by John Smoltz
When I left the hospital, I said some prayers on the way home and hoped for the best, but from what I could tell, things didn’t look good. I was shocked when I got a phone call later from Andrew himself, after nine hours of brain surgery. It was unbelievable; this kid was one of the bravest kids I’ve ever seen in my life.
Andrew wasn’t with us for very long, but he and his family made a lasting impact on me. It was Andrew who inspired me to start a golf tournament to raise money in his honor for Scottish Rite. Together with his dad, Loy, we did it every year for almost fifteen years, before I turned things over to Tim Hudson and Kevin Millwood.
Andrew is one of many kids who I had the honor of meeting and hopefully inspiring through all the years that I have been visiting the hospital. But in terms of giving and receiving, I can honestly say I have been on the receiving end of the inspiration more often than not.
In all the years of going to Children’s at Scottish Rite, I never truly knew what it was like to be on the other side of things until my youngest daughter, Kelly, was born. Dyan, my wife at that time, had a tough labor, and the nurses had offered to keep Kelly in the nursery during the wee hours of the night so she could rest and recuperate. Dyan was adamantly against it, but I talked her into it. That’s how Kelly ended up in the nursery that first night of her life.
Later that same night, one of the labor and delivery nurses was passing through the nursery on her way home. She wasn’t even on duty at the time, but as she walked out the door she swore she’d heard something. It was a noise that she knew all too well, and it stopped her in her tracks. Off duty or not, she promptly started investigating and realized that one little baby was ever so audibly struggling to breathe. That little baby was our Kelly. In an instant Kelly was whisked into the intensive care unit, where it was discovered that her lungs were not yet fully developed. Dyan and I spent the next two and a half weeks learning for ourselves what it was like to be concerned parents living at a hospital.
Kelly made a complete recovery and I am proud to report that she’s a normal, healthy kid today. It probably goes without saying, but whenever I hear her laugh, I am reminded of what I owe to others. This keeps things in perspective and it keeps me involved with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
People have asked me time and time again throughout my career to talk about the awards I have received during my playing days or to talk about what it would mean to me to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame someday. I always told people then, as I tell people now, that I never played baseball to set records or attain personal fame. The personal milestones, the trophies, the awards—sure, they’re nice. It is always nice to be recognized for doing something you love to do, but those things do not fulfill or define me—at least in my own mind.
One time I was actually playing catch with my son Andrew and I noticed some writing on the ball as he threw it back to me. Curious, I stopped for a moment to take a closer look, and I realized we were playing catch with my two-hundredth-win game ball. I jogged inside real quick and swapped it out with another one, but the new grass stains on it didn’t really bother me. The memories I have of that day (have I mentioned that the losing pitcher was Tommy Glavine?) mean more to me than any of the souvenirs.
The one baseball award that really does mean a lot, and that I was truly humbled to receive, is MLB’s Roberto Clemente Award, “given annually to a player who demonstrates the values Clemente displayed in his commitment to community and understanding the value of helping others.” It is an honor even to be in the running for an award like this, especially since each team gets to nominate only one player every year to be considered. I’m sure many past recipients of the award have done way more than I have ever done, and many future recipients will do way more than I will ever do, and I certainly don’t claim to be in the same league as a man like Roberto Clemente, but it is very rewarding to be considered a player who represents the game as he did.
At the end of the day, an award like this means the most to me because it has more to do with John Smoltz the person than John Smoltz the pitcher. I didn’t win the award in 2005 because I had a low ERA or because I had won twenty games that season. This award had more to do with the physical sweat and effort that I have put into my community and the various charitable causes I support. And that’s what makes me proud. That’s what makes me feel successful.
I will continue to support and bring awareness to all of these causes for the rest of my life because it’s the least I can do in the time I have left.
Chapter Fifteen
CHASING RINGS, PART I
My baseball career had always been full of calamities and misfortunes—bleak moments when my future in the sport appeared legitimately doubtful—but in mid-August 2009, things had just plummeted to an all-time low, even for me. My career had basically suffered a major heart attack: I was in the process of being released. Released. Not on the DL, not traded, and not even sent down to the minors, but released.
It was as if I was being sent home in a coffin with a toe tag, all ready for the mortuary. All that was seemingly left to do was make arrangements for a viewing of my body when I returned to Atlanta, so my friends and family could stand around eating tuna casserole and Jell-O salad, sadly mourning what once had been and what was no more.
Things had never been this depressing and it was hard to explain everything I was going through to Kathryn. She just didn’t have the context. Kathryn had never experienced the good times—the fourteen consecutive division titles, the deep playoff runs, the trips to the World Series, or even winning it all in 1995. You name it, she had missed it. Her knowledge of my baseball career began with my reluctant decision to become a free agent and my signing with Boston, and, as of this moment in time, ended with me pitching myself right out of a job.
