 2/3 innings short of the National League record set by Mathewson in 1913 and equaled by Randy Jones in 1976. In the fourth inning, Maddux passed the two men and made the record his own. The first-ballot Hall of Fame selection extended mark to 72 1/3 innings before issuing an intentionally pass in his next start to Arizona’s Steve Finley to stop the streak. Today Maddux still holds the Senior Circuit’s mark for consecutive innings without a walk.

By picking up the win in this game, Maddux became the second pitcher in Major League Baseball history to win 15 or more games in at least 14 seasons, trailing only Cy Young who won at least 15 for fifteen straight years from 1891-1905. In each of his next three seasons and again in 2006, Maddux continued his winning ways, passing Young, and setting a new mark of 18 campaigns with at least 15 wins.

By 2001, Maddux was climbing the career wins leaderboard, passing Hall of Fame pitchers along the way. This game was his 255th victory to push him past White Sox great Red Faber, a 1964 inductee and Cooperstown class of 2018’s Jack Morris.

For aficionados of America’s National Pastime, this Sunday afternoon game of August 7, 2001 highlighted baseball’s timeline, spanning the 1800’s of Cy Young’s career, the deaball era of the teens with the great Christy Mathewson, into the 20’s and 30’s when Faber pitched, up through Jack Morris’ heyday of the 1970’s and 80’s and onto the next millennium to the career of Greg Maddux.

 

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When Greg Maddux signed this Topps extension on May 3, 1988 he was on his way to stardom. The first year of the extension saw an 18-win season and Maddux’s first All Star appearance. By the time the contract expired at the end of the 1991 season, Maddux would have two of his record 18 Gold Glove Awards and his first $1 million contract. A 355-game winner, Maddux was a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection.

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After losing the first two games of the 1998 NLCS, Bobby Cox gave the ball to Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux to get the Braves back in the series. In the collection is the lineup card from that game that saw Atlanta and Maddux drop to the San Diego Padres 4-1. Maddux thew 81 pitches through five innings before being lifted in what was then a 2-1 game. Though the Braves would win the next two games of the series, San Diego would knock them out of the post season in Game 6. Maddux teamed with John Smoltz and Tom Glavine to form one of the mightiest pitching trios in baseball history.

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Shown here is the very first Topps card on which Greg Maddux appeared. Printed after the 1986 season, Maddux’s first in the big leagues, this rookie card is signed boldly by the 355-game winner. Who could have envisioned the greatness that would lie ahead for Maddux after his initial 2-4, .552 ERA year of 1986? The following season, the Professor would go 6-14 with a .561 ERA. Maddux blossomed in 1988, the first of his eight All Star seasons.