A TALE OF TWO ARTISTS VIN SCULLY & GREG MADDUX -- A COUPLE OF SHOOTING STARS LIGHT UP LOS ANGELES. CATCH THEM WHILE YOU CAN.

Byline: Devra Maza -- Special to the Daily News

Several seasons ago, I was researching a baseball screenplay and the Dodgers opened their stadium to me. I was sitting with the scouts during an extra-inning game when two pitchers got up for the Braves in the visitors' bullpen. The scouts, busy with their radar guns, asked me to ID the relievers with my binoculars.

``The one on the left is John Smoltz,'' I told them. The scouts exchanged incredulous looks. ``And the one on the right is Greg Maddux.'' Just as they were about to give up on me entirely, the distinctive voice of Vin Scully was heard on the radios that played throughout the ballpark, imbued with the sense of wonder and awe that would soon fill the scouts' faces: ``... And look who's throwing in the pen. ... There's a combined five Cy Youngs warming up ...''

Now that four of those Cy Youngs is a Dodger, Scully has the opportunity to impart that sense of awe and wonder every fifth day when Greg Maddux makes his start. ``I'll drive to the ballpark thinking I hope he has a good game, because he's such fun to watch,'' says Scully. ``I love how he works the hitters.''

While Scully admires what Maddux can do with a baseball, Maddux in turn says of Scully, ``I always loved his voice, and admired what he's been able to do with a microphone. As a kid, I was a big Reds fan, and we used to come to Dodger games, and Vin Scully was always on the radio. You could hear him during the game in the stands.''

And nothing has changed. My experience with the scouts reminds Scully of a similar scene prior to the last game of the '65 World Series. ``Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax were both warming up at the same time. That was a memorable moment.''

Giving voice to those memorable moments is what Scully's job is all about. This season, two of Maddux's starts display in glorious fashion how a Hall of Fame broadcaster's artistry rises to the occasion when calling the artistry of a future Hall of Fame player.

Back on April 17, in a game on FSN Prime Ticket when Maddux, visiting with the Cubs, three-hit the Dodgers in a pitching clinic to victory, Scully, announcing the starters, alerted fans, ``We might have a dandy.''

Then on Aug. 30, in a game televised by KCAL 9, Maddux, now a Dodger himself, did virtually everything that could be done on a baseball field to beat the Reds. ``It was a perfect night for a perfect player,'' says Scully, who called it perfectly from the start, setting the tone for something special:

``As Greg goes up the steps and walks out towards the mound, he walks out in pursuit of win 330 in his career. Maddux picks up the ball as he has done so many times ...''

``I'm a fan up to a point,'' says Scully, ``and I think every fan is elevated by a superb performance.'' And when both the player and broadcaster's games are ``on,'' it could be a game for the ages.

``Exaggerate the essential and leave the obvious vague.''

-- Vincent Van Gogh

The great Impressionist's philosophy of painting lends itself to all of the arts, be it filmmaking or sportscasting. These days, another Vincent illustrates how it's done. Scully exaggerated the essential in April when he painted the picture of an at-bat by then Dodger Dioner Navarro, marveling at Maddux's control with each pitch:

``He's just taking the Dodgers to school. ... Oh, look at that. ... Navarro was kind of leaning and he just ran it right inside on the corner under his hands. He might as well bring chalk and a blackboard out there, the way he's pitching ... Stayed in there, 0 and 2 ... Ahh, yes. Hand them all a diploma. They are graduating tonight ...''

Scully has also been known to leave the obvious vague when during incessant replays he quips ``and he's still out.''

``He ties pictures together better than anybody.'' says Michael Ireland, who directed the August game. ``He can just take shots off the wall and make them fit perfectly into a pattern.''

It's especially fitting when the subject is doing some painting of his own. ``That's when pitchers hit the corners,'' explains Joe Girardi who caught Maddux during his first stint with the Cubs and now manages the Marlins. ``He probably paints better than any pitcher in baseball.''

And what makes a catcher great to Maddux?

``Consistency,'' says Maddux. ``Looking the same way, giving that picture of them and where you're supposed to throw the ball. It's like staring at the same painting for two hours. The picture never changes.''