I decided to forgo the “funeral proceedings” when I got back to Atlanta, but I still had a lot to do and a short amount of time to do it in. All told, I had about ten days until I would officially become a free agent and could start talking to other teams and entertaining various scenarios, but there were a lot of questions left to be answered. Did I still want to pitch in the major leagues? Was I still capable of pitching in the major leagues? There was only one thing I really knew for certain: I wasn’t interested in mediocrity. I wasn’t going to come back just for the sake of coming back. I wanted to compete. I wanted to stand on the mound, stare down the best hitter in baseball, and fire a fastball right past him. That’s what I wanted. My mind was ready and willing. It was my body that was suspect.
At age forty-two, I couldn’t escape the knowledge that I was basically becoming a geriatric major leaguer. I was now paying for all the years I had pitched on layaway, if you will, pushing through pain and just making it work. Now all the bills were coming due for the 3,642 innings I had thrown during twenty-plus seasons. Thoughts that I had delayed and postponed for so long were steadily creeping into my mind, lingering around like dinner guests who just won’t go home. Should I just retire? Was I crazy to even consider another comeback? I honestly didn’t know what to do.
We’ve all had these moments in our lives—times when the “right” answer just doesn’t seem readily apparent. We worry, we second-guess ourselves, and we lie awake at night wondering “what if?” It’s just human nature. But I’ve got to be honest here—times like this became easier for me after I truly became a Christian and developed a relationship with Jesus Christ. When I came home from Boston, as much as I didn’t know exactly what I needed to do, I knew there was one thing I had to do. First, I needed to devote some time to trying to figure out what God wanted me to do, which is really easier said than done.
Whenever I find myself in situations like this, what seems to work for me is to find a quiet place where I can sit and be still and try to quiet my inner thoughts. Honestly, it’s not really something I excel at—being still for any length of time has always been a challenge for me—but it’s the best way I know to sort things out in my head and in
my heart. I don’t know if you would call what I do meditation, I just do what feels natural.
On this occasion, I spent several nights sitting out back around our fire pit, trying to put my worries and anxieties aside. I tried to let go and ask earnestly for God’s will to be done in my life. As I sat there, night after night, breathing and listening and sifting through the quietness, one thought—one feeling, really—began to rise to the surface. I hadn’t felt it before, but now there it was as plain as day. I doubted it at first, but after more prayer and reflection, I felt that what it was, was unmistakable. A feeling of peace passed over me. My mind, once filled with the noisy clamor of uncertainty, was quieted and united again in purpose and desire. I went back into the house. Kathryn saw the look on my face and started to smile. I just told her, “I don’t think I’m done yet.”
Significant progress had been made by the fire pit, but in reality I had solved only half of the equation. Now there was the not-so-little matter of “Could I still pitch effectively?” to attend to. I had certainly made mental mistakes in Boston, but I was also convinced that there was something mechanical that was plaguing my delivery. Something felt off and I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I wasn’t about to try to come back this season if I couldn’t figure this part out. It was time to get back to work.
First, I called my godson, Dylan Kelly, who happens to be a great catcher. He was in high school at the time and I enlisted him to come out to the local high school field and catch for me. From the first pitch I threw with anything on it, I could feel it—something was still off. For more than a week, we spent anywhere from an hour to ninety minutes a day in hundred-degree heat trying to figure out what exactly it was. I threw more pitches than I care to admit as I broke down my whole motion piece by piece, attempting to analyze every phase of my delivery. I cycled through all the different technical drills I had used throughout my career. I tried every little trick I knew, but the problem was eluding me and I was frustrated.
I knew it was time to recruit more help; I needed more eyes. I reached out to the people who had been working with me my entire career, who knew my motion and had been watching me pitch all those years. My agents, some local coaches, a couple buddies: anyone who I thought might be willing to come and help me figure it out. And thanks to the graciousness of Danny Hall, the baseball coach at Georgia Tech, I moved my sessions to their indoor facility nearby.
It seemed like it took every day I had to figure out the problem. It was one of my longtime agents, Myles Shoda, who finally picked up on it. He just said, “John, look at your heel, look at what it’s doing when you release the ball.” I threw another pitch, focusing on my heel for the first time, and that’s when it finally hit me. I don’t know when or how I had started doing it, but somehow my right heel had gotten into the habit of sliding away from the rubber as I planted my left leg and followed through. That little two- or three-inch movement was keeping my hips from opening up properly and effectively blocking me off as I attempted to finish my pitches.
With that one small adjustment, I could immediately see the difference. With one small adjustment I could, most importantly, feel the difference. It was a watershed moment. With one almost annoyingly trivial change to my mechanics, my stuff and my confidence were restored. I finally had my answers and I knew, really knew, it was time to get back in the arena.
That’s when I started talking to St. Louis. Now, it wasn’t as if they were the only team shopping around for a veteran pitcher for the stretch. Several teams had expressed interest since I had been released and some had even offered some nice one-year deals to start. But this wasn’t just about finding a spot in another rotation this season. I wasn’t interested in just coming back to pitch. I was talking to St. Louis for the same reasons I had signed with Boston: I was still relentlessly pursuing another trip to the postseason.
