Mike Smith (pitcher, born 1961)
American baseball player (born 1961)
Michael Anthony Smith (born February 23, 1961) is an American former professional baseball player, a right-handed pitcher who worked in 33 Major League games over five seasons (1984–1986; 1988–1989) for the Cincinnati Reds, Montreal Expos and Pittsburgh Pirates. The native of Hinds County, Mississippi, stood 6 feet (1.8 m) tall and weighed 175 pounds (79 kg) as an active player.
Career
Signed as an undrafted free agent by the Reds on May 11, 1981, Smith had a 15-year professional career; the first decade (1981–1990) was spent in "organized (Major and minor league) baseball", and then, after a five-year (1991–1995) hiatus, five seasons in independent league baseball (1996–2000).
All but one of his 33 big-league appearances came in relief. His Major League victory came in his third career appearance on April 8, 1984, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Riverfront Stadium. Smith relieved the Reds' Bill Scherrer in the top of the eleventh inning with two men on base and one out; the Phillies had pushed across a run against Scherrer and led, 7–6. Smith retired the two hitters he faced — Garry Maddox and eventual Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt — to end the threat. Cincinnati then scored two runs in the bottom of the 11th to win, 8–7.
In an odd coincidence, the losing pitcher when Smith earned his only victory was Larry Andersen. The winning pitcher when Smith (then with the Pittsburgh Pirates) lost his only game (August 15, 1989) was also Andersen (then with the Houston Astros).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mike Smith (pitcher, born 1961)” is american baseball player (born 1961). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mike, Smith and pitcher, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6848847. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1984, 1986 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mike Smith (pitcher, born 1961)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.