``It's easier if you can get into a rhythm,'' says Girardi, ``and Greg's a rhythm pitcher.'' And Scully's a rhythm announcer, as fellow Hall of Fame broadcaster, Bob Wolff observes: ``There's something poetic about his style and the mellifluous tones he uses. He's the only one with whom you say `Oh boy, what a voice!'''

Scully compares his skills to skywriting. You can see it as soon as he says it:

``... Maddux, both feet on the rubber, rocks now to the windup, the 1-0 pitch on the way, a cracked bat and a groundball to Lee, he'll do it himself. Ho-hum, another easy inning for the marvel that is Maddux. He might look like the corner librarian, but he's something.''

And he has a large palette to draw from, including a variety of pitches that change speeds and dart to different locations. Dodgers pitching hero Orel Hershiser, now an analyst for ESPN, knows the art: ``Some guys have to work strictly in black and white. Other guys can work in four-color art. When you watch a guy like Greg Maddux, he has the basic root confidence that every one of the colors of his palette are available throughout the whole game.''

``If Maddux threw 95, everyone else would have to retire.''

-- Pedro Martinez

When I relayed Pedro's words to Greg, he returned the compliment: ``Pedro doesn't have to pitch, but he does. He's probably one of the very few pitchers who could lose 10 miles an hour off his fastball and still win just as many games.''

If the spikes fit ... In the April game, Scully asserted they do:

``They tell me now with age, velocity has come off the ball a bit this year, however ... Greg ready and deals and ... strike three called. He's retired nine in a row. ... Same young Maddux.''

But Maddux isn't necessarily looking for strikeouts. ``You have to get 27 outs,'' he says. ``Strikeouts can be good at times, but for the most part they're all worth just one out. Strikeout or four-hopper to second will accomplish the same thing the majority of the time.''

``He wants the guy to put the ball in play,'' says Maddux's latest target, Dodgers catcher Russell Martin. ``That's how he keeps his pitch count down.'' Many fans think strikeouts are sexy, but it takes three to five pitches (or more with foul balls) for a power pitcher to get one strikeout, whereas Maddux can get two people out with one pitch by inducing a rally-killing double-play groundball.

``Greg's good enough to make a hitter hit it where he wants him to hit it,'' says Martin. So when after a game, Maddux modestly says ``I was fortunate they hit everything at people,'' what it really means is that his command was so amazing that he was able to throw the ball to the specific spot where a hitter's bat would hit it to a specific fielder. It makes him, as shortstop Rafael Furcal says, ``the easiest pitcher to play defense with'' and, for the rest of us, a joy to watch.

Former player Steve Lyons, now part of both the Dodgers broadcast team and FSN Prime Ticket's postgame show says, ``When a guy like Maddux is on his game it's a lot more special because he has to pitch. It's easier for a guy who has a 96 mile an hour fastball because if he gets in trouble, he can reach back and throw it right by you and you can't hit it. Maddux has to trick you and get you to swing at bad pitches all day long. That's what pitching's all about.''

Roger Clemens ought to know: ``To watch what he does with the strike zone and the way that he joggles the hitters' eyes, up and down and in and out, I sure would pay to watch him pitch anytime.''

In the August game versus the Reds, Scully prepped his audience for a Hall of Fame match-up: ``Greg Maddux will be pitching to Ken Griffey Jr. and that's quite a battle right there. One guy with 562 home runs and the other fellow with 329 victories ...''

In his first at-bat, Griffey got an infield hit, but in his next time up, he hit a comebacker to Maddux, who had a chance to turn a double play. As he fielded the hopper, the winning Lotto numbers flashed on-screen. One of them was 31. Who was your money on?

While Maddux's number has always been 31, he currently wears 36, which was once worn by Mike Morgan, the journeyman pitcher who during his stint with the Dodgers rode a groundball-inducing sinker to the All-Star game.

But Maddux is nothing if not versatile. In Griffey's third at-bat, Maddux got him to fly out: ``Curveball lifted to left. Just a long fly ball. One away, and for Maddux, one pitch.'' With that efficient call, Scully celebrated efficiency itself.

``The adrenaline rush you get from the crowd is better than champagne.''

