“My first victory, I didn't think it could get much better with the excitement of family and friends who were there in Shea Stadium.”

American former professional baseball pitcher

John Smoltz is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played in Major League Baseball from 1988 to 2009. He spent nearly all of his career with the Atlanta Braves, and later also played for the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals. He was an eight-time All-Star and a central part of Atlanta’s strong starting rotation in the 1990s alongside Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. That Braves group helped keep the team in contention for much of the decade and won the World Series in 1995. Smoltz also won the National League Cy Young Award in 1996 after going 24 and 8, a total that matched the most wins by an NL pitcher since 1972.