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RECOVERING A CAREER : After Facing Drug Addiction, Lonnie Smith Savors Brave World

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Times Staff Writer

The call always comes at night. Usually quite late. Most often, while he’s staying in either Los Angeles or New York.

It has been five weeks since his last one, so Lonnie Smith has this gut feeling that before the Atlanta Braves leave town when their three-game series against the Dodgers ends, he’ll be receiving another.

The message never changes; only the voice:

Voice: “The commissioner’s planning a drug test tomorrow.”

Smith: “Thanks for calling.”

End of conversation.

Smith knows the routine by now. He’ll show up at the ballpark a little early, wait for someone to introduce himself in the visiting clubhouse, and accompany him down the corridor to the umpires’ room.

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“They always do it there,” Smith said. “They want to keep it confidential, and inconspicuous as possible.”

Once inside the room, Smith will be presented two empty bottles. He’ll be asked to urinate into each of them.

It used to be that the stranger would stand a few feet behind Smith, allowing him privacy. No more, Smith said, not since New York Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor’s book, “Living on the Edge,” described how he was able to outsmart the system by sneaking in teammates’ urine, avoiding detection.

Now, the stranger stands right alongside Smith, and actually watches him fill the bottles. If Smith is unable, the stranger gives him glasses of water, refusing to leave until both bottles are filled. He seals the bottles, has Smith sign the required paper work, and takes the bottles to the laboratory. One will be tested, the other frozen as a safeguard.

Some may find the process degrading, demeaning, even humiliating.

To Smith, it’s a way of life.

Six times this season he has submitted to this procedure, most recently in Philadelphia five weeks ago. He has no choice but to cooperate. If he refuses, he can be banned from baseball.

“If I want to play baseball, this is what I have to do,” Smith said. “And if I can’t go to the bathroom, it doesn’t matter, they’ll just keep feeding me water until I go. That’s embarrassing, but those are the rules.”

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Is this appropriate treatment for the man who appears to be the landslide choice as comeback player of the year?

No, Smith says, this is part of being a recovering drug addict.

“I’ve had people say to me that it’s not fair, that because I haven’t used in six years, I’m cured,” Smith said. “That’s crazy. You’re never cured, and never will be. You may not be using, but you’re not cured. There is no miracle cure for a drug addict or alcoholic.

“Every day is a battle. You think about it all the time, especially when there’s a lot of pressure, and you’re all alone.

“But I can’t go back. Not even once. Because I know if I tried it again, it’d be a hell of a lot worse.

“Really, I don’t know how I made it this far, I really don’t.

“I should be dead.”

Billows of smoke overhead, Smith lights another cigarette and inhales slowly, revealing the wrinkles that outline his face, and the dark shadows under his eyes. He’s only 33 and should be in the prime of his life. But there are times, he says, when he feels like an old man.

This, by rights, should be the most satisfying time of Smith’s life. Cast off by the Kansas City Royals, and rejected by every major league club in baseball, he returned to the minor leagues and resurfaced this season as an elite player.

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Smith, the Braves’ starting left fielder, began Monday’s game against the Dodgers with a .332 batting average, fourth-best in the National League, and among the league leaders in seven other offensive categories, including a league-leading .434 on-base percentage.

“It might sound kind of strange because we’re in last place, but I don’t know where we’d be without him,” said teammate Dale Murphy, a seven-time all-star. “He’s the only consistent player we have. Without him, I think we’d have real trouble winning any games.”

And yet, although everything on the surface may look rosy, Smith admits that it’s actually a facade. There are days when the pressure builds and surges of stress pound inside his head. Then, the best place to be is the ballpark.

“It’s starting to wear me down,” Smith said. “I’m coming to the ballpark tired, sleepy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with the way my life is going professionally, but personally, I’m having some problems.”

There was a time when he recalled his most difficult conversation as admitting that he was a drug addict to St. Louis Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog in 1983.

That changed over the winter, he said.

With tears streaming down his face, he told his wife of nearly 11 years that he wanted a divorce.

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Had it not been for Pearl and his two kids, he said, he would have given up on life long ago. They were his inspiration, helping him not only to revive his career, but his life.

The kids were there, Smith said, when “I was doing it in the house. They wanted to know, ‘Why is daddy snorting sugar up his nose?’ ”

Pearl was there, Smith said, “when I cared about nothing else but my next high.”

