It’s has been one of baseball’s biggest sins.
How in the world does a guy retire as the all-time saves leader and not make the Hall of Fame? How? Year after year these writers fill out their ballot and didn’t put Lee Smith’s name on it. The man retired in 1997. That’s a lot of bad voting over the years. Once, fine it was a loaded ballot and Lee would have to wait. However, 15 times, he was rejected. Only once in those 15 years did Smith get over 50 percent. I never could understand how all of that unfolded!
The sin has been corrected. Lee Smith is a Hall of Famer. All 16 members of the Today’s Game Era Committee named Smith on the ballot. That committee included Ozzie Smith and Tony La Russa. Interesting, it took Smith to have Ozzie and Tony agree on something.
The resume is stunning. Smith had 12 straight seasons of at least 60 appearances, a Major League record. He’s the only reliever with 13 straight seasons of 25 plus saves and 10 straight of at least 30. And you kept this man out of the Hall of Fame because he didn’t have a great postseason resume. That’s a joke!
However, when I think of Lee, I think of a certain live shot I had early in my career at KSDK. I never wanted to disappoint Mike Bush. So I talked to Lee earlier in the day about doing a live shot with me at 5:20. Smith agreed. It was 5:17 and he was shagging balls in the outfield. I was waving at him to come quick. It was 5:18. He kept shagging and I kept waving. At 5:19, I violated every rule and simply ran to the outfield to get him and bring him to our live shot location. We started to walk back to our camera and I told him we have to run now. He said I am running. He was walking slower than somebody at a retirement center. That was his thing. He moved slowly. He talked slowly. The only thing he did fast threw a baseball. We barely made it to our live shot.
So Lee Smith was on time. And yesterday, it was about time!
