KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Before relief pitcher Will Smith sprouted into what he jokingly calls a “rabbit’s foot” good-luck charm, he long wondered if he was exactly the opposite: cursed never to play in any World Series, much less become the first player to win three in a row for three different franchises.
Before he earned his abiding sense of “why not us?” — as he’s touting in his return to the Royals entering opening day on Thursday — Smith had considered that he was the common denominator in a “why me?” sequence of exasperating almosts.
When the Royals traded him to Milwaukee for outfielder Nori Aoki after the 2013 season, after all, they immediately proceeded to the next two World Series and won it in 2015.
When he was traded to the San Francisco Giants in 2016, he figured they’d extend their 2010, 2012, 2014/even-year trend of winning the Series.
“I get there and I’m like, ‘Hey, this could be it,’ ” Smith recalled with a smile as he sat at his locker in the Royals’ spring training clubhouse.
But … nah.
“Knocked out in the first round by the Cubs,” he said, shaking his head, “the year that they won it.”
As he increasingly pondered the feeling of “maybe I’m not ever going to win one,” and that he was bound to keep being in the wrong place at the right time, it was reinforced in 2018: That Brewers franchise he was traded from (and might well have bolstered with a career-best 2.55 ERA and 14 saves that year) fell a game short of the World Series.
Then came 2020 with the Braves, who lost the NLCS to the Dodgers in Game 7.
Now, though, any cynical complex he might have developed has long since faded.
For a guy who only ever imagined or modestly hoped for winning one, the drought has become such a glut that he hardly can separate it all and has a hard time ranking the unique cluster.
But the bookends certainly loom largest.
The 2021 title with the Braves not only came with the magic of being his elusive first but also was magnified by being a Georgia native.
Then, as much as he helped Houston in 2022 with a 3.27 ERA in 24 appearances after being acquired from Atlanta at the trade deadline, he didn’t pitch in the postseason.
Meanwhile, with 22 saves and five postseason appearances in 2023, last season with the Rangers resonated in any number of ways for Smith — and perhaps the Royals.
