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Posted on 07/27/2002 9:51:48 AM PDT by BluesDuke
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. (AP) -- Ozzie Smith says he's done his last backflip.
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``You never know what will happen when you get in front of people and start thanking the ones that have helped you along the way and see the look on their faces,'' the 47-year-old Smith said as he contemplated his induction Sunday into the Baseball Hall of Fame. ``How I will react to that, I don't know.''
Smith, the 22nd shortstop to make the Hall, moved with his family from Mobile, Ala., to the tough Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts when Ozzie was 6. It was there that he learned to play baseball game in his uniquely acrobatic way.
``I lived across the street from a recreation center,'' said Smith, whose parents separated when he was in junior high. ``I don't know how my first game went, but I was excited about finally having the opportunity to play in an organized sport.''
Although Smith's mother rarely saw him without a ball in his hands, it took time for him to begin dreaming about playing baseball for a living. He'd just as soon go down to the neighborhood lumberyard with his friends and do backflips off inner tubes into the mounds of sawdust.
``It didn't become serious to me until I became a junior in high school,'' said Smith, who would go on to refine the position of shortstop during his 19-year major league career and make people appreciate the art of defense as never before. ``There were little things that I did when I was about 11, little games that I played that were helping enhance my skills and my hand and eye coordination.''
Despite his gifted hands, people were always telling Smith he was too small. He struggled to get noticed. Eddie Murray, a power-hitting classmate at Lock High who would go on to star with the Baltimore Orioles, was drafted after graduation, while Smith was overlooked and enrolled at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo on a partial scholarship.
``When I decided to go to college, I had to do some soul searching and realized that baseball was what I loved doing more than anything else,'' said Smith, who rooted for the Dodgers as a kid and idolized Pirates star Roberto Clemente. ``I played with Eddie Murray, and when the scouts came, that's who they were coming to see.''
Even in college, Smith was second string and made the lineup only after the starter broke a leg. Taught to switch-hit by his college coach, Berdy Harr, Smith was drafted in his junior year in the eighth round by the Detroit Tigers. They offered him $4,500; he asked for another $500, was turned down, and stayed in school.
After being noticed in the instructional league by Alvin Dark, Smith signed with the San Diego Padres in 1977 for $5,000, played 68 games in Walla Walla, Wash., and hit .303.
The next season, Smith was the Padres' starting shortstop. He stole 40 bases and his glove work helped him finish second to Bob Horner in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. If people hadn't yet taken note, they did after teammate Gene Tenace made a simple request.
``We weren't very good as a team at that time in San Diego,'' said Smith, who won 13 straight NL Gold Glove awards and holds five major league fielding records, including 8,375 assists and 1,590 double plays. ``We had to create an atmosphere of excitement for the fans. Gene said a backflip would be a great thing to do on Fan Appreciation Day. I was a little reluctant to do it because I didn't want to be labeled as a hot dog, but the fans got so excited.''
A ritual was born. A Wizard was in the making.
In 1980, Smith had 933 chances and set a major league record of 621 assists, breaking the mark of 601 set in 1924 by Pittsburgh's Glenn Wright. His 5.75 balls reached per game dwarfed the league average of 4.30.
But after an embarrassing contract squabble arose in which Smith's agent took out a newspaper ad seeking a second job for his client, the Padres became worried they might lose Smith to free agency. So San Diego traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals for Garry Templeton in February 1982.
Smith was not known for his offense -- he batted just .262 for his career, with 2,460 hits, 28 homers and 793 RBIs. But his magic glove made an immediate impact on the field and at the gate as attendance at Busch Stadium surged along with the Cardinals, who won the World Series in his first year with the team.
Smith, who had to learn how to hit in the major leagues, proved an apt student. In the 1985 National League playoffs, the Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers split the first four games of the best-of-seven series and were tied 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 5.
Smith, a spindly 150 pounds, muscled up against Dodgers reliever Tom Niedenfuer and hit a game-winning home run, the first left-handed homer of his career. The Cards then won Game 6 to reach the World Series.
That was Smith's ``power year'' -- he hit six home runs, double the number he managed in any other season -- and his most satisfying.
In 1987, he again was instrumental in the Cardinals' World Series run. He hit .303 with 43 stolen bases, 75 RBIs and 104 runs scored and finished second in the MVP balloting to Andre Dawson of the Cubs.
Smith continued his strong play into the 1990s. His eight errors in 1991 set an NL record for fewest in a season by a shortstop. Despite playing with a slightly torn rotator cuff in his throwing shoulder the last decade of his career -- he calls that his greatest achievement -- the ``Wizard of Oz'' led the NL in fielding seven times.
``Was he the best?'' former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog once pondered. ``He made more diving plays than I've ever seen. I don't see how it was possible to play it any better than Ozzie played it.''
That showed in the Hall of Fame voting. He was named on nearly 92 percent of the ballots, becoming just the 37th player to be elected in his first try.
``Going in on the first ballot means there was no doubt about being a Hall of Famer,'' said Smith, who will be accompanied by more than 100 family members and friends on his special day. ``It's very special.''
Smith, the lone inductee for the first time since Reggie Jackson in 1993, went through several drafts of his Hall of Fame induction speech.
``I've messed up a lot of paper, that's for sure,'' he said. ``I've had to make some changes, and though they aren't always pleasant changes, I'm as ready as I'll be.''
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I was lucky enough to be able to go to the last 2 games on '96 and see his retirement tributes.
;-`)
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