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EYE OPENER ATLANTA'S JOHN SMOLTZ IS OFF TO A BLAZING START AND HAS HIS SIGHTS SET ON A CY YOUNG AWARD

John Smoltz is the Ringo Starr of the Atlanta Braves' Fab Four
rotation. Likable? Sure. You have to like someone who once tried
to iron his shirt while wearing it, who calls his mom and dad
regularly, and who used to be an award-winning accordion player.
Unlike bandmates Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Steve Avery, all
of whom have won 18 games at least twice, Smoltz, who has never
won more than 15, has not evoked much appreciation for his
genius or his craftsmanship, despite throwing the hardest of the
four. It has been too easy to dismiss him as someone just
banging on a drum.

Then he walked into the Braves' training camp this spring in
West Palm Beach, Fla., grinning like a kid who couldn't keep a
secret. "This is my year," he told teammates, his laugh not
entirely obscuring his seriousness. "This time it's my turn for
the Cy Young."

"He's always joking and goofing around," Glavine says, "but when
he came out and said it, even if he was goofing, it was out of
character."

Smoltz, 29, knew that his right elbow--on which he'd had surgery
to remove bone spurs and chips in September 1994--felt better
than it had in five years. He also didn't worry anymore that
people expected him to be winning more games because he had the
best stuff on the staff. Before this season he sometimes used to
vent his feelings on the golf course by turning his clubs into
spinning projectiles. Only on the golf course did he snap, like
a few of his jettisoned putters.

"I let all the criticism and the expectations rule my life," he
says. "I wasn't happy. There were times when the last place I
wanted to be was at the ballpark."

With Smoltz pain- and worry-free, guess who's fronting the Fab
Four this year? That's right, Ringo is on lead vocals. After
losing his first outing of the season, on April 4, Smoltz had
reeled off wins in 11 consecutive starts by week's end, becoming
the first pitcher to accomplish that feat within a season since
the Yankees' Ron Guidry did it in 1979. He is the only Braves
pitcher to put together such a streak this century. (Warren
Spahn won 10 straight starts in '61.) Smoltz reached double
digits in wins on May 24, the fastest in the league in 92 years.
(The New York Giants' Joe McGinnity beat him by three days in
1904.)

Smoltz's 11-1 start--Atlanta was exactly one third of the way
through its season at week's end--betters the pace of Bob Welch,
who won 27 games for the Oakland A's in 1990 to tie Steve
Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies (1972) for the most wins
since Denny McLain won 31 games for the Detroit Tigers in 1968.

Smoltz also leads the major leagues in strikeouts (97) and
opponents' batting average (.173) and is third in ERA (2.24).
And he has yet to heave one of his irons.

"I'm finally at peace," he says. "Brett Butler [the Los Angeles
Dodgers outfielder] once told me, 'If you were in a room with
100 people and 98 said nothing but positive things about you,
you'd worry about the other two.' He was right. I know I'm going
to lose some games and have some rough spots. The difference now
is, I won't be concerned about what people say.

"One question, though, really bothered me," he adds. "Somebody
asked me recently what I did to turn the corner. Turn the
corner? I mean, it made me so angry. It's not like I never
accomplished anything before."

Only in Atlanta would a resume such as Smoltz's go relatively
unnoticed. He was the youngest All-Star pitcher in Braves
history (22, in 1989), tied Spahn's franchise record with 15
strikeouts in a nine-inning game in '92, set the record for most
career strikeouts (46) in National League Championship Series
play and has lost only once in 13 postseason starts, putting
together a 5-1 record and a 2.76 ERA. While Glavine deserves
praise for playing McCartney to Maddux's Lennon, Smoltz, at
week's end, had as many complete games as Glavine (33, in 32
fewer career starts) and a lifetime ERA that was almost the same
(3.46 to Glavine's 3.45).

Since his elbow surgery after the strike-shortened 1994 season,
Smoltz is 23-8 with a 2.88 ERA in 41 starts. Impressive? Been
there, done that. Between the 1991 and '92 All-Star games,
Smoltz was 22-8 with a 2.85 ERA in 37 starts. Says Glavine,
"People expected him to win 30 games and strike out 500 guys.
They'd ask, 'What's wrong with John?' Every pitcher in baseball
would love to have bad years like he's had."

Even Smoltz acknowledges that his current hot streak has been
charmed. The Braves scored at least seven runs for him in one
stretch of seven starts. (They gave him that kind of support
only three times last season.) When he was scheduled to pitch on
just three days' rest last week in Chicago against the Cubs, a
deluge postponed the game. The next afternoon a fully rested
Smoltz pitched with a 25-mph wind whipping in from Wrigley
Field's outfield. Smoltz blew away the Cubs with a four-hit
shutout that included 13 punch-outs, after which Chicago manager
Jim Riggleman said, "He looked as good as I've ever seen him."

