Let me tell you how life works for John Smoltz, who is the most competitive person you'll ever meet: If he ran for President of the United States, he'd be in the Oval Office after the next election. Who will be the first man on Pluto? If you give Smoltz a rocket ship and a space suit, he'll figure it out.
Even now, at 48, Smoltz embarrasses folks half his age in pickup basketball games around Atlanta.
That's why, as soon as Smoltz decided at age 7 in his hometown of Lansing, Mich., that he'd rather follow the path of Denny McLain, who starred as a pitcher for his precious Tigers, rather than that of Lawrence Welk, who was his parents' idol as the master of "champagne music," those among the omniscient knew Cooperstown was in Little Smoltzie's future.