You're kind of good at this stuff, you know.Every time a great player reaches the end of his career you start to hear the “you’ll never see his like again” stuff dripping out of the mouths of broadcasters. In the smallest, most specific of ways, they’re right. There’ll never be another Walter Payton or Michael Jordan. Guys will come close, but they’ll do it a little differently. But for every LaDanian Tomlinson or Kobe Bryant or LeBron James who come close, there are a million others who try to be like Walter or like Mike. The ones who really commit. The ones who try to pattern themselves in worth ethic and desire like those greats end up being better than they otherwise would have been. There’s a benefit to idolizing the true greats. You might not have the physical ability that they have, but you’ll get more out of yourself than you would have if you say, emulated, Stacey King or Rashaan Salaam.

What’s ironic is that as Greg Maddux nears the end of his unbelievable run in Major League Baseball, you’re starting to hear the “you’ll never his like again” stuff. What, we’ll never see another 6’0, 190 pound white guy who throws 88 miles an hour?

No, we will. You could probably head out to any college baseball game in America and find three of them on each team.

But what you won’t find is any of them who do what they do as well as Greg Maddux. Baseball stars are supposed to have undeniable physical gifts. They throw the ball 99 miles an hour, or run like the wind, or bench press pickup trucks in the parking lot.

Roger Clemens fits the mold of a guy who you can seriously consider “the greatest pitcher of all time.” Roger threw hard from birth, and more than 40 years later he still is.

Then there’s Greg. Ninety-two miles per hour is a heater for this guy. He’s not very intimidating. A couple years ago he had laser eye surgery, so at least now he’s not wearing the big round glasses in the dugout anymore, but still he looks more like a guy who you give your golf clubs to to have regripped than a guy with 320 big league wins.

It’s part of what makes baseball so cool. When Kerry Wood is healthy (yes, there have been times, really, some are on video tape even), and pitching well, you marvel at how a human can throw a baseball that hard and make balls break that much. You get almost a cave man type satisfaction in watching him just overmatch hitters. As pointless as his stint in the Cubs’ bullpen last year (when he should have been having surgery and getting ready for…now), you had to admit it was…cool. There’s a violence to his pitching. Hitters flailing pathetically and looking like they wish the at bat was over, dust flying out of the catcher’s mitt that had been hiding in there for a year, all that cool stuff.

So how can it be as much fun to watch Greg?

His delivery is simple. No huge leg kick, no Dontrelle like funky follow through. He looks like he’s throwing BP to high school kids on a Friday afternoon when the coach has gone behind the school to have a smoke.

If you were picking teams in the park you’d pick Kerry Wood because he “looks like a pitcher.” And probably because you watched him play catch and he kept knocking the glove off the other guy.

So you’d pick Kerry, and the other team would win. Because that’s what Greg is all about.

Last year he acted like getting his 3,000th strikeout was a surprise to him. He just said, “Hey, if you pitch long enough you’re going to get some records.” For Greg, striking out guys is fine, but you have to throw at least three pitches to them to do it. He’d just as soon throw one and get it over with.

When he returned to the Cubs in 2004 after a very productive (and frustrating for us) exile in Atlanta, we adjusted to what he’d become. He still had impeccable control, he could still make a baseball defy gravity and inertia and “back up.” But he didn’t always have impeccable control and sometimes the ball backed up more than others. You figured in 30 starts he’d give you 20 good ones, five great ones and five where you wanted to put the protective screen in front of him so he didn’t get killed.

He was supposed to be the Cubs’ “fifth” starter, so 25 good starts a year was a bonus.

And that’s what he gave, and other than Carlos Zambrano, that was the best the Cubs had to offer for two years. It still is.

So far this year, Greg has been magnificent. Twelve innings, two runs allowed and enough frustrated “oh crap I’m on my front foot and the damn ball’s only halfway home” looks on hitters’ faces to know that he’s still got it.

In the offseason he decided to get into better shape. He’s never been in bad shape, mind you. He’s won 15 Gold Gloves and has been one of the best hitting pitchers of his era.

