Smith Puts the Music on Hold

Eh? What time did you say that parade would be, Toronto?

That victory parade you announced in all the papers, that is. What streets did you say would be closed off?

And the reception at City Hall, will you need special passes to get in?

The Toronto Blue Jays were one pitch away from winning the World Series on Thursday night. The pitch that Jack Morris served up to Lonnie Smith at about 9:30 p.m. Toronto time.

It was a good pitch--high and outside. Too good. Smith had to go to right field with it. Couldn’t pull it. So he went to right field with it. Over the right-field fence.

He rained on their parade.

There were two out and the bases loaded at the time. Atlanta had a one-run lead, hardly enough in this ballpark. All pitcher Jack Morris had to do was get out Lonnie Smith, a .247 hitter with only six homers this season and 90 in his career. Morris was scared he might squib a single, but not too. He had just walked a batter to get to Smith, which tells you all you have to know about Lonnie Smith and Jack Morris. Jack had a one-and-two count, a pitcher’s count. Lonnie Smith was his. The parade was still on.

At first, Toronto was relieved when it saw the ball going to right field. It was going to be what the ballplayers used to call a can o’corn, an opposite-field flare.

Only, it kept going. It went from a can o’corn to a field of dreams.

The signature of this World Series has been the home run by the unknown, but Lonnie Smith’s doesn’t qualify.

Lonnie Smith is a well-traveled player, not an unknown. He is playing in his fifth World Series--with his fourth team, a major league record. He’s not Henry Aaron, but he did hit home runs in three consecutive games in last year’s World Series. His manager calls him “my professional hitter”--the Braves’ hit man. And, he got the contract on Jack Morris.

Smith was kept on a roster--and he has been on nine of them in his professional career--for his speed rather than his power. He has stolen 360 bases in his major league career.

But he’s a big-game hunter. Lonnie Smith has 31 hits in 31 World Series games, four home runs, eight doubles and a triple. Jack Morris might have walked the wrong man.

Lonnie Smith has had a career usually described as “checkered.” It includes a recovery from drug abuse where he admitted himself to rehabilitation in 1983.

His encounter with Jack Morris was retribution of a sort, a rematch of last year when Morris, pitching for Minnesota, gave up a single to Smith to open the eighth inning of a then-scoreless Game 7.

The next hitter, Terry Pendleton, hit a drive off the wall that should have scored the speedy Smith. Lonnie, however, pulled up at second for a moment, decoyed by the Minnesota infield. He barely reached third base on a ball he probably should have scored on. A few seconds later, he was thrown out at home and the catcher relayed the throw back to first for a double play, killing the rally. Minnesota won in the 10th inning, 1-0, and Smith went through the winter as the Series “goat,” a role that made him resentful and prompted him to observe Thursday night, “I’m criticized first because I’m a black man.”

Whatever he was criticized for, the Braves’ professional hit man makes his presence felt in big games.

If you love a parade, it’s just possible now you may have to go to Atlanta for it. Lonnie Smith hit the ball Thursday where the infielders will never be able to decoy him.

Every home run is a big one, but this one cut the rope that seemed to have been hung around his team’s neck. It called attention to his considerable achievements. He’s a lifetime .289 hitter who has scored 853 runs and 19 of them in World Series play. This doesn’t make him Mr. October, but you better not walk somebody to get at him.

He’s a parade-killer. They can take down the balloons, hold the bagpipes, open the streets to traffic and put the celebration on hold--maybe forever.

And if the Braves get in the parade, maybe they should make him grand marshal.