It took me roughly six hours to formulate any sort of attack plan for this column. And that would be embarrassing if the column wasn’t about the very thing that was really screwing my head around backwards: John Smoltz’s comments to Jay Busbee.
“I say this for the first time, without reservation, if I’m going to bust my butt and if I feel like I’m good enough and it doesn’t work out here, I will be pitching somewhere else … My dream scenario would be to pitch in the playoffs again, and that’s coming from a guy who’s been in 13 of them. (Smoltz missed the 2000 playoffs with Tommy John surgery.) To me, that’s what I’m about. So if the door gets closed here, it’ll have to be explored somewhere else.”
This is a terrifying statement for any fan of baseball and particularly for any lifelong Braves fan who places Smoltz as his favorite ballplayer ever. In fairness to Smoltz, of course, he didn’t know the interview was going in (not sure how that actually matters) and he did point out that the ideal situation was to finish his career with the Braves.
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