ATLANTA — For the second time in three months, a major league team is retiring Greg Maddux’s number, leaving the Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher feeling humbled and a little confused.

How can his number be retired when he still feels like an active player?
“It’s all still pretty new to me. I don’t feel 100 percent retired yet, to be honest with you,” Maddux said this week. “I just still feel like it’s the offseason and still feel like I could go back and play again, but I know it’s not going to happen. I guess I haven’t really accepted it fully yet.”
Maddux and Ferguson Jenkins, who each wore No. 31 for the Cubs, shared the stage in May when the number was retired in Chicago.
The Atlanta Braves are next up, and will retire Maddux’s No. 31 July 17 before playing the New York Mets as they celebrate his 11 seasons in Atlanta, the most productive of his career. He will also be inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame.
Maddux said the time for such honors “came pretty quick.”
“Last year at this time I was starting for the Padres,” he said. “I ended up in the bullpen for the Dodgers and two months later I was throwing batting practice to a bunch of 12-year-olds.”
He said the family time has helped fill the void left by the end of his playing career.
“I am enjoying the time off and the time away,” he said. “I do miss the game but I am enjoying my time off. “
The 43-year-old said he may wear a uniform again, perhaps as a pitching coach.
“I have a lot of interest in that, but I just don’t think I’m ready to do that right now,” he said. “I’m enjoying watching my kids growing up. I’m enjoying catching up on what I missed the last 25 years playing.”
The Braves were coming off two straight World Series appearances when they signed Maddux before the 1993 season, turning a strong pitching staff into a dominant one.
Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz would combine to win seven NL Cy Young awards in an eight-year span as the Braves won 14 straight division titles and the 1995 World Series.
“I think all of us knew we were getting a good pitcher because he was coming off a Cy Young year, but I don’t think any of us had any idea he was going to be as good as he was and he was going to have the kind of years he had while he was with us in Atlanta,” Glavine said this week.
“He made what was already a good pitching staff a great pitching staff.”
Maddux, who retired after pitching for San Diego and the Los Angeles Dodgers last season, ranks eighth in career wins with 355. He won four straight NL Cy Young awards and won 15 or more games a record 17 consecutive seasons.
Glavine says Maddux fit in so easily with the Braves in 1993 because “he doesn’t take himself very seriously.”
With his smallish, slightly soft-looking build, Maddux hardly looked the part of a 300-game winner. No one could question the athleticism of a pitcher who won 18 Gold Gloves, but he didn’t look like a star athlete when he left the clubhouse in khakis and a golf shirt.
Behind the scenes, Maddux assumed the role of a master pitching tactician.
“He was really, really good at looking at a hitter, watching how he took a pitch, watching how he swung at a pitch and using that information to kind of dictate what he was going to do next with pitch selection and pitch location,” Glavine said.
Smoltz said he learned from watching Maddux tease batters.
“He had the ability to spot and initiate the contact he wanted to initiate for the most part, so it was just fun to watch,” Smoltz said this week in Boston, where he is in his first season with the Red Sox.
“I learned a lot of things from him, not in the way of being able to throw like him but the way he set up hitters, the way he looked for things,” Smoltz said.
Glavine and Smoltz combined to win three Cy Young awards in the 1990s. Maddux was the NL’s most dominant pitcher while winning four straight Cy Young awards from 1992-95. He was 75-29 with a 1.98 ERA in the four-year run.
He had a 1.56 ERA in the 1994 strike-shortened season, and in 1995, when the Braves won the World Series, his gaudy numbers included a 19-2 record, a 1.63 ERA and a .197 batting average allowed. He was the first pitcher since Walter Johnson in 1918-19 to post an ERA under 1.80 in two straight seasons.
“It’s about as dominant a stretch as I’ve ever seen a pitcher go through,” Smoltz said.
“I got to see it every day and ... for a four-year period he was unmatched. It was pretty incredible.”
In 1997, when he was 19-4 with a 2.20 ERA, Maddux walked only 20 batters in 232 2-3 innings. Six of the 20 walks were intentional.
Maddux retired with a 3.16 ERA for his 23-year career from 1986-2008, including 11 seasons in Atlanta.
During his career, the average ERA for major league pitchers was 4.28, according to STATS, Inc.
Maddux’s ERA differential of 1.128 is the second-highest for any pitcher with 300 or more wins, according to STATS. Lefty Grove’s 3.06 career ERA from 1925-41 was 1.149 below the major league average of 4.21.
Maddux will become the sixth Braves player to have his number retired, joining Hank Aaron (44), Eddie Mathews (41), Dale Murphy (3), Phil Niekro (35) and Warren Spahn (21).
“It’s a tremendous honor,” he said. “I stared at those numbers for 11 years.”