by John Smoltz
With God’s help and with the help of my most trusted advisers, I was able to let go of the bitterness I once felt and somehow, someway, be at peace today. I found closure, and finding that has allowed me to forge ahead, together with Dyan, as the parents we still are, and put our children’s best interests before anything else.
Speaking of my kids, they have been incredible at adapting to the ever-changing environment in which they now find themselves. I love them for that, I’m proud of them for that, and I can only thank God that we have all weathered this storm together.
Looking back now, I believe that by allowing myself to go through a journey of solitude and devoting myself to work on things I needed to work on, God rewarded me with a miracle. If you ask me, there’s no other way to explain it. There’s just no other way to explain meeting Kathyrn Darden eighteen months later.
Kathryn and I were set up on a blind date by mutual acquaintances. She was extremely resistant to the idea at first and actually had to be persuaded over a period of time that I was not your stereotypical professional athlete. She was not a baseball fan at all and might have been one of the few people in Atlanta who didn’t know the first thing about me and my career with the Braves. It wasn’t until she watched a video of a speech I had given at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes event that she agreed to meet me for dinner at a Taco Mac in Atlanta.
Kathryn and I immediately connected in ways that didn’t seem possible: in our faith, in our passion for life and for our kids, but most importantly of all, in our shared outlook on embarking on a new relationship that would never be just about us. The fact was, wherever things were headed, our decisions were going to impact a lot of other lives, as the start of our relationship also marked the start of the blending of two families from two previous marriages. This would prove to make life interesting and challenging all at the same time, but one thing was undeniable. At age forty-one, I had found something I thought I would never find again: love and happiness.
So as I began my new journey with the Boston Red Sox, I was really beginning a new journey with Kathryn and our families. Looking back, I don’t know how I could have made it through 2009 without this new support system, because nothing about the road ahead proved to be easy.
When I signed with the Boston Red Sox, it’s safe to say that there were more questions than answers. There was, of course, the obvious question about my shoulder and how it would perform for my new team, but that was really only the tip of the iceberg. The fact is, when you’ve played baseball in the same place for twenty years, you know everything about everything there is to know about your team and your surroundings. When you suddenly sign with a new team, there’s absolutely nothing you know. Quite literally, I had to go back to the basics of organizing my new life in the context of my new team. Where would I live during spring training? Where would we live in Boston? And how would we get Kathryn and me, my four children, and her two children from Atlanta to there?
As I worked out and tried to get myself into the best shape I possibly could for spring training, eventually some of these not-so-minor administrative details started falling into place. I was offered a great place to stay during spring training with a friend of a friend, and Kathryn was going to stay in Atlanta for the moment while the kids finished the school year. We were still mapping out our plans for Boston after spring training, but I felt like we were over the first couple hurdles—things were working out and headed in the right direction.
As I counted down the final days to spring training, I really had a great mind-set; I felt ready to embrace everything this new journey had in store for me, and the newness, while disorienting at times, was really more exciting than anything else. I was anxious to just get started and face the task of proving that I was worth the investment the Red Sox had made in me. Despite my dogged attempt to embrace everything, I was unfortunately about to learn that even the simplest of activities with the Red Sox—such as finding spring training—was just not going to come easy.
When I left for spring training in Fort Myers, Florida, I thought I knew where I was going, but I really had no idea where I was headed—in more ways than one, as it turned out. I had plugged in the address for City of Palms Park into my GPS, but when it announced my arrival, there wasn’t a stadium in sight. I remember sitting there in the car thinking, There’s no way there’s a ballpark anywhere near here. I mean, I looked around and all I could see were lines of palm trees, houses, and an apartment complex. At one point I stopped looking for the park and started looking for TV cameras because I was sure I was getting Punk’d.
As it turns out, the Red Sox conduct spring training at what might be the only complex in all of baseball that’s practically hidden in a neighborhood. But since I had never been there before, it was just another item on the long list of things I had to learn.
When I walked into the Red Sox clubhouse the first time for camp, the whole organization, from the front office to the coaching staff to the players, welcomed me and helped me feel as comfortable as I think any new person can expect to feel. It was awesome to be joining a roster that was considered to be one of the best in the American League and already projected to make the postseason, but the hardest part for me was coming in as a veteran and wanting to fit in right away. I came through the door with a pretty good career, one that people respected, but I also knew that everyone was counting on me for the future. I had to resign myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to contribute right away. I wasn’t going to fit in for quite some time.
I had expected to experience a spring training unlike any I’d had before—as every team obviously has their own methods of preparing for a season—and those expectations were duly met. I found myself doing exercises and drills I had never done before, but this part was more fun and challenging than anything else. The thing that really caught me off guard was the changes the Red Sox wanted to make to the rehab process for my shoulder.
I found out right away that the Boston Red Sox intended to be very cautious and calculated about getting me ready to pitch again, and understandably so, but their way of going about it just didn’t really mesh well with the way I had been rehabbing my shoulder.