-- Vin Scully

Charley Steiner grew up listening to Scully calling the Brooklyn Dodgers. Now a Dodgers broadcaster himself, Steiner calls most road games as well as home games on KFWB 980. ``While he's on television and I'm on radio, we work in a parallel universe and for me it's like coming out and playing pepper with Babe Ruth every day,'' says Steiner. ``We're on the same field, but he plays a different game and he just plays it at a far higher level than me or probably everybody else who's ever done it.''

That level is where Scully puts Maddux: ``He's like a diamond-cutter out there, no pun intended, slicing up the strike zone.'' But it is Scully who, while seeing the many facets of the game, must call them on the fly.

``Vin Scully is the voice of the Dodgers because his voice personifies all that's great about the game of baseball and his mind reaffirms it,'' says Wolff. ``He looks at the mental side as well as the physical. That's the extra edge and that's what Maddux does. He's the thinking man's pitcher. He outthinks the batters.''

Martin thinks he knows how Maddux does it. ``His concentration level is just higher than most people. He concentrates so much that he probably slows the game down in his head.'' That, coupled with his athletic ability, allows him to quickly read situations and react.

In the course of the August game, Maddux not only pitched brilliantly, turned double plays, hit and squeezed in runs, but, for dessert, gave fans an assist to remember. The joy in Scully's voice accelerated with the play:

``Two on, two out, line drive off the glove of Garciaparra, Maddux racing for the throw and they got him! Oh, what a play! Nothing like experience, despite that ball being drilled, despite the fact Garciaparra could flag it and knock it down, there was Maddux over to cover. I mean if he's standing, watching, they can't make a play, but heeeere he comes...''

After the play, the cameras caught Maddux with what Scully dubbed ``a little boy grin.'' Between the play and the call, the grin was contagious.

``He sets things up early in the game to put in your mind and nine times out of 10 they pay off later in the game.''

Quick, who's that quote about? If you guessed Maddux you'd be right, yet it was said by Ireland of Scully. Leo Mazzone, one of the greatest pitching coaches of all time, now guru to the Orioles, says virtually the same thing about Maddux:

``He sets them up for late in the game with men on base, so how he pitches to them the first time around won't be the same.'' Mazzone has even seen Maddux pitch hitters a certain way so that they'll look for that pitch in a future game. ``You've gotta be pretty good to do that.''

Mazzone has seen some good ones, having guided the Braves' arms during their dominating National League reign. If the Yankees once had ``Murder's Row,'' the Braves, with Maddux, Tom Glavine and Smoltz, had ``Murderer's Throw.'' Glavine, who may follow Maddux as the next and last pitcher to get 300 wins, now pitches for the Mets, which could set the stage for a surreal postseason matchup. Were Maddux and Glavine to face off, there would be so much finesse that night, the stadium itself would be stylin'.

When hitters adjust, Maddux adjusts to them, which means sometimes the catcher has to play catch-up. Ever wonder what that conference on the mound's about? The Braves' Eddie Perez, one of Maddux's best catchers, knows:

``Before the game, he'll say, `We won't throw change-ups to this guy' and then we get out there and he starts throwing change-ups. I'll go ask, `Why'd you change everything?' and he'll say, `Because he changed everything,' and he'll always be right. That's what makes him Maddux.''

``I think everything's based on what you feel,'' says Maddux. ``You get information from the hitter and use that to select your next pitch.''

Those pitches include a change-up, cutter, occasional slider, a rare curveball, and of course a fastball --

``Fastball with movement,'' he corrected. Hitters agree. After the April game, Dodger Oscar Robles was heard to say, ``I've never seen a pitch move as much. The movement was incredible.''

He was referring to Maddux's two-seam fastball, also called a sinker. I call it his ``Snagglepuss'' pitch because, like that cartoon lion, it leans one way, but runs another. It's especially fun to watch him throw it to lefties. As it veers inside, their butt shoots out, as if taking a seat on the bench, but then the ball comes back to bite the plate. The Reds' Scott Hatteberg got a firsthand look at ``The Snagglepuss'' in the August game and Scully relayed his surprise:

``... See you later. Hatteberg can't believe it. Davidson, the plate umpire, gesturing, `It's not my fault. The ball just moves late.' So Hatteberg strikes out ...''

``He's got the greatest control of any pitcher I've ever seen,'' says Mazzone. ``He is the definition of the word `pitcher.'''

