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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > April > 22
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Smoltz is what greatness is all about
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Smoltz blew it. Then again, he hadn’t much of a choice. The crowd wanted to celebrate greatness forever Tuesday night at Turner Field early in the game, but greatness still had the rest of the third inning to pitch against an overmatched group of hitters for the Washington Nationals.
That’s why, when the moment arrived at 7:44 p.m., with greatness zipping a splitter past Felipe Lopez’s bat for a 3,000th career strikeout, those among the 23,482 gathered for a lengthy and noisy group hug of greatness wouldn’t sit down or shut up. They went on and on, preparing to boogie in Smoltz’s name until who knows when. Instead, they were silenced in a hurry at 7:45 p.m. You can blame the wildest one-minute standing ovation you’ll ever see on Smoltz ending his acknowledgement of the moment with a gigantic smile before he climbed back onto the mound to continue with the rest of his life.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Smoltz, smiling later, before delivering a shrug. “That’s where I didn’t know what to do. The fans were great with every pitch. It certainly felt like there were 40,000 or 50,000 people with the noise they were making. I wanted to give them as much respect as I could. But at the same time, I wanted to try to honor the game and try to win the game.”
Smoltz was 1-for-2. Courtesy of his ongoing role as the consummate professional, he honored the game by keeping his moment to a minimum, but his seven impressive innings (five hits, one earned runs, 10 strikeouts) weren’t enough to keep the Braves’ bullpen from losing the game in his name.
Even so, greatness never loses.
Greatness is an always-strikingly fit 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds. Greatness ignores the fact that 40-year-old arms aren’t supposed to do the powerful things that the one for greatness consistently does. Greatness never gives into aches and pains. Instead, greatness counters with grit and determination no matter what. Greatness also cherishes the postseason, where no pitcher owns more victories than this version of greatness.
It takes greatness to explain the true essence of greatness. So listen to Braves manager Bobby Cox describe his more than two decades of watching this greatness named Smoltz: “I didn’t know he was such a great athlete until I got to know him better. I didn’t know he was so intelligent until I got to know him better. Those combinations lead to brilliance.”
In this case, such combinations lead to brilliance, longevity, toughness and a 3,000th strikeout. As for the latter, Smoltz, along with all of his splendid attributes too numerous to mention, pitched in a major-league game for the 706th time. By the end of that third inning, he had accomplished something that Cy Young couldn’t do while compiling a record 511 victories.
Warren Spahn couldn’t do it, either, despite 14 trips to the All-Star game, and Bob Feller couldn’t do it along the way to three no-hitters and 12 one-hitters. In fact, they’ve played professional baseball since four years after the Civil War. That said, only 15 other pitchers have done what Smoltz now have done for a career.
Three thousand strikeouts.
That’s a lot of strikeouts, but it isn’t a lot for greatness. “When Smoltzie made his first start in 1988, I was four years old, and my mom was probably picking me up in pre-school,” said Braves right fielder Jeff Francoeur, chuckling. “He also closed for three-and-half years, and you’re not getting that many strikeouts out there when you’re closing. Plus, he also missed another whole year because of surgery.”
Actually, Smoltz missed nearly two years courtesy of injuries. Which means greatness has a way of overcoming things.
Well, many things.
Just not the Nationals this time, at least not in the victory column.
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