When I arrived at camp, it was basically like putting on the brakes, as for all intents and purposes I was basically shut down from actual throwing. The Red Sox’s plan was to give my shoulder a break and work on building up strength during the standard six to eight weeks of spring training. Then they would bring me back down to Fort Myers after Opening Day for extended spring training. Essentially, my throwing preparation for the season would be stunted for a while and then would pick back up again in April. This was the part that gave me a little heartburn.
In theory, I understood what the Red Sox were trying to do and I understood why they felt they had to shut me down: Giving my shoulder more time to rehab without throwing would, according to the consensus view, give me a chance to have more strength in it later in the season. In theory, there was nothing wrong with this plan. It was probably a great plan for rebuilding the foundation of a shoulder over the long term. The problem was, I had a desire to get there much faster. I was concerned with this year and being able to contribute sooner than what I felt this program would really allow. These two philosophies would prove hard to blend into a perfect plan.
I felt like I came into spring training in the best shape I could possibly be in and my shoulder was completely acclimated to throwing every day, but after the calisthenics and conditioning portions of the day were completed, for the most part they had me just sit and watch as the pitching staff got to work throwing—which was really difficult for me. I wanted to continue doing the things Peter and I had been doing during our rehab and I didn’t want to lose all the momentum I had going. My body was telling me that I needed to throw the ball a little more, if anything just to keep my shoulder moving and not lose the flexibility Peter and I had worked so hard to attain, but within the Red Sox program there were days when they didn’t ev
en want me to pick up a baseball.
My body was telling me what I should be doing, but at the time I was very reluctant to push back and risk coming across as the new guy who knew better than everyone else. Looking back now, I just wish I had been a little more stubborn right here. I knew what the Boston Red Sox couldn’t possibly know. I knew that I had come back from countless injuries and five surgeries throughout the years, but always prided myself on using unconventional and innovative ways to recuperate.
I had done things the different way my entire career, but here I was with a new team and I suddenly got away from all of that. And the unfortunate reality was that it started to feel like I was staying in neutral. My shoulder wasn’t getting a lot worse, but it also wasn’t getting any better.
The one thing that made things easier for me amid all of this was Kathryn. I had asked her to marry me and the timing of our new relationship was crucial to everything I was going through in starting over with a new team and a new shoulder. Going through something like this on your own, whether you’ve had twenty years in baseball or not, is not something anyone wants to do. There was obviously some serious trepidation associated with it—which I was willing and ready to meet—but it would have been a whole lot harder if I’d been completely on my own.
When I proposed, it’s safe to say we didn’t know when and we didn’t know how we would fit in a wedding, of all things, into the other logistical challenges involved in this transition from Atlanta to Boston. Kathryn and I wanted to get married sooner rather than later, but it probably goes without saying that it’s difficult to plan an event like a wedding when you’re starting a new season of baseball and having to spend time in several minor league cities over the course of several weeks. We finally identified an opportunity in May, but thanks to baseball, all we had really set was a wedding “window,” not a wedding date.
The ceremony was planned around a simulated start I would make in Fort Myers on May 15. As long as the game went on as planned, without any kind of weather delay or postponement, I had permission to fly home after the game, get married on the sixteenth, and then keep right on trucking, picking back up with the team in Florida again on the seventeenth.
Thank goodness we really just wanted to have a low-key wedding with close family and friends, because everything was subject to the whims of the elements. If it rained, we were prepared to push everything to Sunday. If it didn’t, Saturday would be the big day. It was an unusual circumstance for a wedding in Alpharetta, Georgia, to hinge on the weather in Fort Myers, Florida, but that was just the way things were, and thankfully our friends and family were willing to be flexible and go along with our plans.
For something that could have gone sideways quickly in so many ways, our wedding, amazingly, went off as planned, without any delays. Somehow I was able to step away from baseball for one magical day in order to marry an amazing woman. I still honestly shake my head over how we were able to shoehorn a wedding into everything else, but we did and it would prove to make all the difference in the world.
Kathryn’s and my wedding proved to be an event that would really help bring our two families together and unite us all on the verge of what would be my final year in baseball. I didn’t know it yet, but the happiness of this day and having Kathryn now at my side would be two things that would keep me going through the journey that lay ahead—a road that would be filled with more hiccups and setbacks than I ever imagined. I was really on the brink of failure, and I didn’t know it. And the funny part is, Kathryn’s not knowing much about my baseball past in a lot of ways helped me handle the new future that was unfolding.
