One year after thousands upon thousands of Braves fans came to Cooperstown for the unprecedented induction of three same-era Atlanta icons — Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Bobby Cox — into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, plenty have returned this week.
They’re back for Sunday’s induction of John Smoltz, the other of the Big Three pitching dynasty that fueled much of the Braves’ run of 14 consecutive division titles under Cox.
The idyllic village in upstate New York doesn’t feel quite like the northernmost outpost of Braves Country as it did last July, but there’s a big representation of Braves fans in town to see Smoltz inducted as part of one of the strongest classes in decades, including multi-Cy Young Award winners Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez and second baseman Craig Biggio.
About 40,000 fans are expected to pack the lawn Sunday at the Clark Sports Center for the 1:30 p.m. ceremony.
All three pitchers were elected on the first ballot, while Biggio, who had 3,060 hits in a 20-year career spent entirely with the Astros, was elected in his third year on the ballot.
Braves legend Hank Aaron and Smoltz pal Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian, were on the same Delta flight from Atlanta to nearby Albany, N.Y., on Friday morning. It felt like the Braves Hall of Fame express, loaded as it were with so many fans in team caps and shirts. Another flight landed at the Albany airport at about the same time from Houston, and Astros fans spilled out of the jetway.
Fans have come from all over New England, New York, Arizona and all over to see Martinez and Johnson, who both made big impacts with multiple teams. Martinez’s Hall of Fame bust will be adorned with a Red Sox cap and Johnson’s with a Diamondbacks cap.
The slender, 5-foot-11 Martinez is the shortest pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame since Whitey Ford in 1974, but Martinez was a huge presence on the mound, winning Cy Young Awards in 1997, 1999 and 2000, and posting the lowest ERA in his league five times during an 18-year career with the Dodgers, Expos, Red Sox, Mets and Phillies.
At 6-foot-10, Johnson is the tallest player ever elected to the Hall of Fame, easily surpassing Dave Winfield (6-6). Johnson was a 303-game winner and five-time Cy Young Award winner, including four in a row with Arizona from 1999-2002, while going 81-27 with a 2.48 ERA in that dizzying span. The towering Johnson and the undersized Martinez rank first and third all-time in strikeouts per nine innings pitched, Johnson at 10.6 and Martinez at 10.03.
Then there’s Smoltz, at 6-3 and, by most accounts, one of finest all-around athletes who ever played baseball. The only pitcher with at least 200 wins and 100 saves, he finished with a 213-155 record, 154 saves in about 3 1/2 seasons as closer and 3,084 strikeouts.
“I consider it the perfect analogy of what baseball is, right?” Smoltz said of the size disparity of the pitchers in the Class of 2015. “You’ve got 6-foot-11, 6-foot-3 and 5-11 or 5-10. So I’m kind of in the middle. Three guys that dominated in certain points. But those two guys obviously dominated in ways that we haven’t seen in a long time.
“I’m obviously the guy that has changed roles, changed arm angles, did whatever it takes. Could have stayed stubborn in some areas and I’d probably amassed more wins. But I was never about that.”
Smoltz ranks as one of the greatest postseason pitchers, with a 15-4 record and 199 strikeouts in 209 innings in 41 games (27 starts). He’s also among Hall of Fame leaders in arm surgeries with five, including major elbow and shoulder procedures. He holds the distinction of being the first Hall of Famer to have undergone Tommy John elbow surgery.
One year after the Hall of Fame induction of the greatest free-agent signee in Braves history (Maddux), the Braves will see inducted the pitcher who came in the best trade in franchise history. The Braves traded 26-year-old starter Doyle Alexander to Detroit in 1987, when the Tigers were in the midst of a pennant race and didn’t mind giving up Smoltz, a hard-throwing minor leaguer with control problems who was a 22nd-round pick two years earlier.
Alexander was 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA in 11 starts for Detroit in that playoff drive, and the Tigers lost in the American League Championship Series. He would go 20-29 over the next two seasons before retiring.
Smoltz broke into the majors with 12 starts in 1988, was 12-11 with a 2.94 ERA in 1989, then won at least 14 games in seven of the next nine seasons and totaled at least 229 innings six times in the next eight seasons.
Martinez is the second player from the talent-rich Dominican Republic to be elected to the Hall of Fame, after the great pitcher Juan Marichal (1983).