BASEBALL: Time spent in Midland made big impact on Smith's career

MIDLAND Lee Smith’s baseball career reached a crossroads when he reached West Texas.

During Smith’s first season with the Double-A Midland Cubs in 1978, manager Randy Hundley asked the big right-hander to give up starting pitching and move to the bullpen. Smith followed orders but didn’t like the idea, so after that season he gave up baseball and decided to play basketball at Northwestern State University in his native Louisiana.

“They made me a relief pitcher, and in that era, it was like a slap in the face being a relief pitcher,” Smith said. “As a matter of fact, the team was going to Shreveport, and one of my buddies on the team said, ‘Smitty, you’re carrying a lot of clothes on a two-week road trip.’ I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m going on a road trip for the rest of my days, man.’ ”

Cubs great Billy Williams paid a visit to Smith that offseason and talked him into giving the bullpen another try, so Smith returned to Midland in 1979 and made 26 of his 35 appearances as a reliever. He debuted with the Cubs the following season and remained a reliever throughout his 18-year major league career, and Smith is glad he did.

He retired in 1997 as the all-time saves leader with 478, set a National League record with 47 saves in a season and played in seven All-Star Games.

“I forgive (Hundley) for making me a relief pitcher,” Smith said with a chuckle.

On Wednesday the 54-year-old Smith returned to Midland, the site of his transformation as a pitcher, for the first time since his two-year stint with the Midland Cubs. He was the keynote speaker at the 21st Annual West Texas Sports Banquet & Memorabilia Auction at Midland Country Club.

Smith marveled at how West Texas has changed in the last 30-plus years — Midland’s minor league team now plays at state-of-the-art Citibank Ballpark instead of Christensen Stadium — and said it was fun to relive some old memories and see some familiar faces.

“The fact that he played here and is in our own Midland Hall of Fame, I think it makes it more special,” Hoppel said. “He played for the Midland Cubs in the ’70s, and it kind of makes people realize we’ve had a professional team here that long, going back to ’72. I think it adds to the fact that baseball’s going strong here and we’re bringing back players from the past.”

Smith is a member of the Midland Professional Baseball Hall of Fame, but he’s yet to gain entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Smith has been on the ballot 10 times and has only five more chances to appear on 75 percent of the ballots in a given year, which is required for enshrinement.

Smith, who got 50.6 percent of the vote this year to finish fourth behind 2012 inductee Barry Larkin, Jack Morris and Jeff Bagwell, stopped short of saying he should be inducted but joked that if he had played most of his career with the New York Yankees instead of the Cubs, he likely would have finished with as many saves as Mariano Rivera, the new all-time leader with 603.

RockHounds co-owner Bob Richmond referred to Smith as a “future hall of famer,” and Smith said relievers such as himself are undervalued by the Baseball Writers Association of America, which votes for the hall of fame.

“I don’t think they understand that relief pitching thing,” Smith said. “Everybody says, ‘Well, it’s one inning, it’s an easy job.’ Well, if that was the case, everybody would have a good closer. And you look at the importance of the closer role. If there’s any team that had a good starting rotation and not a good bullpen, they had no chance in the World Series.

“Think about the New York Yankees and where they would be without Mariano, and you look at each one of those clubs that has won the World Series. You take the Angels back when they had Troy Percival, look at Oakland when they had Dennis Eckersley. If they don’t have those guys, that team goes nowhere.”

But Smith, who is now a roving pitching instructor for the San Francisco Giants and helps train Italy’s team in the World Baseball Classic, said he’ll be satisfied with his legacy whether he makes the hall or not. He said he’s proud of his longevity in the game just as much as the impressive numbers he posted — including a career ERA of 3.03 and 1,251 strikeouts in 1,022 career games — and said he’s honored just be considered for such an honor.

Smith said that never seemed like a possibility for a kid who grew up in town where “we still don’t have a red light,” or when he quit baseball because the Midland Cubs wanted to make him a reliever.

“To think I came from that small town and I’m on the same list with Babe Ruth and all those guys?” he said. “It’s an awesome feeling. It gives you goosebumps just thinking about that.”

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