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American college baseball coach and former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher Greg Maddux celebrity heights is the only pitcher in MLB history to win at least 15 games for 17 straight seasons. He is the pitching coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Maddux is best known for his accomplishments while playing for the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs. With the Braves, he won the 1995 World Series over the Cleveland Indians. The first to achieve a number of feats and records, he was the first pitcher in major league history to win the Cy Young Award four consecutive years (1992–1995), matched by only one other pitcher, Randy Johnson. During those four seasons, Maddux had a 75–29 record with a 1.98 earned run average (ERA), while allowing less than one baserunner per inning. Greg Maddux holds the record for most Gold Gloves with 18, and most putouts by a pitcher with 546, including a tied live-ball-era record of 39 putouts in a season (1990, 1991, 1993). A superb control pitcher, Maddux won more games during the 1990s than any other pitcher and is 8th on the all-time career wins list with 355. Since the start of the post-1920 live-ball era, only Warren Spahn (363) recorded more career wins than Maddux. He is one of only ten pitchers ever to achieve both 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts, and is the only pitcher to record more than 300 wins, more than 3,000 strikeouts, and fewer than 1,000 walks (exactly 999 walks overall). Maddux relied on his command, composure, and guile to outwit hitters. Though his fastball touched 93 mph in his early years, his velocity steadily declined throughout his career, and was never his principal focus as a pitcher. By the end of his career, his fastball averaged less than 86 mph. Maddux was also noted for the late movement on his sinker (two-seam fastball), which, combined with his control, made him known as an excellent groundball pitcher. While Maddux was not known for his strikeout totals, his strikeout totals have often been undersold because strikeout rate has often been measured per nine innings, rather than per batter faced. Maddux alternated his two-seam fastball with an excellent circle changeup. Though these served as his primary pitches, he also threw a four-seam fastball, a cutter, a curveball, a slider, and a splitter. Maddux was renowned for focusing on the outside corner. This approach was emphasized under former Atlanta Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone. He would begin by throwing strikes with his fastball down and away, then expand the strike zone with his changeup—sometimes obtaining borderline strike calls from umpires simply on the strength of his reputation. In complement with this strategy, Maddux popularized a tactic of throwing his two-seam fastball off the plate inside to left-handed hitters, only to have the ball break back over the inside corner for a strike. Maddux said of that pitch, "That was just my normal fastball that did that. ... I always had it. The pitch really started to work for me when I ... learned how to throw a cutter, it made that pitch more effective." In addition, his propensity for throwing strikes and avoiding walks kept his pitch counts low. On July 2, 1997, he won a game against the New York Yankees, for example, with the numbers "nine innings, three hits, no walks, eight strikeouts, one pickoff, one double play, 84 pitches ... [in] two hours and nine minutes". Dodgers general manager Fred Claire admired Maddux's pitching consistency, saying "It's almost like a guy lining up a 60-foot-6-inch putt ... he is just so disciplined, so repetitive in his pitches." Speaking about Maddux's accuracy, Orel Hershiser said, "This guy can throw a ball in a teacup." Baseball Hall of Famer Wade Boggs talked about facing Maddux: "It seems like he's inside your mind with you. When he knows you're not going to swing, he throws a straight one. He sees into the future. It's like he has a crystal ball hidden inside his glove." Maddux was also known for intensely studying hitters in preparation for his starts. He would often watch hitters take their warmup swings or read their body language to gauge their mentality. Teammate Tom Glavine said, "I think the hitters think he can go back and recall every pitch he has ever thrown. That's not the case, but I think he's probably better at remembering things than most people are. He's definitely better in the course of the game at making adjustments on a hitter based on what he's seen, whether it's one swing or a guy's last at-bat." Finally, Maddux has been praised for his superior pitching mechanics, helping him avoid serious arm injuries throughout his lengthy career. His only stint on the 15-day disabled list was in 2002, due to nerve inflammation on his back. One analyst of pitching mechanics wrote, "Maddux's sterling reputation for pitching mechanics is more than justified. He could repeat his delivery as well as any pitcher that I have ever seen, with consistent timing and positioning that persisted regardless of pitch type or pitch count, giving the impression that he was never fatigued." Maddux was also a highly durable pitcher, leading the National League in innings pitched in five consecutive years. He pitched at least 194 innings for 21 consecutive seasons, and finished with the lowest BB/9 ratio in the National League nine times. Maddux has been credited by many of his teammates with a superior ability to out-think his opponents and anticipate results.