Not a Single Day Without that Blue Bear and that Mad Dog

The year was 1987. It was a  warm July day in Southern California.  Sometime late in the day a man and wife made a mad dash for the hospital, reaching the delivery room just in time to welcome a bouncing baby boy into thier lives. He was given a stuffed blue bear and probably went to sleep for the first time in his life shortly thereafter.

Two days later Joseph Windell Cox, your’s truely, was back home in Hemet, CA, while miles north in San Francisco one Gregory Alan Maddox was making the 26th appearance of his major league career. While I sucked my finger and listened to the music box in that little blue bear, The Mad Professor was getting lit up in a rough two inning start. However, from then on, for the most parts of every April to September of my life, that same right hander would take the mound every 5 days. And now that has come to an end.

For most of that career the Maddox was dominating two time zones away from my California homes. But he was always there, always in box scores, just one of those constants in baseball, like the box score itself.

There are very few players that capture that sort of longevity. The ones that do, no matter who they play for, your team or your rival, always fall into special esteem to stand forever in your mind.

In that ’87 season Maddox was the same 21 years old that I am today. His career on the field was just getting underway, as mine is now in the broadcast booth. A common love for the game of baseball has connected us, albiet from a 20 year distance, each and every day, each and every game.

So, before I start talking about life being so daily and break into a chorus of “The Circle of Life”…here’s to Greg Maddux, to the past and to the future. Most of all to the game that changes those two modes into memories and hopes, baseball.