But last year he had a side injury that bothered him most of the year and he had a couple of games where he barely even jogged to first base on ground outs.

It doesn’t take Gil Grissom and a crime lab van to figure out that Greg saw the handwriting on the wall. He had one year left on his deal, enough wins and Cy Youngs and strikeouts and all-around fame to last him a lifetime. But he knew that he had to make a decision. He either got ready for this year like every other, won double digit number of games and probably found interest after the season so lukewarm that he called it a career…or, he’d get in just a little better shape (a consolation to the approach of his 40th birthday) and see if maybe he could stick around beyond this year.

Maddux doesn’t say much to the press. But when he does, you get a loud and clear message that he just likes playing baseball. It’s fun. He likes going to the park, hanging out with the guys, toying with hitters’ and their inferior minds and getting a few hacks in at the plate himself.

On the mound he pitches at a breakneck pace. So much so that when he made his season debut last Thursday, we joked during the GameCast that he was trying to get off the mound in time to see the start of USA Network’s Masters coverage.

But for a guy in a hurry on the mound, he’s in no such hurry to leave. He was as annoyed as he gets (or at least allows people to see) last year when Dusty Baker suggested that maybe it was the end of the road for him. Once you retire, you have the rest of your life to be retired, so what’s the damn hurry?

Maybe it’s just that he put two of his really good starts together early this year. Maybe he’s not any better than he was last year. But it just doesn’t feel like it, does it? When you watch him pitch these last couple weeks it’s a little different. Everything just seems a little crisper.

He had a strange look on his face after his home opener win over the Cardinals. He had an “I’ve still got it” grin on his face.

For those of us just watching, we probably all felt like “It was a good start, but the wind was blowing in about 400 miles an hour.” Yesterday, the wind was howling out. So Greg didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning and only allowed one run again.

Selfishly, there are two reasons I’m enjoying what I think is his resurgence (not that he ever dropped off that much). First, when he pitches well, the Cubs will win. That’s always a good thing. But secondly, I just like watching him pitch. The better he pitches, the more he’ll pitch and the longer he’ll do it.

Because you know, we’ll never his kind again, and it’s a pleasure to watch.

Greggie said he was thinking about how yesterday was going to be the last start he made before he turned 40.

Michael Barrett says that his World Baseball Classic experience has helped him get off to a hot start. Great, we’ll expect another great start four years from now, then.

KC Johnson with a good look at “funny” Paul Shirley.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to compare Maddux to Eddie Harris from “Major League.” Good to see that Mariotti’s only 15 years behind in his movie references now. That’s good. Last year he compared AJ Pierzynski to one of the guys in “Birth of a Nation.”

Jock and E-ramis will be holding down the bench until as least tomorrow.

Dusty says he doesn’t want to put any pressure on Glendon, but…

While Kenny Williams was complaining to the Wizard of Roz about the decline in morals and values in today’s athletes, Barry had to cut the interview short because Kenny’s kids were yanking the stereo out of his car.

Sports Guy answers his mail.

Alexander Wolff has an ABA franchise in Vermont and he’s letting members of the team’s “Bump in the Road Club” (the team is named the Frost Heaves, after the bumps that appear in the road in the early winter when the ground freezes and swells under the road, to vote. I’m a member. I voted. For Chicago’s very own Rus Bradburd. Hey, he coached with Lou Henson at New Mexico State. How can you go wrong?

Now what’s more pathetic, the guy who ate the urinal cake in the Wrigley Bleachers last week or the guy from St. Louis selling what he claims to be the first hot dog sold at the new Urinal Cake…Busch Stadium II (or is this III now?)

Why would anybody want to drug Frank Solich? I wouldn’t even want to talk to the guy.

Consumerist on how MLB.com has screwed up their MLB-TV service this year and how they don’t really want to give you any money back.

Ken Rosenthal claims that E-ramis can opt out of the last two years of his deal after this season. I did not know that. Better get to work, Jimbo. And see if you can get this guy to learn how to stretch before games, too.

America’s finest news source wonders where we’re hiding our Easter eggs.