Smoltz posed with Jack Morris in 2007, their first meeting since the 1991 World Series.AP Images
Lonnie Cooper attributes John Smoltz’s likability on- and off-camera to humility. No matter how much the Fox baseball analyst has accomplished — winning a Cy Young Award and playing on Atlanta Braves teams that reached the playoffs 14 straight years — he has never forgotten being a 22nd-round draft pick or being traded as a minor leaguer to what was then the worst organization in baseball.
“It’s the human side of John,” said Cooper, whose Atlanta-based firm has represented Smoltz for 28 years, first as a player and, later, as a broadcaster.
Cooper and others credit Smoltz with a healthy sense of humor stemming from his humility.
No better example exists than a Saturday game assignment several years ago in Arlington, Texas. Matt Vasgersian, then at Fox, and Smoltz joined producers and crew members the night before at a local Mexican restaurant, where their waiter asked where they were from.
“So we went around the table and we all said where we were from,” Vasgersian said. “When he got to John, John said, ‘I’m from Atlanta.’ And the [waiter], without any idea who we were, said, ‘Oh, Atlanta. Atlanta Braves. I remember those pitchers they had. What was it, [Greg] Maddux and [Tom] Glavine and who was the one guy’ — and he’s not messing with us at all, he really wasn’t — ‘the guy who pitched that really long game in the World Series and lost, man, who was that guy?’”
Smoltz sat quietly, saying nothing. Finally, a crew member piped up: “Smoltz.”
The waiter nodded, pouring water and taking dinner orders.
“And I was trying to yank him around,” Vasgersian continued. “‘Yeah, could you imagine being that guy, losing that game to Jack Morris? Yeah, man, that’s so brutal. Whatever happened to that guy?’ Then, finally, one of us said, ‘You know what happened to that guy? He’s at a Mexican restaurant tonight.’ Everybody started chuckling and looked at John. [The waiter] said, ‘No way!’”
Erik Spanberg writes for the Charlotte Business Journal, an affiliated publication.
