John Smoltz introduced by Red Sox
Posted on January 13, 2009
Filed Under 2009 Season | 2 Comments
I’m not, nor have I ever been, an Atlanta Braves fan. Sure, I rooted for them to beat the Yankees when the chance arose and I was always impressed of their year-in/year-out ability to produce quality homegrown players; but other than that.. I could care less. With that being said, it STILL feels weird for me to see John Smoltz wearing a baseball cap without the Braves logo on it.
That was all I could think about as the Red Sox held their press conference today. The main subject being the official announcement that the club signed John Smoltz to a 1yr/5.5m contract. There were a few excellent points made from the whole shebang, especially for Red Sox fans.
1. Smoltz kept talking about how happy he was to come play in Boston (the standard ‘what a great sports city’ speech that every athlete is required to give upon arrival.)
2. Theo Epstein said that Smoltz threw a bullpen session for the team in the 2nd week of December and the results were outstanding. John Farrell agreed and said that Smoltz looked like he was already in spring training form/shape.
3. He is preparing to be a starting pitcher but said he’d do some relief work if that was what was asked of him. All that he wants to do is win.
4. Everyone involved thinks that he will be ready to go on Opening Day but that they want to take things slow and make sure he’s in top-form for October, not June.
5. John Smoltz has a good public relations guy because he essentially opened the press conference with a joke about how glad he was that he’s in the AL now and he no longer has to swing a bat. Touche, and welcome to Boston.
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Here is what Chipper Jones had to say:
“We’ve made so many gambles on players that haven’t panned out over the past few years and if there was one guy in that clubhouse that I’m going to gamble a couple of million dollars on, it’s going to be that guy. If he says he can do it, I believe him.”
Let’s go with that!
Nice. Yeah I heard them announce on ESPN that a “long-tenured Braves teammate” wasn’t too happy about Smoltz leaving. I figured it was Chipper Jones but I didn’t have time to stick around and watch the story.