By John Klima
January 10, 2008

John Smoltz is an institution, as firmly embedded in Atlanta as one of his well-placed fastballs buried inside the hands of a right-handed hitter. But this is baseball, where business interferes with nostalgia and the contract weighs more than the heart.

The heart of the deal that will take Smoltz from Atlanta to Boston contains two points. He will be a 42-year-old pitcher with a medical record, as they say in the business. When you are a 42-year-old pitcher and you get more money from another team, you take it.

While the Braves were stunned and the fans fumed, the Red Sox envisioned a bullpen role player and Hall of Fame insurance policy at the big league level. Atlanta has been left to cope with its mental anguish, not to mention a lack of pitching depth, which should grate the Braves more.

Yet the Braves have Smoltz largely to thank for the kind of organization they have become, just as he owes them for the pitcher he became. That, perhaps, is why this separation is more painful than your typical departure. We’re not talking about Steve Avery or Horacio Ramirez. This is Atlanta’s Cal Ripken, Kirby Puckett or Robin Yount.

The great irony of the Atlanta anguish is that getting older on the mound goes against the most basic philosophy of the Braves. If this were any another right-handed pitcher who will turn 42 in May, coming off a ruined season in which he pitched 28 innings before his labrum tore, would this departure cause such immense retrospection? If this were another 42-year old right-hander, would there be sadness?

Atlanta holds tight to its legends. The front of its 2008 media guide features images of Smoltz and Tom Glavine flanking Chipper Jones, with cherubic images of Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Phil Neikro and Dale Murphy hovering in the clouds above Turner Field. It looks like a church hymnal.

Smotlz will one day be officially canonized in Atlanta’s pantheon of baseball legends, and the torment over his exit solidifies his place in the sky. Alas, baseball business must interfere.

This is still a 42-year-old pitcher coming off shoulder surgery. You don’t rebuild by adding pitchers like this to the roster. You win by deleting pitchers like this. Smoltz has become, say, Doyle Alexander.

For once, the common sense that has made Atlanta so successful is devoid of concentration. Even sound Atlanta isn’t immune to baseball logic when nostalgia interferes.

Smoltz will be seven years older than Alexander was when the Braves traded Alexander to the Detroit Tigers in 1987 for then 20-year old Double-A pitcher Smoltz, who was 4-10 with a 5.68 ERA in the Eastern League.

Smoltz is the wise one, leaving the place where more would be asked of less. He is signing to play for a team that will likely extend his usefulness because it will employ him with precision.

The Red Sox will get more from a Smoltz who has less.

The Braves would have asked for more and gotten less.

And to make it sweeter for Smoltz, the Red Sox paid him more to be a pitcher on the decline. Sweet gig if you can get it.

Smoltz will prolong his career and will have to wait to be in the clouds again in Atlanta. When that happens, this transaction will be forgotten. It’s easier to be fondly remembered after the ink dries on the contract.