So here he is, with his 11th wedding anniversary coming up on Aug. 26, trying to sort out his life, craving to see the children that his wife now keeps away from him.

“My wife doesn’t understand this,” he said. “When I told her I wanted a divorce, she thought I was on drugs again. She called my therapists, and I had to convince them that this is something that’s been building up for years.

“But it hurts. It hurts bad. A long time ago, I made a promise to my kids that I would never leave them. Now, just at the time their lives are really getting started, with my son going to junior high in three years and my girl going there in four years, I won’t be around.

“I haven’t seen them all summer, and now summer’s about over and they’re about to go to school. There’s an emptiness right now.”

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Until his lawyer stepped in, Smith was sending $10,000 a month of his annual $250,000 salary to his wife and kids.

“My kids are handling (the separation) much better than I am or my wife is,” Smith said.

Fortunately, Smith said, a woman, Dorothy Driver, has come into his life. He does not know when, or if, they will marry, but she is his constant companion, he said, the one now who helps him survive.

When she’s not on the road with him, Smith is on the phone with her. The telephone, he said, helps him fight the loneliness, the boredom, and most of all the depression.

When he’s not talking with her, Smith said, his mind wanders. And when his mind wanders, it usually wanders into temptation.

“When I get too isolated, you tend to think about (using cocaine),” he said. “You start thinking about it all the time. That’s when you really think you need some.

“That’s what got me the first time.”

Smith started smoking marijuana at Centennial High School in Compton, where he was a high school All-American baseball player. No big thing, he figured, everyone was doing it, anyway.

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Selected third in the 1974 June free-agent draft by the Philadelphia Phillies, Smith had plenty of bonus money to spend on himself and his friends. He was the main man in his circle of friends. Why, not only was Smith cool enough to smoke dope while establishing his career, he could even buy plenty for his friends.

The only time he got in trouble was in 1975, during his second professional season, when he and a few of his Spartanburg teammates were caught smoking by their coaches. Oh, they were reprimanded, but it was not considered a serious offense, such as missing the cutoff or throwing to the wrong base.

In two years, Smith progressed so rapidly that, at 19, he was playing for the Phillies’ triple-A team in Oklahoma City. So close to making the big leagues, Smith decided to spend his 1977 off-season playing winter ball in Venezuela.

It was there that Smith discovered cocaine.

“I didn’t even know how to do it,” Smith said. “They had to show me how to put the straw to my nose. I didn’t like it at first, but when it started draining out, I said to myself, ‘Ooh, this feels good. I like it.’

“Then I said, ‘Do you know where I can get some more?’ ”

At first, Smith said he only used cocaine on occasion. Then, when he joined the major league club, he met Curtis Strong, the Phillies’ clubhouse caterer and the man described in the federal government’s case against him in 1985 as “a traveling salesman of cocaine.”

Smith thought he had found utopia. Not only could he buy cocaine whenever he wished, but Strong’s stuff was the best around, he said. The cocaine was mixed with speed, and at $100 a gram, was a bargain.

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He started buying an eighth of an ounce at a time, then slowly found himself needing a little more, a little more until he was buying half an ounce at a time. His habit increased to $1,500 a week, but he had plenty of money, earning $500,000 by 1983, and $700,000 in 1984.

The funny part, Smith said, was that for a long while, no one suspected a thing. He even kept some with him during games, hiding it in his socks.

Dickie Noles, Smith’s roommate in 1980 with the Phillies, said: “I didn’t have any idea. I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t see any of that stuff.”

Besides, who could tell by the way Smith was playing? He batted .339 his rookie year, earning the first of three World Series rings, and came back to hit .324 the next season.

The Phillies, however, began to suspect that Smith had a drug problem in 1981, and at the end of the season traded him to the Cardinals. Smith was crushed. How was he supposed to get his cocaine from Strong?

Strong comforted Smith, suggesting that a legitimate overnight delivery service would easily solve the problem.

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“He’d get a newspaper, fold it up, paste the coke to some cardboard, and put it inside the newspaper,” Smith said. “And I would get it the next day. It was all so easy.”

Smith adjusted quickly to St. Louis. He became close friends with Keith Hernandez, who not only was his teammate, but a buddy with whom he could spend the whole night snorting cocaine together. Sometimes they’d begin as soon as the game was over, and not stop until it was time to go to the ballpark the next day.

