Baseball Collecting Is Hot, but No One Saves Like Him

All right, class, the question for today is a tricky one. Bring the answer in for Monday and remember, neatness counts.

Who would you say is the player active today nearest to making the baseball Hall of Fame?

I’ll give you a hint: He’s a pitcher.

But, before you go combing through the books looking for 20-game winners, 300-strikeout seasons, control artists, Cy Young winners, World Series MVPs, earned-run leaders--and I know you want to zero in on Greg Maddux, who is working on (13-2, 1.85 earned run average) his fourth consecutive Cy Young--let me tell you about my guy.

In the first place, he has never--repeat never--pitched a complete game in the major leagues. In fact, he has started only six and none in 14 years.

Cy Young started in 815 games in his career and completed 749. Cy Young pitched 7,356 innings in his career. My guy has pitched in 1,200. Cy Young won 511 carer games. My candidate has won 68.

So, what is Lee Arthur Smith of the Angels doing headed for the hall of history, where he will join not only the great Cy Young but Walter Johnson, who started 666 games, finished 531, won 417 and pitched 5,914 innings?

I’ll tell you: Lee Arthur Smith is the best one-inning pitcher the game ever saw. And Lee Arthur is the best at smuggling a game into the clubhouse in history.

The game has changed today. They don’t throw that beanbag Johnson threw and Cy Young before him. The complete-game pitcher is becoming as extinct as the tyrannosaurus Rex. They all belong in Jurassic Park. Even the great Maddux threw only 10 last year--and that was enough to lead the league. David Cone, who won the Cy Young in the American League, threw only four.

The ball today is as different from the one pitched at the turn of the century as a new Titleist is from the gutta percha Laurie Auchterlonie played. It’s so alive, it almost glows in the dark and would set off alarms on an airline luggage belt.

So, the grand old game invented a new measurement of stardom, the “save.” The star of the staff is not necessarily the guy who can pitch nine faultless innings every fifth day. It’s the guy who can pitch one faultless inning four times a week.

Lee Smith hasn’t started any games since 1982. But he has finished hundreds. He hasn’t started any games this season, either. But he has finished 40. He has finished every game he has pitched in. He has saved 30.

“Save” is the four-letter word that has Smith on his way to Cooperstown. They codified a major league save a few decades ago so that now you get credited with one if you safely berth a game in which you not only are the finishing pitcher but you go into an inning with a lead of no more than three runs--and preserve it--or you come in with the winning run either on base, on deck or at the plate and you stifle it.

This is where Lee Smith’s statistics range alongside the Hall of Famers’ of yore. This is his ticket to Cooperstown. He has saved 464 games lifetime, the most of anyone. He holds the National League record of 340.

And, while he started hardly any of them, Lee Smith has appeared in more games than Cy Young (930 to Young’s 906) or Johnson (Walter appeared in 802 games).

On the Angels, Lee Smith is kind of like everybody’s favorite uncle. He chuckles a lot, never gets ruffled. A massive man (6 feet 6, 270) he is a terrifying specimen on the mound. If he scowled, you have the feeling the batter would get in another line of work.

Does he think about the Hall of Fame? Smith laughs. “I hope to postpone it indefinitely. You don’t get in the Hall of Fame till five years after you’re out of baseball and I like to think I’m still too decently effective to get out of baseball for quite awhile.”

Does he remember when he first became a relief pitcher? Was it because his fastball tailed off in the later innings? Smith smiles. “No. It was when they found out I could throw three, four, five times a week.” Smith was out pitching while starting pitchers were still icing down their elbows.

It was the great Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, a teammate at Chicago at the time, who “saved” him. Fergie simplified his delivery, Smith recalls, taught him a slider and a forkball and how to set up hitters.

The role of savior suits Lee just fine. Sometimes, ballplayers who know their services won’t be required till the late innings and the late hours curl up on the training table and doze through the early game. Smith sits in the corner of the dugout and studies hitters.

The downside is, the only thing you can really do with a game is lose it. For a reliever to get a win, the team has to make up a deficit or score the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. But since Lee doesn’t go in there except with a lead, for him to get a win means he lets the other team go ahead. His 464 saves show how seldom that happens.

The last of the big-time savers should go directly to Cooperstown with his eventual hoard of 500 or more saves. If a dollar saved is a dollar earned, than a game saved can be a pennant earned. Cy Young might not have needed a saver, but today’s pitchers need a good one. And Lee Smith is the best miser in the game.