Remembering: Reggie Smith

Carl Reginald Smith was born on April 2nd, 1945, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father, a former Negro League ballplayer, moved the family west when Reggie was still a boy. His mother — a gifted musician — gave him the metronome that would later show up in every stride at the plate.

From Centennial High to Boston

Reggie signed with the Minnesota Twins out of L.A.'s Centennial High School in 1963. He was a slick-fielding shortstop then — fast hands, a quicker first step. By the time the Red Sox plucked him off the Twins' Triple-A roster in the 1966 first-year draft, he had moved to second base. By 1967, the year the Impossible Dream Red Sox went to the World Series, he was their everyday center fielder, and a damn good one.

"He could beat you four ways. He could hit, he could run, he could throw, and he could think." — Tommy Lasorda

To the Dodgers

The June 15, 1976 trade that sent Reggie from St. Louis to Los Angeles for Joe Ferguson and two minor leaguers is, in hindsight, one of Al Campanis' best. Smith hit .307 with 32 home runs in 1977, then again clubbed 29 with a .382 OBP in 1978. Both years the Dodgers reached the World Series. Both years they lost to the Yankees.

The 1980 injury

A torn rotator cuff in September of 1980 effectively ended his Dodger career. He played one more season as a part-timer in San Francisco, then walked away. He coached in the Dodger system, ran a successful baseball academy in Encino, and — most importantly to the men who played for him — taught a generation of L.A. kids how to think their way through an at-bat.

If you grew up watching the late-70s Dodgers, you knew Reggie. And if you knew Reggie, you remember the swing — flat, fast, perfectly balanced — and the bigger thing it taught us: that style and substance, in baseball as in life, are not opposites.