I saw an interview with him where he said something I'll never forget. He said he knew where every hitter liked the ball, so he'd throw it there....but not exactly there. Just a smidge (My words) from the sweet spot. I get the feeling that hitters got so frustrated, thinking they got their pitch every time up there, but can't figure out why they grounded out twice and popped up once.
So my story...
Back in the day, I had the chance to sit in the Braves dugout for a series against the Reds. Except for the time I was blocking the dugout camera so Pat Corrales could pick his nose, I sat down toward the end of the bench where a baby pre-starter Andruw Jones used a pocket knife to carve figures out of a bat.
On the days he wasn't pitching, Maddux was in there and nobody bothered him. Never seen anybody study hitters like Maddux did. Wrote things down. I heard he would get video of all the home runs hit the night before and study location and selection.
What he did, more than anybody before or since, was be numbingly consistent. Same motion, same release point, same delivery no matter what it was. Did away with the visual cues the good hitters look for to know what type of pitch was coming. Which is why you'd see them swing early on the changeups, be late on the fastball and be confused as hell when the curve didn't break and sliced the edge of the plate.
No offense to Ryan, Glavine, Smoltz, Neikro, Pedro, Curt, Randy the seagull killer, Clemens, Gooden, Fernando, Hersh or any of the other pitchers through the years, but Maddux was the best I ever saw.
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