John Smiley (baseball)

Smiley graduated from Perkiomen Valley High School in 1983, where he played sports as a baseball pitcher, basketball point guard, and football quarterback.[1]

Despite never playing minor league baseball higher than Class A, Smiley entered spring training before the 1987 Pittsburgh Pirates season with a relief pitcher role already in place, with manager Jim Leyland saying he would have to "pitch his way off the club".[2] In Smiley's first full season, he led the Pirates in appearances with 63 games. Smiley was converted to a starting pitcher in 1988, lowering his earned run average by a full 2.5 runs per game, posting a 3.25 ERA and 13 wins against 11 losses.

On April 26, 1990, Smiley threw a complete game against the San Francisco Giants in 87 pitches, of which 73 were strikes, which remains a major league record for strike percentage in a single game. He allowed three hits and a single run, and struck out six batters, facing only three above the minimum.[3]

Smiley was a two time All-Star: as a Pirate in 1991, a season in which Smiley led the National League with twenty wins and finished third in the Cy Young Award balloting; and in 1995 with the Reds, a season in which he had twelve wins and five losses. In August 1995, Smiley surrendered a home run to Braves pitcher Tom Glavine — the only homer Glavine hit in his major league career. Shortly after, he was traded to the Indians by the Reds with Jeff Branson for Jim Crowell, Danny Graves, Damian Jackson and Scott Winchester. Smiley broke his left humerus while warming up for a start in 1997. The injury ended his career.

In 2019, Smiley was portrayed by Troy Doherty in an episode of This Is Us.

• List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball-Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet, or Pura Pelota (Venezuelan Winter League)