John Smoltz

John Smoltz was the third ace of the greatest rotation of his era, and in some ways the most remarkable of the three, because he was two pitchers in one career. He won a Cy Young Award as a starter, saved 55 games in a season as a closer, and is the only man in the history of the game with 200 wins and 150 saves. He pitched his best in October, where he went 15-4, and he did it all after a surgery that ended other careers. The BBWAA elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2015, on the first ballot.

A Tigers Boy Traded by the Tigers

Smoltz was born on May 15, 1967, in Michigan and grew up in Lansing rooting for the Detroit Tigers, whose games his grandfather worked as an usher and groundskeeper. The Tigers drafted him out of high school in 1985, the lowest pick ever to reach the Hall of Fame, and he signed to pitch for the team he had loved as a boy. It did not last. In August 1987, with the 20-year-old struggling in the minors, Detroit traded him to Atlanta for the veteran Doyle Alexander, who went 9-0 down the stretch and pushed the Tigers into the playoffs. Alexander gave Detroit a pennant race, and Smoltz gave Atlanta two decades and a plaque.

The Third Ace

Smoltz reached the Braves in 1988 and became the third arm in a rotation that carried the team through 14 straight division titles. Greg Maddux had the precision and Tom Glavine had the painted corners, and Smoltz had the pure stuff, a mid-90s fastball and a slider that buckled right-handed hitters. He played the part with a shrug. "My sense is that I was the guy riding in the backseat most of the time," he said. In 1996 he drove. He went 24-8 with a 2.94 earned run average and led the league with 276 strikeouts, and he won the National League Cy Young Award in a near-unanimous vote.

The Best Big-Game Pitcher of His Time

What set Smoltz apart was October, when his fastball climbed and his nerve held. He finished his career 15-4 with a 2.67 earned run average in the postseason, and his 199 strikeouts were the most anyone had ever thrown when he retired. In Game 7 of the 1991 World Series he matched the Minnesota veteran Jack Morris pitch for pitch, holding the Twins scoreless into the eighth before the bullpen took over, and Minnesota won it 1-0 in the tenth. He was the Most Valuable Player of the 1992 Championship Series, beating Pittsburgh twice, and over and over he gave the Braves a chance in games they could not afford to lose.

Tommy John and the Move to the Bullpen

In the spring of 2000 the elbow gave out, and Smoltz had Tommy John surgery and missed the entire season. The arm that came back could not start every fifth day, so Atlanta made him a closer, and he turned out to be one of the best in baseball at that too. He saved 55 games in 2002, a National League record, then 45 in 2003 and 44 in 2004, blowing hitters away one inning at a time. The competitiveness that made him an ace made him a finisher, and for three and a half years the slider that had won October games closed them instead.

Two Hundred Wins and a Hundred and Fifty Saves

Then he did the harder thing and went back. In 2005, nearing 38, Smoltz returned to the rotation and pitched like an ace again, leading the league with 16 wins in 2006 and winning 14 more in 2007. He finished with 213 wins, 154 saves, and 3,084 strikeouts, and he remains the only pitcher in the history of the game with at least 200 wins and 150 saves, a line that captures a career no one else has matched. He could start a World Series game and he could end one, and across 21 seasons he did both better than almost anyone.

The Shirt He Never Ironed

For all the seriousness on the mound, Smoltz carried a clubhouse story he spent years trying to correct, the tale that he once burned his chest ironing a shirt while he was wearing it. It made the rounds for decades as proof of an absent-minded jock, and it was not true. "I didn't steam it while it was on," he said. "I set the steamer down, and when I set it down, water popped out and caught me on the chest." The legend was funnier than the facts, which is why it stuck, and he laughed about it as much as he denied it.

Cooperstown and a Warning

Smoltz left Atlanta after acrimonious contract talks in 2009 and finished with brief stops in Boston and St. Louis before he retired. The BBWAA elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2015, on the first ballot with 82.9 percent of the vote, the first pitcher in Cooperstown who had undergone Tommy John surgery. He used the podium to sound an alarm about young arms. "Tommy John is an epidemic," he said, urging boys to rest and play other sports rather than throw year-round. He went in as a Brave, beside the rotation mates who had reached the Hall a year before him, and turned to the broadcast booth, where he became the lead game analyst for Fox.