Smoltz is so hot that Ed McMahon should be ringing his doorbell
any day now. Nothing topped the serendipity of his victory on
May 24 in Pittsburgh against the Pirates. Smoltz was losing 2-0
when Atlanta manager Bobby Cox pulled him for a pinch hitter
with two outs and nobody on base in the seventh inning. A walk,
three singles and an error later, the Braves had scored three
runs and handed Smoltz a 5-3 win, as well as a bottle of
champagne in honor of his 100th career victory. Smoltz stopped
giggling long enough to tell Maddux, whose four straight Cy
Young Awards hardly qualify him as needy, "Rub me--for luck."

"No, Smoltzie," Maddux said. "You keep it. You deserve it."

Smoltz sipped champagne, slung his ever-present golf bag over
his shoulder and bounced out of the clubhouse with a smile
plastered on his face. Picture Tom Sawyer with a titanium driver
instead of a fishing pole. "Look at him," said Braves shortstop
Jeff Blauser. "He's going so good, his biggest worry is whether
to use a balata or a wound ball."

That Smoltz would be so fortuitous is something of a good howl
in itself, given all the cruel twists in his career. He is,
after all, the guy who threw 7 1/3 shutout innings in the
seventh game of the 1991 World Series, only to lose a chance at
a victory when teammate Lonnie Smith ran the bases like a
British cow in the eighth inning. Then again, Smoltz could have
wound up as an accordion player.

Both of Smoltz's parents, Mary and John Sr., play the accordion.
John Sr., who also worked as an usher at Tiger Stadium, played
at Detroit's 1968 World Series victory party. John Jr. began
playing the accordion at four and developed into a prodigy. He
could play a tune after hearing it once, even though he could
not read music. Growing up in Lansing, Mich., he won
accordion-playing contests in places as far away as Chicago.

"What I remember," he says, "is being on stages and getting
trophies. And I remember all the people. I remember a hundred
people watching me. I used to throw up before I played. By the
time I was seven, I'd had it. I hated to practice. I told my
parents, 'That's it. I don't want to play this thing any more.'"

"If you don't want to play the accordion," his mom asked him
then, "what will you do when you grow up?"

"I'm going to be a pitcher," he said.

"John," she said, "it might be a good idea to have a backup plan
if that doesn't work out. Do you have an idea about that?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'll be a gas-station attendant."

When Smoltz was 16, he lost a game in a national amateur
baseball tournament in Johnstown, Pa., giving up three home runs
in one inning. When he returned home, he grabbed a roll of tape
and made a strike zone against the back of the house. Then he
taped small squares in all four corners of the rectangle. He
grabbed a bucket of 25 baseballs and took dead aim against those
squares. When the bucket was empty, he would gather the balls
and do it again. The thud of the balls against the back of the
Smoltz house could be heard every day after that until the
weather turned too cold. "That," his father says, "is when I
knew that he would be something special."

His beloved hometown team, the Tigers, selected him out of
Lansing's Waverly High in the 22nd round of the 1985 draft.
Smoltz is a second cousin of Tigers Hall of Fame second baseman
Charlie Gehringer. Smoltz and his father took home a piece of
sod from Tiger Stadium and planted it in their backyard after
Detroit won the 1984 Series. But the Tigers uprooted Smoltz in
'87--he was 20 years old and had pitched in only 38 minor league
games--by dealing him to Atlanta for 36-year-old righthander
Doyle Alexander. Within two years Smoltz was a major league
All-Star.

"It seemed like every year people were picking me to win the Cy
Young or were saying I had the best stuff in the league," Smoltz
says. "Then it would be, 'Where'd he go? What happened?' That
builds up, believe me."

There were times from 1991 through '94 when he stopped calling
his parents. "I felt like I was letting my father down," he
says. One time when he did call, from Montreal in June 1991,
Smoltz seemed to be in such despair about his 2-7 record and
lack of run support that when his mother hung up the phone, she
told her husband, "That's it. We're going to Montreal." They
immediately jumped in the car and drove eight hours, pulling
into Montreal at four o'clock in the morning to offer their son
comfort. Smoltz lost his next start 2-0.

In that same season a bone spur developed in Smoltz's right
elbow. He pitched brilliantly down the stretch and in the
postseason (8-0 after Aug. 15), with only sporadic trouble from
the spur. The injury grew progressively worse, though, and by
'93 his forkball, which he developed the previous season as a
change of pace to his 93-mph fastball and sweeping hard slider,
was virtually useless. "I was out there on the mound thinking
about so many things except the hitter and how to pitch," he
says. "I worried about whether throwing the next pitch would
hurt. And I was always worried about the expectations."

Smoltz and the Braves knew that surgery was inevitable. Finally,
he woke up in his hotel room in Colorado on Aug. 9, 1994, and
could not move his arm. He called a masseur for help. The man,
who was Russian, spoke little English and knew even less about
baseball. He knew enough about both, though, to tell Smoltz,
"You no play today."

The players went on strike three days later. On Sept. 8, Braves
doctor Joe Chandler removed the spur as well as several bone
chips. Remarkably, Smoltz recovered in time to start 1995 in the
Atlanta rotation. He was 12-7 with a 3.18 ERA in 192 2/3
innings, but he had never fully regained his arm strength after
the operation, and it caught up to him. He allowed 11 runs in 15
postseason innings without a decision. In Game 3 of the World
Series against the Cleveland Indians, he was knocked out in the
third inning. Had the Indians beaten Glavine in Game 6 and tied
the Series, Smoltz would have started the fourth Game 7 of his
career, his second in a World Series. "Obviously, the Indians
felt if they won Game 6, they would win the Series," Smoltz
says. "To be honest, I don't know if I had enough left to be as
good as I wanted to be."

