Yanks’ best pitch wasn’t enough to bring

For 22 years, Gene Michael has wrestled with the “what might have been” question regarding Greg Maddux, who was just elected to the Hall of Fame along with his longtime Atlanta Braves pitching stablemate, Tom Glavine, and former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas.

Watching the TV broadcast of Thursday’s Hall of Fame press conference, Michael was at it again. As one of Maddux’s first managers with the Chicago Cubs in 1986-87 and later the man who as Yankee GM heavily recruited Maddux to come to New York in 1992, Michael was feeling both pride and regret.

“I always said Greg Maddux could do just about everything,” Michael said by phone from Tampa. “Not only was he a great pitcher, he was a great fielder and a good hitter. The only thing he couldn’t do was add.”

The latter remark, of course, was in reference to Maddux’s decision as a free agent after the 1991 season to spurn a five-year, $37.5 million offer from the Yankees to sign a five-year, $28 million deal with the Atlanta Braves.

Before that happened, Michael had pulled out all the stops to make Maddux a Yankee, bringing him into New York, giving him the “Jersey tour” of homes in the more upscale towns of Bergen County, taking him and his wife to dinner at the Post House in Manhattan and then to the Broadway play, “Miss Saigon.”

All of this was right out of the George Steinbrenner handbook that had proved successful with previous marquee free agents, including Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage and Dave Winfield.

“What I told Gene at the time was that money won’t necessarily decide this,” Maddux said. “The fact was, I wanted to stay in the National League and I wanted to go with a team that had a chance to win. The Braves had just gone to the seventh game of the World Series where (the Twins’) Jack Morris outdueled Smoltzie (John Smoltz), but while they’d showed interest in me, they hadn’t made me an offer.”

By contrast, the Yankees were coming off their third straight losing season (71-91, fifth place), Steinbrenner was suspended from baseball and Michael was striking out everywhere in his efforts to recruit free agents. Both David Cone and Doug Drabek had turned down offers to bolster the Yankee pitching staff, and Michael’s five-year offer to Barry Bonds was trumped by a six-year offer from the Giants.

But because he had a relationship with Maddux and because the Braves could not make the ace an offer until they unloaded payroll, Michael thought he had a real shot in bringing in the righthanded stylist, who was coming off a season in which he led the National League in victories (20-11), with an ERA of 2.18.

“When I dropped him off at the Plaza after the play, I remember Greg saying to me he was going to call (his agent) Scott (Boras) and tell him to make him a Yankee,” Michael said.

That’s when Boras told Michael if the Yankees would up their offer to $37.5 million, they’d have their pitcher. Unbeknownst to Michael, however, while Maddux was on