LAS VEGAS — One of the many things that never made sense about Greg Maddux is that he lived in Las Vegas. You always got the sense that if Maddux were a city, he would have been, you know, Kansas City or Des Moines or Dayton, a quiet Midwestern city that didn't want to make a show and was a nice place to raise a family. Anyway, he never seemed to have much Vegas in him at all.

But Maddux is from Vegas — this has been his home all his life — and so it was right that the most remarkable pitcher of his time, maybe of any time, wrapped up his career here, announcing his retirement in the ballroom of the Bellagio hotel and casino. This was the first day of baseball's winter meetings, and it was boring beyond words. Teams spent the day feeling each other out, checking and rechecking how much money they had to spend and trying to talk a little baseball near the craps tables. Most people think things will pick up today.

Monday, though, was Maddux's day.

"I really just want to thank everybody," he said. And then he did thank everyone, from his teammates to the kids who worked in the clubhouse, from his pitching coaches to the fans who cheered, from his youth baseball coach (who told him that movement of a pitch was more important than velocity) to his wife (who let him sleep in on game days). It was a typically classy Maddux performance. Few superstars in American sports history have been so modest and, in the kindest sense of the word, ordinary.

He won 355 games in his career, eighth all time if you want to go back to the 19th century, fifth all time if you want to start in 1900, the most for any pitcher since 1950. That is an amazing number of victories in a time when starting pitchers just don't get many decisions. It's also precisely one victory more than the player he was most often compared with in his career_Roger Clemens.

Of course, Maddux was everything that Clemens was not. Clemens was ferocious, intimidating, bigger than life. Clemens threw 95-mph fastballs, and he threw split-fingered pitches that crashed to the ground, and he threw high and tight. Clemens was flash and attitude and ego. Clemens could have been from Vegas.

Maddux wasn't any of those things. He could throw pretty hard when he liked, but he mostly threw his fastball in the mid-80s with lots of fluttering movement. He hardly ever walked a soul. He may have been the best fielding pitcher in baseball history_his 18 Gold Gloves are a record for any position. He liked to be underestimated.

And, even when he was at his best_between 1992 and 1995 when he won four consecutive Cy Young Awards — he was underestimated. That's what made him so remarkable. Sure, Randy Johnson was great, but it's easier to be great when you are 6 feet 10 and throw 98 mph with a slider that blows up halfway to the plate. Sure, Pedro Martinez was great, Sandy Koufax was great, Bob Feller was great, but they all threw so hard, and they all had curveballs thatfroze batters in place. Hitters were terrorized.

I'm certain that no great pitcher in baseball history ever left batters more frustrated than Maddux; after every game you would hear them say that they almost got Maddux or that they just missed or that they had him figured out and would get him next time. Tim McCarver's famous line was about Bob Gibson_"He is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw; he always pitches when the other team doesn't score any runs,"_but it fits Maddux even better. He had a 2.15 ERA from 1992 to 1998 — this just as offense was exploding all around baseball, and everybody you talked to seemed to think he was just a Vegas gambler on a very long lucky streak.

Maddux never seemed to mind that. He had an ego, of course_he would stare angrily at a hitter who dared to get a hit off him_but it was purely an ego on the mound. Off the mound, he did not care for fame. He did not long for credit. He did not want to be known. He got married in 1989, and he and Kathy had two kids he talked about now and then, and Greg liked to golf, and ... that was pretty much the whole story. He was this regular guy who had a certain genius for pitching. There really wasn't anything else to say.

There were no tears on Monday, of course, and there were no fireworks either. It was a simple affair. Maddux said that he would miss the game, but at almost 43 years old, he couldn't play it as well as he would like. He said that he would probably come back to coach someday, but first he wanted to spend some time with his family and do some other things and see how much he liked that.

"You know," he said with that wry smile, "I assume I will like it."

Someone asked him about the Hall of Fame, and he said he did not really have much to say about that. Someone asked him how he would feel if people called him the greatest living pitcher_a crowded field with Clemens and Pedro and Koufax and Randy Johnson and others_and he said that he did not have much to say about that either. Someone asked him what he would do to change baseball. He said he would do nothing_baseball is almost perfect as is.

And then Maddux left, quietly, leaving behind the blinking lights and slot-machine bells. Maddux said he will miss the game. The game will miss him more.