This season his luck may have turned for the better, but Smoltz
has raised his game, too. He is averaging 2.14 walks per nine
innings, cutting his previous career rate by more than one
third. Says Maddux, "He used to go from 0 and 2 to 3 and 2 with
the best of them. Now he's not. That's a huge difference."

Also, Smoltz's forkball never has been better. He can throw it
as a power pitch, with a nasty downward bite, or, with less
pace, as a changeup to lefthanders. The pitch best explains why
lefthanders, who batted .260 against him before this season, are
hitting only .150 against him this year.

"As good as his fastball is," says Cubs third baseman Dave
Magadan, "if you were 2 and 0 on him, you knew it was coming and
could gear up for it. Now he throws that change down and away so
well that it's almost like he misses with his fastball on
purpose just to set you up for it on 2 and 0."

Says Smoltz, "I'm thinking about nothing but pitching out there
on the mound now. It's fun."

He has put away the game ball from his 100th victory for
safekeeping. The ones from his division-clinching and
pennant-winning victories in 1991 are gone--"used or given away
to charity," he says--like other balls he once set aside. But
this one, he promises, is a keeper. "It's the work of a whole
career, not just one game," he says. "I watched Maddux get his
[in 1993] and Glavine get his [in '94]. It's been a tough grind
for me. I got it a little bit slower than I would have liked."

Then he thought about the expectations, but this time they were
of his own making. He looked at the baseball and was entirely
comfortable saying, "I'd like to get one more of these."

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER [John Smoltz pitching]

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER Smoltz, knocking in a run in Chicago last week, is also a tough out. [John Smoltz batting]

B/W PHOTO: AP From 1949 to '53 (right to left) Feller, Wynn, Lemon and Garcia set the standard. [Mike Garcia, Bob Lemon, Early Wynn and Bob Feller]

COLOR PHOTO: DAVID LIAM KYLE Before making beautiful music on the mound, Smoltz used to do so on the accordion with John Sr. [John Smoltz Sr. playing accordion and John Smoltz]

MOUND OF TALENT

Admiring the Atlanta Braves' rotation is like looking at a
Vermeer or Cezanne exhibit. You're seeing one of the greatest
collections ever assembled, but the engagement may be limited.
Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Steve Avery are in the
midst of a four-year run of success unequaled by any rotation in
major league history, with one possible exception: the 1949-53
Cleveland Indians' staff of Mike Garcia and Hall of Famers Bob
Feller, Bob Lemon and Early Wynn. Soon Atlanta's rotation, which
neither opponents nor injury has been able to tear asunder, will
be faced with its most divisive threat yet--free agency.

Glavine, 30, Smoltz, 29, and Avery, 26, can be free agents after
this season. Maddux, 30, can be a free agent after the 1997
season. The four pitchers are earning a combined $21.45 million
this year. Take a good look. This may be their final season
together.

"When you think about it, you alternate between reality and the
hope that it won't be that way," Glavine says of the possible
breakup. "We'd love to stay together, but you also have to deal
with reality. We know [Braves owner] Ted Turner doesn't have an
unlimited supply of money. But it is nice to know that if any
organization can keep us together, this is the one to do it."

The Braves' quartet already is one of only 14 foursomes in
history to stay together for at least three years in a row.
Their .656 winning percentage from 1993 to '95 ranks third among
those foursomes and is the best since 1911, easily topping noted
Los Angeles Dodgers rotations such as Fernando Valenzuela, Burt
Hooton, Bob Welch and Jerry Reuss (.590 winning percentage from
1981 to '83), and Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres and
Stan Williams (.585, 1960-62).

Only two rotations extended their run into a fourth year: Dennis
Leonard, Paul Splittorff, Larry Gura and Rich Gale of the
1978-81 Kansas City Royals (.574 winning percentage) and the
aforementioned Indians, who carried theirs into a fifth season.
Those Indians combined for a .620 winning percentage and a 3.32
ERA. At week's end the Braves had that Cleveland staff beaten on
both counts: a .663 winning percentage and a 3.02 ERA. And
unlike the Indians, who won pennants immediately before and
after their big four's five-year run but never during it,
Atlanta's staff has pitched its team to a world championship.

Like a master's artwork, the value of the Braves' rotation
continues to appreciate. It is having its best year yet. Exactly
one third of the way through the season, the Atlanta starters
were 29-12 with a 2.48 ERA--led by Smoltz, who was 11-1 with a
2.24 ERA. Maddux, the Cy Young Award winner four years running,
is the laggard of the group with a 2.88 ERA, which still left
him ninth in the National League.

It was suggested to Glavine that the four pitchers demand to
negotiate together, as Koufax and Drysdale once did. "It's not a
bad idea," Glavine says. "But if Smoltzie keeps going the way
he's going, there will be nothing left for the rest of us."

--T.V.