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The Wizard of Cooperstown

© Joseph J. Checkler

Baseball highlights are infested with scenes of short fences, big muscles, and high-octane offensive explosions. To draw people to ballparks based solely on glove work, a player must be legendary in the field. In what has become a home run hungry society, Ozzie Smith represented the antithesis of four-bag fever. For that reason, the former Cardinals shortstop was refreshingly elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first try, receiving 91.7 percent of the vote.

What I will always remember about Smith are those backflips he did as he took his position at the start of games. I guess it was his way of telling the fans how happy and lucky he was to be playing baseball. But he did not get voted into the Hall on his boyish attitude. The guy played defense like a man; he won thirteen gold gloves at arguably the most challenging position in his sport.

During the second half of his career, the only time during his 19-year baseball life that I can really remember, Smith showed he could hit a little bit, too. He only hit over .300 once, but he could handle the bat. Smith was the quintessential two-hole hitter. He could bunt, move the runner up, work the count or do anything Whitey Herzog needed for his little ball style offense. He stole 580 bases during his career, including at least twenty in his first sixteen seasons. He never struck out fifty times in one year, and could hit in the clutch. In game five of the 1985 N.L.C.S., the switch-hitting singles hitter belted his first career left-handed home run, a ninth-inning blast that beat righty Tom Niedenfuer and his Dodgers, 4-3.

Smith started his career with the Padres, and after four seasons, was traded to St. Louis for fellow shortstop Garry Templeton. For a few years, a heated debate existed as to who got the better of the deal. As time went on, the debate subsided. It became evident that while Garry Templeton was an above-average, solid major leaguer, Ozzie Smith was a legend.

I defended his offense, probably because it is hard to believe that a player whose career statistics rivaled the likes of Willie Randolph and Bert Campaneris is going to Cooperstown. But no apologies are necessary, because his defense was disgustingly consistent. At a position where even the best sometimes make more than 25 errors, he never made that many in any one season during the last eighteen years of his career. From 1985 through 1993, his last nine full seasons, he only made more than 20 errors once. That is practically unheard of for a shortstop.