They partied their way to the World Series championship in 1982, and Smith was playing so well--batting .307 with a league-leading 120 runs--that he nearly won the National League’s most-valuable-player award, losing out to Dale Murphy.

“We were riding on the top of the world and we didn’t think anyone could knock us off,” Smith said.

Cocaine has a way of doing that, but just when you think you’re invincible, you find out you’ve been had.

Smith’s bank account withstood his $60,000-a-year habit just fine; it was his body that couldn’t.

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The crash began quickly. Smith lost his appetite and dropped 20 pounds in a month. And he couldn’t sleep, either. What had been mild headaches became throbbing migraines that didn’t go away.

He became quick-tempered and once got so enraged at the antics of the Phillie Phanatic, his former club’s mascot, that he viciously tackled him between innings, spraining both ankles of the man inside the costume, David Raymond.

When the fans started booing him as he took the field the next inning, Smith challenged them, daring them to throw things at him. They obliged and the umpires suggested to Herzog that he remove Smith from the game.

“I didn’t care about the game, I didn’t care about anything,” Smith said. “I was just in a hurry to get the game over with so we can start using again.”

Smith used again that night, and when he went to the clubhouse the next day, after 36 hours without sleep, he was too wasted to even attempt playing.

He went into Herzog’s office, admitted his addiction and asked for help.

On the afternoon of June 8, 1983, he was checked into the Highland Center in St. Louis for substance abuse.

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His wife heard about it on the radio. His parents read it in the newspapers.

“I disgraced myself, I disgraced my family,” Smith said.

But Smith turned out to be the lucky one.

Curtis Strong, the man who sold Smith most of his cocaine, is in federal prison, serving 12 years for distributing cocaine.

The 1987 scouting reports from the Kansas City coaching staff and scouts are in a folder on the corner of Royal General Manager John Schuerholz’s desk. They were securely stashed away in his desk until a couple of months ago, but with reporters telephoning so often, Schuerholz now keeps them close at hand.

The question is always simple, and quite direct: “Why?”

Why in the world did the Royals, who have been in dire need of a leadoff hitter all season, give up on Smith? Why didn’t anyone pick him up once the Royals released him after the season? Why wasn’t he given another chance?

Schuerholz pulled out his folder, dated Sept. 23, 1987, from the Royals’ annual scouting report, and thumbed through the evaluations of his staff:

“Don’t know if the desire’s there anymore.”

“He’s slowed down, and he wasn’t all that good before.”

“He’s strictly an offensive player, and his offense is gone.”

“Just can’t see him in the picture for ’88.”

Said Schuerholz: “We just felt he was through. He wasn’t hitting well, he wasn’t running well, and this looked like the end of his career.

“I mean, we appreciated what he did for us in ’85. We don’t think we could have won the World Series without him. But we didn’t see him fitting into our future, either.”

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Smith doesn’t fault the Royals for releasing him after batting .251 with eight runs batted in over the second half of the 1987 season, but he bitterly resents the Royals for spreading the word that he had a bad attitude and could no longer play.

“I never did respect anyone in that organization except the players anyway,” Smith said. “I heard what they were saying about me.”

Although Smith might not be a role model for youngsters and although he can make a front office nervous because of his candidness, there is respect for him among players and managers.

“I think the three best baseball people I ever managed, in terms of aggressiveness, were Hal McRae, George Brett and Lonnie Smith,” Herzog said. “Those three by far are the best. He’d bust into second base, he’d climb a wall, he’d crash into the fence. What he was, well what he still is, is a ballplayer’s ballplayer, a throwback to the old days.”

Said former Royal pitcher Dan Quisenberry, now with St. Louis: “He wasn’t an organization type of player. He didn’t do milk commercials. He didn’t go to malls and sign autographs for three hours. He didn’t go to airports and kiss babies. But, wow, did he play. Even when he made mistakes in the outfield, and slipped and fell, you could never get mad at him because he played so hard.

“It’s amazing. He’s been gone from St. Louis, for what, eight years, and guys still talk about him here. They say if they had the DH in the National League, he would have died a Cardinal.”

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Instead, only three years after receiving his third World Series ring, Smith found himself unemployed, sitting by the telephone at his home in Spartanburg, S.C. When it didn’t ring, Smith began making his own calls.

He called all 26 major league teams. Twenty-five told him to get lost. Only Bobby Cox, general manager of the Atlanta Braves, showed even the slightest interest.