Having a good umpire helps. ``The three men who are going to have the most impact on the game are the two starting pitchers and the home plate umpire and that's true every night,'' says Yankees broadcaster Jim Kaat, whose fielding record of 16 gold gloves for a pitcher Maddux stands to tie this season.

Great umpires, like John Hirschbeck in the April game, know that any part of the ball catching any part of the plate, including the rim, is a strike.

``0 and 2 the count on Repko. This'll be his first taste of the challenge that is Greg Maddux. Maddux has struck out three ... make it four. He's amazing. I mean ... that was kind of backdoor. It was off the plate, but it came back. So Repko bows to the magic, and he really is a magician.''

It's an illusion built around pitches that change speeds and ``exit'' left and right. ``You have to be able to locate those pitches and that's why he's so good,'' says Martin. `` `Cause he can.''

``He's simply the best who's

ever done it.''

-- Charley Steiner

Vin Scully remembers sitting in the dugout in 1963 the day before Sandy Koufax struck out 15 Yankees. ``Their manager Ralph Houk was asking me, `Is he that good?' and I said I just hope he pitches the way he can pitch so people can see just how brilliant he really is. And then he proceeded to go out there and do wondrous things.''

After Maddux's August game, Scully felt similar emotions. ``I thought to myself, now these people see what we've seen over the years. Now they can understand why this man has such respect and admiration throughout baseball.''

Five years from the season Maddux decides to make more time for golf, he will invariably join Scully in The Baseball Hall of Fame. To Scully, the Hall belongs to those who wear uniforms, like Maddux, and run teams. ``I always feel I'm in the little wing, in the garage.''

But Dodgers great Don Newcombe thinks Scully's ``an institution. He's the legend here. He's a part of the Dodgers' rich history. Vinny doesn't like accolades, but I'll talk about him and he can't do a thing about it.''

``I just marvel at his skill level,'' says Steiner, ``the wordsmith that he is, the timing that he has and the voice that he was given. As a broadcaster, I study him more than you can imagine.''

Meanwhile, the players study Maddux. Says Martin: ``You learn something every day when you're sitting down and listening to him.'' His impact on the team cannot be denied. Scully hinted at it as he recapped Maddux's final play in the August game:

``A brilliant play, and of course that's the way the Dodgers have been playing now for a month.''

What had happened a month earlier was that Greg Maddux had arrived in the Dodgers clubhouse. Observes Steiner, ``It was the turning point of the season, an enormous day for this team. Then 72 hours later he pitches six no-hit innings. That doesn't happen. You can write that stuff for a movie. I can't write that, but he did it.''

For his part, Maddux calls pitching for the Dodgers ``a privilege,'' and with the ability to pitch several more years, he's happy to be here. ``I've always loved coming here as a visiting player. I've always loved the atmosphere here and to spend more than three days here has been a real pleasure. What a great place to come to work every day.''

Scully knows the feeling: ``You're going home thinking, that was unbelievable. How lucky can I be to be in the ballpark, because I love this game, but I also know how hard it is to play and to get it up to such a sophisticated level, and then to see someone like Maddux take it to yet another level, that's goosebump time.''

As Dodgers fans saw, it was ``a whale of a ballgame. ... For Greg Maddux, it was a remarkable night ...''

``He's so special,'' says Scully. ``He could be Haley's Comet as far as the Dodgers go.'' In every game in which Scully shines the spotlight on Maddux, there are two shooting stars, shining all the brighter in the glow of their crossed paths. Baseball fans should enjoy watching them while they can, because, as Ireland cautions, ``there's no doubt you're watching something you might never see again.''

For, as Scully says, ``the great player brings us all up a notch.'' And the great broadcaster takes us all with him.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) no caption (Vin Scully)

(2 -- color) no caption (Greg Maddux)

Getty Images

(3) Vin Scully, a Hall of Fame broadcaster, is universally admired for his rhythm and voice in covering the Dodgers. ``There's something poetic about his style and the mellifluous tones he uses,'' says Bob Wolff, a fellow Hall of Fame broadcaster.

John SooHoo/Courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers 

(4) Greg Maddux has developed an almost mythic reputation for his controlled pitches. ``He is the definition of the word `pitcher,''' says Leo Mazzone, a highly regarded pitching coach.

Jeff Gross/Getty Images