He rose as the Braves did, turning around a frustrating 1991 season to having the ball in his hands in two of the pivotal moments of that magical year, and would be the longest tenured in Atlanta of the three-headed pitching monster that defined an era.
John Smoltz was fire and emotion, the opposite side of the spectrum from his Big Three cohorts Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux.
“[People] felt like I gave everything I had every time I pitched and that’s kind of what I felt like,” Smoltz told me for Tales from the Atlanta Braves Dugout.