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Who Is John Smoltz Starting And Closing Essay

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Autobiographical review: Starting and Closing John Smoltz, a Cy Young Award winner and World Series title holder writes the book starting and closing describing the struggles, “career ending” injuries and hard work that it took over his 14 years in the Major leagues to earn the title of being one of the greatest pitchers to ever step foot on the mound. At 7 years old Smoltz decided that he was going to play baseball in the Major leagues for the Detroit Tigers. In 1985 Smoltz was drafted by his dream team only to be traded to the Atlanta Braves in 1987. In Chapter One Smoltz talks about the kind of person he is and what he had to do to further his career as a major league baseball player after many injuries that should have destroyed his career. The reader of Starting and …show more content…

This is simple yet very strong statement, shows that Smoltz wasn’t playing the game for anybody or anything else but for himself and the love of the game. The quote also displays that Smoltz was a fierce competitor and losing was not an option. Smoltz would often times become injured during the middle of a game but instead of calling it quits he would alter his mechanics to take some of the stress off of the injured tissue. This shows that he was not afraid to fail because changing his mechanics during the middle of a game could result in getting shelled by the other team in front of thousands of people and worst of all, letting his team down. Smoltz was a very positive guy. He states, “If there is anything that I’ve learned in this journey, it’s how to make the best out of really crappy situations” (8). This is a very good lesson the reader can take away from the book because if a person is always looking at the negative side of things he/she will most likely be a negative person and end up being stuck in the same spot. Thinking about the positive side of things helps a person move forward and escape those crappy

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