I'm sure that a lot of people think it's easy to be Greg Maddux.

No matter what, he's going into the Hall of Fame. No matter what, he's one of the best pitchers of our generation. No matter what, he's one of, if not the best, cerebral pitchers.

But there's one hell of a downside that has been getting worse in the last few years. The way that umps treat him.

Now, there are plenty of umps who treat him with respect and call his pitches as they are, whether they're good or bad. However, there's also a fairly large contingent of umps who ride Greg's backside so much that he should consider putting in handles...

Granted, Greg was a bit off today in his start against the White Sox, but as I sat and watched the game (which is still in play at the time that I'm writing this) I saw Doggie delivering pitches that clearly were strikes, but they weren't called. It was so bad that Greg "walked" about five hitters- I put "walked" in quotes because Greg has never been one to give those up, so if he truly did "walk" all those people, he has fallen apart. (He hasn't fallen apart, he just couldn't get a break from the umpire).

To make matters worse, the umpire decided to make a mound out of a molehill, no pun intended. Greg is known to lower his head so that his chin is touching his chest, and swear when he feels a need to. Greg goes out of his way to not express himself in a manner that others might find offensive. So, Doggie is up there on the mound, throwing pitches that were right where they should be to get strikes, when he released a ball that he himself wasn't happy with (those of you who know Doggie's style know that he's very hard on himself when he commits an error). Greg lowered his head and yelled at himself: "God DAMN it!!". I can't even tell you how many times I've heard him do that in the past... it's actually quite cute to me: I imagine that you guys out there find it funny. The ump, who has been riding Doggie all game at this point (lucky SOB! ;-) then proceeds to rip off his mask, take a few steps towards the mound, and he starts yelling at Maddux that it was "off the plate!". Mind you, while he's acting like a complete, unprofessional jerk, Doggie is saying, "I'm sorry, man... that wasn't about you. I'm sorry...". I mean, you could clearly read it on his lips. Then Rothschild comes out to check on his pitcher, and the ump doesn't give the crew the normal amount of time to talk, he's immediately on his way to the mound to break it up.

My question is, what the hell was the umps' problem? That wasn't Roger Clemens on the mound, or some other mouthy guy with a big ego. It was Mr. Humble on the mound... but apparently this ump takes issue with a guy who gets frustrated with himself and therefore decides to yell at himself.

This is what Greg Maddux has to deal with a fair share of the time. I know that all pitchers meet with some resistance from time to time, but when it comes to Greg, there seem to be some umps with real axes to grind against him. I've seen games where the umps ride him hard, and I've seen some crazy games where I honestly think that the umps weren't paying attention: where one pitch is a strike, Doggie hits that same spot on the next pitch, it's a ball. There was even a game last year, which I refer to as the "Do you even HAVE a strike zone?!" game, where Doggie lost it and asked the umpire to just let him know what the strike zone was... Now, Doggie blowing up and actually getting on an ump about that is VERY rare, so something must have been happening.

For those of you who don't understand why I take the views that I do about Maddux, you have to realize that I've watched him for years, and a key component to Maddux has always been that he's a gentleman, he very rarely gets so upset as to argue a call or a pitch. Knowing that, and having watched his style for so long, I can tell you that some crazy crap was going on. I've watched him for so long that I'm better at interpreting his body language than most of the broadcasters who comment on him and his games. For example, a REALLY good sign that Doggie is upset about something is that he'll start cracking his neck: he does this both on the mound and in interviews. When you see the neck going, you know that he's irritated.

I didn't see any neck cracking today, but I wouldn't have blamed him for it if he did do it... I can't imagine how frustrating it was for him all around today.

When all is said and done, it's not so easy to be a future Hall of Famer, is it?