Sly as ever, 'Professer' Maddux returns to Dodgers

LOS ANGELES -- A good magician won't reveal his secrets, but Greg Maddux wouldn't even acknowledge that during his first go-round with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he had put on a spectacular display of his baseball smarts. Maddux said Tuesday he couldn't recall the Sept. 13, 2006 game against the Cubs in which ESPN the Magazine reported that the four-time Cy Young award winner was asked by teammate Brad Penny to call the game for him from the dugout. Reportedly, Maddux had such a deep understanding of Penny's stuff from the brief time they had known each other that he provided the signals for the pitches, allowing Penny to toss seven shutout innings for the win. Catcher Russell Martin said he remembered allowing Maddux to call the game "for an inning or two," but Maddux apparently had no memory of the game. "I don't really remember really anything about it," Maddux said, shrugging and giving only a hint of a smile. "I sit here and watch the game and enjoy it." Said Penny: "He's a lot smarter than any player I've played with." Nicknamed "The Professor," Maddux now returns to a locker next to Martin's and is expected to mentor many of the team's younger pitchers. He said he hasn't made any decision on a possible retirement after the season, for now finding a comfortable place to play and even do some teaching. He's been effective this year. Though his record was only 6-9 for the woebegone Padres, his ERA was 3.99 in 26 starts, this after going 14-11 with a 4.14 ERA in San Diego last year."If you can't learn from a guy who's won over 350 games pitching, you can't learn from anybody," Martin said. "It's Greg Maddux." To complete the trade, the Padres have until Oct. 15 to choose up to two players to be named later, and the list of five minor league players the Dodgers provided were not on the current 40-man roster, according to General Manager Ned Colletti. If, for instance, the prospects the Padres wanted were to be injured, they could accept cash considerations instead. Already the Padres are paying the Dodgers a portion of the remainder of Maddux's $10 million salary. Colletti declined to give the amount.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)