Kepner: SABR member Jason Lukehart credited as creator of ‘Maddux,’ the statistic
From Tyler Kepner at the New York Times on May 10, 2015:
Greg Maddux is a Hall of Famer with 355 victories, 18 Gold Gloves and four Cy Young Awards. He is also, fittingly, the career leader in a statistic called the Maddux.
Jason Lukehart, the managing editor at LetsGoTribe.com, a website devoted to the Cleveland Indians, invented the statistic a few years ago after scanning box scores over breakfast and noticing a gem by Maddux, his favorite pitcher.
“That my fondness survived the 1995 World Series, in which his Braves beat my beloved Indians, is something of a miracle, I suppose,” Lukehart wrote in an email, “but also a testament to just how much I enjoyed watching Maddux pitch.”
Lukehart began tallying performances that met a simple definition — a pitcher must throw a complete-game shutout in fewer than 100 pitches — and calling them Madduxes. The creation of Baseball-Reference.com, which has pitch-count information for every game starting in 1988, made the data collection much easier.
Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/sports/baseball/pitcher-serves-his-country-then-aids-cardinals.html?ref=baseball
Originally published: May 10, 2015. Last Updated: May 10, 2015.