Lonnie Smith
| Lonnie Smith | |||
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Smith with the St. Louis Cardinals
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| Left fielder | |||
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Born: December 22, 1955 Chicago, Illinois |
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| MLB debut | |||
| September 2, 1978, for the Philadelphia Phillies | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| August 10, 1994, for the Baltimore Orioles | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .288 | ||
| Home runs | 98 | ||
| Runs batted in | 533 | ||
| Stolen bases | 370 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
Lonnie Smith (born December 22, 1955) is a former Major League Baseball left fielder. He made his debut for the Philadelphia Phillies on September 2, 1978 and later played for the St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Baltimore Orioles. He overcame bouts with drug abuse to become one of the top base-stealers in baseball during the 1980s, with the seventh-most steals. He played on five pennant-winning teams, three of which won the World Series.
Smith began his minor league career with Auburn in the New York–Penn League in 1974. The following year, he led the league with 150 hits, 114 runs, and 56 stolen bases while playing for Spartanburg. In 1978, he led the league with 66 stolen bases while playing for Oklahoma City and scored 106 runs the following year again with Oklahoma City.
After brief trials with the Phillies in 1978 and 1979, Smith broke into the team's lineup in 1980, batting .339 in 100 games. The Phillies won the National League pennant and defeated the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. Smith's performance was strong enough for him to finish third in the Rookie of the Year balloting following the season. He continued to play well in the strike-shortened 1981 season, hitting .324.
Smith was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in November 1981, for Lary Sorensen, in a deal which eventually netted the Phillies Bo Díaz. Smith continued to hit well in 1982, and to have a good on-base percentage. In fact, 1982 was a high-water year for Smith in several different ways: Smith was in the MLB All-Star Game for the only time in his career in 1982. He had a batting average of .307, and on-base percentage of .381. He led the National League with 120 runs scored, which was the only time that he scored 100+ runs in a season during his baseball career. Smith also set career highs in 1982 with 592 at-bats, 182 hits, 35 doubles, and 257 total bases during the regular season. He also ranked second in the National league with a career-high 68 stolen bases on the basepaths, but he was also caught stealing a career-high 26 times, since the Cardinals' manager, Whitey Herzog, had ordered his fastest players to attempt to steal bases whenever possible as part of his strategy for winning.
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