Our wedding would prove to be the easy part in the grand scheme of things because shortly afterward, I began the process of basically feeling my way back into pitching shape with my now surgically repaired shoulder. Dr. Chandler had always warned me that whenever I finally had shoulder surgery, things would never be the same for me. Before surgery, the incredible flexibility and looseness in my joints was something that I used and abused all the time to my advantage. I was always able to make adjustments and tinker with my delivery so as to overcome whatever I needed to overcome; I always had mobility in places that other guys just didn’t. When it came down it, I was about as good as anyone when it came to manipulating my own body in order to manipulate a baseball. Now, though, after surgery, I was very, very limited. It wasn’t just that I lost a few degrees in my range of motion—which I had—it was that I had also lost flexibility within that range of motion, if that makes any sense. I was just always able to torque my shoulder in some pretty unique ways, and after this latest surgery I just couldn’t do it anymore.
As I adjusted to life on the mound with nine anchors holding down the labrum in my shoulder, I visited three rungs of the Red Sox minor league system, with stops in South Carolina, Maine, and Rhode Island, starting all the way down in Class A, with the Greenville Drive. I worked my way up through Double-A with the Portland Sea Dogs, and finally to Triple-A with the Pawtucket Red Sox, along the way learning how to pitch effectively within my new limitations. I knew success was certainly possible, but it certainly wasn’t going to be easy.
The best way I can think to describe this is to have you imagine what it would feel like if someone suddenly disengaged the power steering in your car while you were driving. You would still be able to steer your car and get to where you needed to go, but it would take a lot more work than you were used to. That’s how pitching after shoulder surgery felt to me.
My quick tour of the minor leagues in 2009 gave me the chance to face some hitters and see how my shoulder would hold up during a game and then, just as importantly, recover afterward, but I really didn’t put too much stock in the entire experience. Regardless of how things felt, or how promising some things appeared at times, I knew from experience that pitching in the minors was really more like just going through the motions. And going through the motions would not in any way simulate what it was going to be like, or how my shoulder was going to perform, under the pressure and the spotlight of the big leagues.
So all things considered, when I finished the minor league circuit in June and found myself headed to Boston, there was a certain sense of accomplishment in knowing that I had made it back to that point, but I wasn’t kidding myself: I knew that in all reality, my journey had just begun.
I knew enough to expect that the road ahead wasn’t going to be easy, but I never would have guessed how hard it would actually be.
Chapter Thirteen
HICCUPS
When I arrived in Boston, it’s safe to say that I found myself disoriented and out of my comfort zone in so many ways, but firmly embedded in all the dizzying newness was the excitement of playing for the Red Sox. Fenway, the Green Monster, and “Sweet Caroline” in the middle of the eighth—those were all really cool things to get used to in my new environment. Really, it was hard not to be a little awestruck at joining one of the most storied clubs in baseball. I was a little swept away by their history, their traditions, and their disdain for all things associated with the Yankees; I have to admit, that part had me feeling like a little kid again, in love with the game for the very first time. It did nothing to diminish my loyal feelings for the Braves, but there was just something undeniably cool about playing for the Boston Red Sox, even if it was only for a glimmer of a season.
When it finally came time for me to pitch my first game for the Red Sox on June 25, we were on the road in Washington, D.C., facing the Nationals. I wanted to do so well the first time out for my new team that all my emotions were whipped up and I was anxious. My mind-set was one I had rarely experienced on the mound: I was nervous.
I had always felt this sense of comfort on the mound throughout my career, and yet here I was, in what would be my last season, alarmingly apprehensive. It was almost as if I had never pitched before. I was as nervous for this one start as I’d ever been in my entire life, including every World Series game I had ever pitched. I lost feeling in my le
gs, I had trouble catching my breath; it was just bizarre.
I can’t explain it any better than to say that everything seemed to be happening too fast once the game began. I had been playing baseball for almost thirty-five years, yet at one point in the first inning I found myself gesturing for the catcher to come out to the mound. We didn’t need to discuss signs or even the strategy for the next batter. Nope, the bases were loaded and I was so overwhelmed that I needed a moment to remember where to put my foot on the rubber. It was that bad.
As things unraveled more and more—in the game and in my mind—I started to think about all the people in my corner, rooting for me: my family, friends who had come to the game, and the Red Sox—who were obviously hoping that I was going to pitch well. I knew my mind was not where it should be, but I just couldn’t seem to control it. By the time I was able to settle down, the game had already gotten away from me; by the bottom of the third, I had allowed five runs on seven hits.
I rallied toward the end, lasting two more innings without giving up another hit or run, and I had struck out all three batters I faced in the bottom of the fifth. Looking back on the game, I wasn’t completely disheartened, but I was disappointed that I hadn’t been able to control my anxiety. I had always prided myself on my ability to slow the game down in the biggest of moments and I just hadn’t been able to do this early in that game.
As I said before, in many ways, it felt like I was a rookie all over again. My experience in Boston would prove to be filled with a lot of tiny moments like this, moments when I found myself making mistakes, and reverting to behaviors I had learned to avoid much earlier in my career. All of these things, in combination with adapting to my new shoulder, just didn’t add up to a whole lot of success.