A record producer friend once told me that Check Your Head,  the Beastie Boys’ 3rd album, was perfectly realized. That’s stuck with me over the years, the idea of being able to achieve something that lives up to your ambition. In a 1978 Playboy Interview, Bob Dylan said: “The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It’s that thin, that wild mercury sound. It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.”

I thought of this after reading Jeremy Collins’ terrific story on SB Nation, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Greg Maddux”. As Tom Junod said on Twitter, “Every once in a while, a writer throws everything he’s got into a story. This is one of those stories.”

Sometimes, after I’ve read a good story I feel envious. After reading this piece, though, I felt elevated. It’s clear that Collins spent a long time, years, figuring out how to tell this ambitious, strong and exact story.

It’s worth your time.

[Photo Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images]