Remembering Joe Smith

April 1, 2008   ·   Patrick Hickey, Jr.   ·   Jump to comments

I was catching up on the Mets yesterday and I read a story about Joe Smith bet Duaner Sanchez a steak dinner that he wouldn’t make the team.

After that, I figured I’d share my thoughts on what I saw of him in Brooklyn.

I still remember talking to him his rookie season in pro-ball. He was a down to earth kid that was having a monster season and moved through the system like a freight train. A third round pick that season, Smith was the highest drafted player on the team and everyone expected big things from him. Boy, did he live up to his potential. After a month in the NY-Penn League, I think was obvious to everyone playing against him and watching him that he was destined for a career in the bigs. His first game however, didn’t go exactly as planned and in addition to giving up an earned run, his control was far from perfect. He didn’t look like a third round pick at all at that moment and the media was quick to jump to conclusions about how good he actually was.

After that one sloppy performance though, Smith turned it up and was stellar the rest of his time in Brooklyn, ending up with a 0.45 ERA and 28 strikeouts in 20 innings. Despite seeing guys like Jake Ruckle, Eric Brown and Tobi Stoner pitch great that season, Smith, who was eventually called up to Double-A, was the most dominant. He was throwing pitches by everyone he faced and had a slider that was just vicious. Add in the submarine delivery and you had a recipe for disaster as far as trying to hit the guy. Simply put, he was and still is the most dominant pitcher I’ve seen in my two years covering the Clones.

Nonetheless, his success never really got to his head, well at least what I saw in Brooklyn [I was told by a writer covering his progress that his teammates in Double-A thought he had some growing up to do, but that’s neither here nor there] and he was always a fun guy to talk to. Cyclones manager George Greer loved using him as well and gave us a plethora of great quotes over the course of the season. However, the best thing Greer ever said about him was that he had a “Stone Cold Stare” while on the mound. For those of you who never got a chance to see him pitch in Brooklyn, Greer’s words were too kind.

If looks could kill a puppy, Smith was definitely up for animal cruelty charges. He was so imposing and there was always this feeling that you were watching something special every time he was out there. That kind of mental makeup isn’t easy to find in a relief pitcher and it turned out that Smith had been honing his for quite some time.

“My head coach at Wright State, Rob Cooper worked really hard at the mental aspect of the game,” said Smith, way back now in July of 2006. “I can’t tell you how much he taught me about the mental game. I made a choice to listen to him and I can’t tell you how much it’s helped me.”

For a while, the Cyclones were so bad [during the beginning of that season] that Smith was one of the only reasons to come watch them. After he left, it kind of felt like that team had lost something they could never replace. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what happened. When I think of special players that played in Brooklyn, Smith is without a doubt one of the first that come to mind.

Photo by Conroy Walker