Smith Offers Advice

(Busch Stadium) Over the last couple of years in Spring Training, Hall of Famer and St. Louis Cardinals great Ozzie Smith has struck up a friendship with Randal Grichuk. Now that the outfielder has been optioned to Palm Beach (A), Smith shared some of the advice he would pass along to his friend.

“It’s all about not losing faith in one’s self, believing that you can do something,” said Smith. “We all struggle and stuff, but you’ve got to stick with it. Keep believing in your abilities–I’d say that to any young player. Just keep believing in one’s self. I think Tommy Pham is a perfect example of that. We all have to deal with adversities. It’s not so much the adversity itself, it’s how you approach it. Realize it’s part of what the growing process is and learn from each and every one of them. The only way you’re going to make yourself better is to go out and work.”

Hitting just .231 in his first four seasons, Smith basically taught himself how to hit at the big league level. He averaged .272 in his 15 seasons with the Cardinals. So was it more difficult to learn to hit or to then make the adjustments to continue to do so?

“It’s a frustrating process because I had to learn to hit against the likes of Nolan Ryan, Fergie Jenkins, Tom Seaver–guys that could pitch,” answered Smith. “But I knew that if given the opportunity and how hard I was willing to work, that it could only get better. And so, I put in the blood, the sweat, and the tears and told myself that if I do what I’m supposed to do and listen to the people I’m supposed to listen to and execute that–and execute that as consistently as I could, then there was no reason I couldn’t be a better player.

“That’s not really changed, that part of the game hasn’t changed. You’ve still got to put the time in and try to have an understanding of what it is you’re trying to accomplish.”

The 1982 World Series champs, National League pennants in 1985 and 1987–Ozzie Smith was part of some great teams. But he also was on the roster in 1990 and other years when the Cardinals finished below the .500 mark. How did he keep the faith and make sure that he didn’t try to too much, be too aggressive, or make unwise decisions while trying to help turn things around?

“You know what it boils down to, for everybody, when you struggle if you have a good foundation, you have a point of reference,” said Smith. “If you’re sound fundamentally, you always have a point of reference. If you’re not fundamentally sound, then you’re always searching. I think we always prided ourselves on being pretty fundamental with the way we went about it from a defensive standpoint, from an offensive standpoint.

“For instance, offensively, if you’re not seeing the ball–here again, Tommy Pham is one of those examples, if you’re not seeing it, you’re going to have problems. It’s very important to be able to see the ball, first. So when we would go down into the batting cage, one of the first things Mr. Ricketts would say is ‘okay, all I want you to do is watch the ball’. Before you even swing, you’ve got to watch it because if you don’t see it–the body reacts to what it sees. If you’re not seeing it, well the timing and everything’s off. So that’s the first thing, you’ve got to concentrate on seeing it.”

As he continued, Smith raised his hand and pointed a finger out past centerfield to the flags at the top of the stadium.

“It’s like coming out at the ballpark here now, you pick out a ball at the top of the stadium or something and focus on bringing that in closer,” shared Ozzie. “This is a drill, taking a pencil out front and being able to bring that thing closer to you. Those are eye exercises that as a baseball player that you do and that you need to do if you’re going to stay sharp with your vision.

“We did things like that all the time. When things weren’t going well, we weren’t swing well it wasn’t necessarily that we had a bad swing it was probably because you weren’t watching it long enough. Now, I know there are a lot of things they probably have technologically that are a lot better, but those are the little things that we had to do to keep ourselves sharp to go out there and play everyday.”

Smith was at Busch Stadium to work on an upcoming edition of Cardinals Insider and several players came over to say hello and exchange handshakes with him. A couple of coaches also stopped by to share a laugh and maybe an additional thought to two.

The perspective and knowledge is welcomed–so much so, that Mike Matheny has lockers designated in the coaches room for both Smith and Willie McGee. So might we see Ozzie get the uniform on and bring a little guest instruction to the field?

“Maybe, as it gets a little warmer as the summer wears on, I’ll probably come down,” said Smith with a smile. “This is always the best time for me and it was always a fun time–infield and taking infield and all that stuff, which they don’t do anymore, was always a fun time for me. Yeah, you may see me down here taking some ground balls. I’m still functional.”

photo credit: STLBaseballWeekly.com; Bill Greenblatt/UPI