Your probably never heard of Lonnie Smith before if you were born before 1980. But he was a generational baseball talent winning 3 world series with 3 different teams in the 80's and was a key piece to 2 of those teams.
Lonnie was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies 3rd overall in the 1974 draft, straight outta Compton, California. He made his debut in 1978 with the Phillies, but only as a September call up until 1980 when he was a key piece to the Phillies first World Series victory, playing all 3 outfield positions and coming in 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting. Already out the gate, our guy Lonnie is a highly talented prospect helping turn what was at the time, the absolute worst franchise in all of sports.
By 1982 Lonnie was traded to the Cardinals where he won another World Series ring. Lonnie was also much better now and was runner up in MVP voting losing to Dale Murphy. However, besides those 2 great accomplishments, Lonnie became well known for other things he did on the field. Lonnie was known for 2 things about his play style. First, he liked to steal whenever he could as he swiped 68 bags while also getting thrown out a league leading 26 times in his 1982 campaign. The second thing he was known for, was that he was pigeon toed, so he would sometimes trip over himself when he attempted to swipe a bag.
In a September game that year, the Cardinals were playing the Phillies and the Phillie Phanatic was feeling spicy towards the former Phillies prospect. The Phanatic was belly flopping very closely to Lonnie so Lonnie took matter into his own hands and tackled the Phillie Phanatic during warmups and sprained both of the ankles of the guy inside the Phanatic.
You might think to yourself "wow thats really messed up, no way they let him play in the game after that" but to you my dumb idiot friend, this is the 80's and Lonnie jogged on out to left field in the bottom of the first like nothing happened. Fans in left field, as Phillies fans do, started to hurl beer bottles at Lonnie. Lonnie, who I should note, is absolutely coked out of his mind, turned to the fans, stuck out his arms, and encouraged fans to throw more bottle. Amazingly, Lonnie never got hit.
Lonnie has been in the MLB now for 3 years, has won 2 rings with 2 different teams, and is the MVP runner up. Pretty good resume if you ask me. The secret recipe for this success? Lots and lots of cocaine. Lonnie did coke with Kieth Hernandez and Juaquin Andujar on a nightly basis, and oh yeah, those 3 guys were the best 3 players on the World Series winning Cardinals. I personally, have never done cocaine, but maybe that is the difference from a average D-3 baseball career and a MLB all-star. In the middle of the 1983 season, Lonnie put himself in rehab and got rid of his little coke problem.
After some declining seasons in 1983 and '84, Lonnie was traded in the middle of the 1985 season to the Royals. And guess what the 1985 World Series matchup was, Cardinals vs. Royals. The Royals beat the Cardinals and Lonnie Smith had now won 3 World Series, in 6 years as a Major League Player. Thats more than the Phillies have in almost 150 years.
The Pittsburgh drug trials happened towards the end of 1985. Lonnie is now coke free for a few years and he tells all at the drug trials. Some players and owners do not like this It is also worth noting that Lonnie is free agent at the end of the 1985 season. Due to Lonnie snitching on all of the guys who did cocaine, and his play declining to now league average, the owners collude against him, making him resign with the Royals for much less than he deserved.
Lonnie knew this, and hated the Royals general manager, John Schuerholz, and held a grudge against him. The hatred grew bigger when Lonnie was benched regularly in 1987 after having a 1986 season where he slashed .287/.357/.411. Who did he get benched for? Some rising star that was better at football than he was at baseball, I think his name was like Bo Jackson or something. Due to lack of playing time, not getting paid what he deserved, and hating his boss, Lonnie turned back to old faithful.
Back on the coke train, Lonnie is back to his antics, you do remember he is Straight Outta Compton right? On coke all the time, and depressed that he is being treated unfairly, Lonnie buys a gun. The plan was simple, kill the man that started this whole mess, John Schuerholz. Murder always works, no one has ever been caught for murder, like ever. Even though Lonnie is from Compton and was raised by his aunt, he still can't hold a gun right. When firing shots in the dirt of his back yard, Lonnie sliced his hand open on the hammer and he decides to let John Schuerholz live another day. Lonnie kept this to himself and did not tell anyone until years later.
One funny thing that Lonnie did, is with his last game with the Royals, he left the game in the 2nd inning and told the media he had "Nonplayingitis".
The Braves were kind enough to sign Lonnie to a minor league deal in 1988 where he worked his way into the starting lineup in 1989. Lonnie is now clean again. He picked himself off the ground for the 2nd time in his career. Lonnie slashed .315/.415/.533 with 21 bombs and a Wins Above Replacement of 8.8. Back in the day, WAR was not as popular of a stat, actually it wasn't even a stat at all to this point, so baseball just had no idea how good of a season he actually had. Lonnie Smiths 8.8 WAR in 1989 was higher than Tony Gwynn's best season and Lonnie only played in 134 games that year. If he had played in all 162 games, he would of had a 10.6 WAR, which would be the best season by a hitter in the 1980's in terms of Wins Above Replacement. Lonnie won comeback player of the year and was back in the spotlight.
Lonnie had a good few years with the Braves, fighting some aches and pains as in 1991, he was back in the World Series at 35 years old fighting for his 4th ring for his 4th different team, what would be a Major League record. Lonnie knows how to handle pressure in the fall classic and he is killing it. 3 bombs in 3 straight games and gotten the Braves to game 7 of the World Series.
But what everyone, even your drunk uncle remembers Lonnie Smith for, is his blunder on the base paths in the 8th inning of game 7. Lonnie leads off the inning with a single, next up is 1991 MVP Terry Pendleton who rips one into the left-center gap. Lonnie chugs hard to second base as the ball splits the fielders and then he just stops and kind looks around for a few seconds. Watch for yourself.
It was thought that the Twins second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, deked Lonnie with a fake double play. Lonnie denies that, saying he just didn’t see the ball.
No worries though right? 2nd and 3rd with no outs, 4,5,6 hitters coming up the Braves can score a run right? NOPE! Infield ground out, walk, 4-6-3 double play Braves never score. Twins win in extras.
The Braves don't hate Lonnie, they understand that he is a big reason why they were there in the first place and they place more blame on themselves for getting shut out in a game 7. They are still National League champions under new General Manager John Schuerholz. Yes the same John Scheurholz that Lonnie wished death upon, but didn't because he is from Compton and can't shoot a gun. During a team celebration that year, it was said that Lonnie was seen attacking John... with hugs, thanking him for being the reason why he got his life back on track. A little happy ending to such a dark story.
Lonnie played for the Braves again in 1992 in which the Braves again lost the WS. This time to the Blue Jays. Surely the Blue Jays won't win again in 1993 on some miracle. Signing with the Pirates in 1993, and being traded to the Orioles before the season was over, Lonnie decided to hang them up after the 1994 players strike. Since his retirement, Lonnie was forgotten about until 2006 when he told a South Carolina Newspaper interview about his plan to kill John Schuerholz. This caught Lonnie some attention, but after people realized he was doing about an 8 ball a day at that point in his life, they decided that attempting to kill someone is pretty normal for crackheads, and they let it slide.
Lonnie Smith is one of my all time favorite stories in baseball. Better than Rube Waddell chasing after firetrucks between games, better than Mark Buehrle having the fastest average game time, and better than when Barry Bonds had a .609 on base percentage. His comeback from cocaine twice, and his career resurgence is remarkable.
Please like and share this with a baseball player, or a crackhead to give them some hope.
that is the Tea, with T
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