Being a member of the Atlanta Braves throughout their historic run of fourteen consecutive division titles had made me accustomed to frequent postseason trips. I was quite literally addicted to it. But the streak ended in 2005 and it had been almost four years since my last taste of the playoffs. I was on the hunt for one last chance to pitch in October, to feel the magic of the playoffs and the intensity of the matchups.
Both St. Louis and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. I knew Adam Wainwright a little bit and I had the chance to talk to him before I signed. It was a little odd really, but from everything Adam told me, the 2009 Cardinals sounded a lot like the Braves of the nineties. Besides that, I respected their manager, Tony La Russa, and their pitching coach, Dave Duncan, in the same way I had always respected Bobby Cox and Leo Mazzone. In some weird way, it felt like I was almost going home again. It wasn’t Atlanta, but it did seem uniquely familiar.
The most important thing about the Cardinals, though, was the undeniable fact that they were running away with their division that season. They hadn’t mathematically clinched the NL Central yet, but they were far and away the best team that year. In St. Louis, I had found everything I was looking for; it seemed like the feeling was mutual.
The negotiations were simple, earnest, and straightforward. They basically just said, “We’ve been watching you, we know what happened in Boston, but we still think you can help us out of the bullpen down the stretch.”
I said, “Great. The only thing I ask is for you guys to just give me a start or two. It’s going to be two weeks now that I haven’t thrown and I need to get reacclimated.”
The Cardinals, currently enjoying the luxury of a practically insurmountable lead in the Central, didn’t bat an eye about giving me a chance to get my feet wet. Their response to my lone request? “No problem.” And with that, it was official. I was the newest member of the St. Louis Cardinals, and most importantly, I was back in the hunt.
It was a surreal moment for me. I had begun the month with my pitching career dead in the water, and now, approximately two weeks later, I was a member of a championship-caliber team. I had clawed my way back from baseball limbo land and landed on my feet again; I was stoked and ready to go. But I can’t say everyone around me, most especially the media, shared my optimism and enthusiasm for giving it another go.
To a lot of people it looked like I was about to commit career suicide. Signing with St. Louis meant taking the risk of failing again and experiencing double jeopardy. The consensus seemed to be that the chance to pitch again wasn’t worth potentially marring all my career statistics and the legacy and reputation that I had worked for so many years to achieve.
I’ve never been one to care too much about what the media thought I should be doing, and I didn’t feel at all inclined to listen to their pleas to invoke some common sense. But the fact is, I knew what they didn’t know and couldn’t possibly have known. I knew that what happened in Boston was not destined to happen in St. Louis and I was willing to accept any of the aforementioned risks for the opportunity to prove to myself that I wasn’t done yet—especially when another trip to the postseason was basically guaranteed.
It wasn’t like I was going into this deal with blinders on and I just assumed everything was going to go my way. I had my eyes wide open. I knew the risks were great, but on the other hand, I knew the potential reward was even greater: I had the chance to pitch in another postseason and compete for another championship.
I had been to the postseason a lot—an awful lot, frankly—with the Braves. But I had been to the World Series five times and only won it all once. It was a fact that still stuck with me all these years.
Chapter Sixteen
CHASING RINGS, PART II
When you Google “World Series champions” between 1991 and 1999, the name “Atlanta Braves” appears only once, listed as the 1995 champion. There’s no little asterisk next to our name reminding people, “Hey, the Braves went to the Fall Classic five times during that time span.” There is no small print at the bottom that explains, “Atlanta duked it out to the bitter end in
some epic games that could have gone either way.” When it comes to the record books, you’re either a winner or you’re not. And the record books will tell you, we were losers more often than not. What they won’t tell you is why.
It’s something I’m asked about a lot honestly, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me sometimes. When you play baseball professionally, dedicate your life to it, and come insanely close to achieving your ultimate goal so many times only to watch the Commissioner’s Trophy be handed to another team, it hurts. It sticks with you. It becomes more than just a game.
I lived and breathed our entire run of fourteen consecutive division titles and I still can’t quite understand it, to be honest. I still look back on all those years in the playoffs and wonder. I mean, it is almost nonsensical how we didn’t win a whole handful of rings. Whether you’re a Braves’ fan or not, you can’t deny the odds; we should have won more than one championship, no doubt about it. But last time I checked, baseball could care less about random odds, or who is supposed to win or lose on paper.
This whole issue of our team winning only one championship becomes especially frustrating when people try to compare us to the New York Yankees or the Florida Marlins of that era—teams whose names you’ll find listed more than ours on the roster of World Series champions during our streak. What’s even more annoying is this feeling I can’t shake that our team somehow helped turn the Yankees into the powerhouse they became after 1996. To me, Tuesday, October 22, 1996, serves as the starting point for their dynasty—and, conversely, our demise.