He had a job opening. But sorry, it wasn’t at the major league level. It was in the Braves’ triple-A club in Richmond, Va. The pay was $5,000 a month; about $725,000 less than he earned in his final full season with the Royals.

But Smith took it.

He shocked the Braves’ coaching staff by reporting about 30 pounds overweight, and each morning vomited on the field during conditioning drills.

But Smith laughed. How were the Braves to know that he never was one for off-season conditioning, even during his heyday?

Smith made the triple-A team, kept his batting average around .300, and asked himself why he even continued to play the game. He had already proven himself, hadn’t he? Why didn’t the Braves call him up to the big leagues?

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“There were a few times he said he was quitting,” said Terry Blocker, Smith’s roommate at Richmond. “But there was one night where I didn’t think I was going to be able to talk him out of it.

“We came back from a road trip, and Lonnie said, ‘Terry, I’m not going to unpack my bags. I’m leaving. I’ve got no future in this organization, anyway, so I might as well leave. I think I’ll tell them tomorrow.’ ”

Blocker said: “ ‘Hey, man, stay in there, you never know. I got a feeling they’re going to do something. You’ve come too far to give up now.’ ”

Smith agreed to stay until the end of the month.

And on July 27, 1988, he was called up by the Braves. He hit only .237 with nine RBIs the final 43 games.

Knowing those numbers might not even prompt the Braves to invite him to spring training, he played winter ball in Puerto Rico. He hit .366, was voted the league’s most valuable player, and carried it over to spring training where Manager Russ Nixon designated him as the starting left fielder.

He started fast, too, hitting .324 with six homers and 18 RBIs, but while chasing a ball May 19 against the Cardinals, he crashed into a wall and severely sprained his left ankle. He missed 20 games. Once back in the lineup, though, he continued his torrid pace and appeared headed toward his first All-Star game since 1982.

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“I tried not to get my hopes up,” Smith said. “But everybody kept saying, ‘You’re going to make the All-Star team. You’re going to make the All-Star team.’

Dodger Manager Tommy Lasorda passed him up. Instead, he selected Vince Coleman, who was batting .261, Andre Dawson at .270 and Von Hayes at .294, as his reserve outfielders, saying that Smith simply got caught in a numbers game.

Smith said he knows what happened. The game he got caught in was the politics game.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt, real hurt,” Smith said. “And Dorothy was very upset and angry. My teammates were mad. I just told them, ‘Hey, that kind of stuff happens to me. I’m not Tommy’s idea of a ballplayer.’

“When you’re an addict, there are a lot doors closed to you.”

Dale Murphy is Mr. Atlanta Brave. Selected two spots lower than Smith in the 1974 draft, has spent practically his whole career playing against Smith’s teams.

Murphy had met Smith but they certainly weren’t close, either as friends or in philosophy. Murphy, for instance, won’t even allow a female admirer to put her arm around him for a snapshot.

Now that they are teammates Murphy is learning things about Smith that he never imagined. Smith, for instance, signs autographs until his hand is sore. He treats the batboys as if they’re his teammates. If anyone has a problem, personal or professional, Smith will listen as long as anyone wants to talk.

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“He’s definitely not the guy I thought he was,” Murphy said. “He’s one of the best things that’s happened to this club.

“Everybody’s aware what happened, and the situations he was involved in. You look at him now, and you wonder what happened, but you don’t ask. I figure if he ever wants to tell me, he will, but something like that you just don’t go up and ask.

“Everyone here knows he’s a very quality person, a special person.”

Smith also has been accepted by the city of Atlanta. His name is chanted by kids before games and he is beckoned to the stands for autographs. No longer can he eat in a restaurant uninterrupted or shop in a mall unnoticed.

“It’s almost like I’ve been dead for the past few years and suddenly people are realizing that I’m alive,” Smith said.

“Just like with my bats. In the past, it’s taken months, sometimes a year even, for bat companies to send me bats. Now, I’m getting the best quality bats I’ve had in my career.

“People ask all of the time, ‘Are you surprised Lonnie? Are you surprised? Did you think you could ever do it?’ Hey, the difference is that I got a chance. Someone believed in me, and they gave me a second chance, that’s all.”

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Maybe now, Smith hopes, he can be a role model for every other recovering drug addict and alcoholic in America. He understands that there still will be people who never accept him, and some forever will hold grudges against him, but that’s life.

“And to tell you the truth,” Smith said, “it feels great to be a part of it.”

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