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In an unscientific survey at a Braves game last week, TIME asked about a dozen teenage boys--baseball's bread and butter now as always--whom they liked better, Maddux or McGwire. McGwire won hands down (and the Maddux kids were, well, the dorks). Maddux himself loves home runs. "Hey, they make it exciting for me too," he says. He wants none of Boswell's superlatives. "I've given up thousands of hits, lost hundreds of games. I know how to fail." Would that we could all fail so well.
--By John Cloud