THE ARTISTRY OF MR. MADDUX

Baseball's almost seamless history has had only one stark disjunction, the one about 1920, between the dead-ball and lively-ball eras. But within the lively-ball era there has been the steroids parenthesis--the era of some synthetically lively players--which now is closing.

Greg Maddux has thrived throughout it. Only two pitchers in the lively-ball era have had four consecutive seasons with an earned run average under 2.40--Maddux and Sandy Koufax, who threw from a mound five inches higher than today's. In Maddux's four seasons (1992-95) his ERA was an astonishing 1.98, two runs per game lower than the National League's 3.99 over the same period. Today, as he prepares to win at least 15 games for a record 18th consecutive year, he represents physical normality in baseball.

Just six feet tall and 180 pounds, Maddux is a reminder that, as Bill Veeck said, you do not need to be seven feet tall or seven feet wide to play baseball. When Maddux, now 39, enters the Hall of Fame five years after he retires, he will be the smallest major-league pitcher inducted since Whitey Ford (5 feet 10, 181), who retired in 1967.

When baseball is cleansed of steroids there will be fewer lurid records, like those of Barry Bonds in 2001. But numerous factors, from the strength training of hitters to the proliferation of hitter-friendly ballparks, will keep home runs plentiful. Besides, pitchers, too, have probably used steroids. Maddux says steroids made some track stars' legs move faster, so they probably increased some pitchers' arm speeds. Steroid testing began in 2003. In 2004, only one eighth as many players (12) tested positive as in 2003 (96). Yet home runs per game and slugging percentages increased.

In Maddux's first full season, 1988, the major-league-leading home-run total was Jose Canseco's 42. But of the 50-homer seasons in baseball history--there have been 36 of them--19 have occurred since 1990. This power explosion has not perturbed Maddux, who last year methodically became the 22nd 300-game winner, and perhaps the last for a long time. This year his 84th strikeout will be his 3,000th, making him the ninth pitcher with 3,000 K's and 300 wins.

He is proof--redundant proof--that ballplayers can perform well late in their careers without performance-enhancing drugs. Ty Cobb, who batted .316 in 1906 at age 19, batted .323 at age 41 in 1928. Warren Spahn, the winningest left-handed pitcher ever, got 158 of his 363 wins after turning 36 and was 23-7 at age 42. Henry Aaron--currently and, we may hope, for many years to come, baseball's all-time home-run hitter--had his best year at age 37.