DETROIT — Josh Smoker was throwing Monday morning at LECOM Park when manager Clint Hurdle approached him with some good news, stated simply.
“Congratulations,” Hurdle told him. “You made the team.”
Smoker, a left-handed reliever, wasn’t sure if he was supposed to share the news yet, but he couldn’t wait. So he called his wife, Nicole, a special education teacher at North Paulding High School in Georgia. He heard her students excitedly chatting in the background; Nicole keeps her students updated on his career.
Then, he rang his parents, even though he’d see them later that day; they were staying with his grandmother nearby.