Rozner: Maddux quite content right where he is

LAS VEGAS - As the Cubs search for their next manager - and maybe a pitching coach and organizational pitching czar - the name of Greg Maddux is always top of fans' mind.

It's natural, considering how beloved Maddux is in Chicago.

Of course, there's also that part about him being one of the smartest players ever to put on a uniform.

That's why people wonder about him.

But you can forget it.

"I'm really enjoying being retired," Maddux said with his customary laugh, as if to point out how ridiculous is the notion. "I don't know about getting back in the game. Probably not.

"I do like baseball. Don't get me wrong. I know it's changed a little bit since I last played (2008), but I still like it.

"Never say never, I guess, but at the same time I'm very content being retired."

As we walked TPC Summerlin the last few days and watched PGA Tour pros shred his golf course at the Shriners Open, Maddux put on his own clinic, calling every putt on every green, the break and speed and whether a player would make it.

Yeah, bad idea betting against him, as if there aren't enough opportunities to empty your pockets in this town.

Seeing as how he lives here and has played at least 1,000 rounds at TPC, he should have a pretty good feel for how the mountains affect the green contours.

"I love watching golf," Maddux said with a smile. "Plus, I know the course so it makes it even more fun. I know where I hit my tee shots, my good ones and bad ones.

"It's nice to come out and watch the best players in the world tear your home course apart."

While you wish him back to your team's dugout, consider the way in which Maddux lives his life.

A man who made $150 million lives on one of the best golf courses in the country, in a gorgeous house where the weather is great, where a mountain is his backyard, where his son Chase pitches for UNLV and Greg is the volunteer pitching coach for one more year.

He takes long trips with his family overseas and he plays golf until his hands bleed.

On Thursday, he was at baseball practice in the morning and at TPC by 10 a.m., watching fellow Summerlin member and Tour pro Scott Piercy compete in the Shriners Open.

The only thing missing was a quick 18, which he could have managed somewhere else, but instead he walked home to watch his brother Mike's team - the Cardinals - in a postseason game against the Braves.

It's a dream life, a life Maddux earned with his arm and his brains.

"Look, baseball is fun. It's fun going to the park every day," Maddux said. "But with the family and the kids and all that, it was fun the last 10 years being home and watching them do their thing."

The 53-year-old Maddux has dabbled in coaching, assisting minor leaguers here and there for whatever franchise his brother worked.

But are today's pitchers all that interested in what "The Professor" has to say? Maybe, but Maddux once famously told me that you can stick spin rate in a sack - in rather colored parlance.

It's not that he's against modern analysis. Not at all. He just believes there's more to baseball.

"It's important - I guess - to measure pitchers, and scout them and judge them, based on spin rates," said the Hall of Famer. "Back then, all they had was a radar gun. Now, there's so much more to it.

"But it really comes down to whether a pitcher can execute enough pitches to win a game. We'll see it watching the playoffs this month. I'm sure somebody throwing 92 is gonna beat someone throwing 98. It's going to come down to who makes the most pitches."

The Brewers' Josh Hader throws 100 and the Brewers are now home because Hader couldn't locate.

"There you go," Maddux said. "There will be plenty of examples out there."

Still, the game's authorities search for launch angle and max-power pitchers, a different game from the one Maddux dominated.

"They're trying to hit more home runs and pitchers are trying to get more strikeouts," Maddux said with a grin. "But it's still a great game. I still enjoy watching it.

"I liked Washington's win (in the Wild Card) the other night (against Milwaukee). That was pretty exciting."

So how would Maddux fare in today's game? Knowing how he used a hitter's approach against him, it probably wouldn't take him long to abuse players trying to hit the bottom of the baseball.

"I would like to think that I would kind of figure out a way to do it," Maddux said. "You always try to compare the best players from different eras and I think the best players, no matter what era they played in, would figure out a way to do it.

"I think Stan Musial could still hit .300 today off these pitchers, just like the ones he hit off of.

"There's a reason some players are just better than others."

As for the pitchers Maddux enjoys watching, Kyle Hendricks for obvious reasons, Jon Lester as the veteran who has figured out a different way to be successful as he ages, and Justin Verlander, to name a few.

"That guy, Verlander, is a good 'pitcher.' He's got great stuff, but he's a good pitcher. He pitches," Maddux said. "He's kind of like (Roger) Clemens, where his stuff has always been better than everybody's, but he's also a better pitcher than the guy he's facing, so he's got two things going for him."

Maddux is still fascinated by baseball, still calls a game in his mind as he watches on TV, thinking about what he would throw in that count, wondering if the pitcher can execute, whether the hitter will guess right.

You can't teach anyone to win 355 games pitching the way Maddux did, and he's not really all that interested in trying anymore, especially not full time.

Maybe it's possible he could get back into the game someday.

But the man is very happy - so it's probably not a great bet.