End of the road for Smith

Former Naples High catcher Jeff Smith, tired of battling recurring knee problems, called it quits Wednesday after nine seasons of pro baseball

By ANDY KENT
Naples Daily News

Baseball is a game driven by numbers.

Jeff Smith was a baseball player driven by something else, something that couldn't be measured by a radar gun or a stopwatch. And that drive carried him through nine tough years in the minor leagues.

Tuesday night, Smith, a 1992 graduate of Naples High School, stared down the only obstacle capable of penetrating his drive and turning it back — his health.

With a left knee absent of any cartilage following surgery and still not responding well to therapy and rehabilitation, and a right knee heading in the same direction, the 30-year-old catcher made the toughest decision he's ever had to make. He chose to retire as a player from the game he loves.

"It was the most difficult decision for my heart and my mind," Smith said Wednesday as he fought back tears while sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the Collier County Library in North Naples. "From the body's standpoint, it was probably the easiest decision to make in a long time. It's not that you can just feel it, it's the realization that no matter what I do, I won't get healthy, not enough to catch even at (the minor-league) level again."

Under contract to the Texas Rangers, Smith was scheduled to report to spring training in Surprise, Ariz., next week with the other pitchers and catchers. This was to be his second season with the organization after seven years with the Minnesota Twins and six months with the Boston Red Sox.

In 2004, Smith batted .330 with 28 RBIs in 69 games with the Double-A Frisco Roughriders in the Texas League. He then got called up to the Triple-A Oklahoma Redhawks and hit .200 in 13 games before undergoing season-ending knee surgery in early September.

The first phone call he made Tuesday after telling his wife, Ronna, and his mother and father, Darlene and Tommy, was to John Lombardo, Texas' director of minor league operations. Ronna was in the store with the couple's 2-year-old son, Cooper, and could see Jeff crying in the car.

"For both of us it was emotional. I think the world of Jeff Smith and the entire organization thinks the world of him," Lombardo said. "He was a player we had our eyes on for a couple of years and he exceeded our expectations. He was like an extra coach. He had a tremendous influence on our young pitchers and knew how to lead, and had a bright future with us."

Lombardo confirmed that Smith and Robert Machado were expected to be the top two guys in Triple-A the Rangers would call upon for help behind Rod Barajas, Sandy Alomar, Jr., and Gerald Laird.

Initially after the surgery was performed in Houston by Dr. Keith Meister, the outlook was positive. But as Smith tried to do more on the practice field the pain got worse and the feeling was that at the most he could get one more year out of it.

"They basically said, 'We know what a warrior you are,' " Smith recalled. "They pretty much knew if anybody could come back from this I'd be able to. So they knew I would do everything in the world rehab wise, everything possible to come back. And it just didn't work out."

At 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, Smith was an imposing figure at the plate and behind it. He hit left-handed because that's the way his father taught him way back when he first picked up a bat.

Tommy Smith coached his son all through Little League and his last two years of high school as a key member of the Golden Eagles baseball team. Tommy Smith was a catcher himself and expected his son to be one.

"How did I know he'd be 6-3 1/2?" said Tommy. "I thought he'd be my size and be a left-handed hitter. I'm about 5-9."

Being a left-handed hitting catcher made Smith a valuable commodity in college at Stetson University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in exercise science. He is putting that degree to work as a personal trainer now at Port Royal.

The Twins drafted him in the 20th round of the 1995 Amateur Draft and he began his professional career in 1996 at low Class A Fort Wayne, where he hit .236 with two home runs and 26 RBIs. From 1997 through 2000, Smith bounced around from the Class A Fort Myers Miracle to Double-A New Britain and Triple-A Salt Lake City.

"One of his strong points was the way he handled the pitchers," said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. "He called a good game and handled the staff well. He did a very good job in our minor league system and made it to spring training two or three times."

The closest Smith got to putting on a Twins uniform and playing in a major-league game was in early July with Minnesota already out of the playoff race and not liking what it was seeing out of the two catchers.

As the starting catcher for the Triple-A Buzz, Smith was involved in a collision at home plate that resulted in a badly broken ankle and ended his season.

"I told myself when I started playing the game two things," Smith said. "One was that I was going to play until a coach or someone said I was not good enough to play anymore, and in this situation the coach was my body. And the other thing was that the minute the game stopped being fun I'd stop playing, and this type of pain is not fun.

"This was bad pain. I just don't want to be the person that I've had to be a lot in the past, where just to play one stupid game I've got to load up on so much darn drugs and Advil before and after a game, ice all night, heat up and do extra stretching to make it."

So Smith will take some time away from the field and the batting cage to spend some time with his family, come to grips with the fact that his playing days are done and look ahead to the future.

What he will keep with him are the precious memories of last summer in Texas when he had Cooper stretching on the field alongside him before a night game, or riding the bus and playing cards with his teammates in the back as they headed toward the next ballpark.

"I'm sure being able to spend more time with Cooper weighed in this decision but it was his body," said Ronna, who has been with Jeff since both were 16. "But that moment in Frisco was just amazing."

Lombardo thinks Smith has a future in coaching and said the potential exists for something to possibly happen within the Rangers organization. Smith already runs a baseball camp for kids and works with other major leaguers like former Barron Collier pitcher Chris Resop.

"I'm looking at this as one little door closing," Smith said. "And I just have this feeling it's going to open up a million other doors, in and out of baseball. But I have a heart for baseball and I love teaching kids and something good is really going to come out of this."

Tommy Smith agreed and said he couldn't be more proud of his son and of the community in which he grew up.

"When he put that uniform he always had a smile," he said. "The only thing we wish would have happened is there would have been less injuries. He just has a special drive and determination and I think that's why he persevered as long as he did and went through so much pain."

In that realm, Jeff Smith still measures up.