Longtime Braves pitcher Smoltz on other side of dugout this time

ATLANTA — It's weird. Not bad, not good. Just weird.

He doesn't think so, necessarily, but it's something he hears all the time.

From his own teammates, opposing players, coaches, managers, umpires, reporters. Oh, and especially fans.

As similar as Atlanta and Boston's uniforms look, with a lot of red and blue, there's a world of difference in John Smoltz shifting from one to the other.

It might as well be the same as a firefighter slipping into a cop's wardrobe.

Teetering his weight from one side to the other Friday afternoon inside the Turner Field auxiliary locker room, a place he once talked about postseason starts, Smoltz's move from Bravestown to Beantown has never felt more evident.

"This is not a feel-good story. This is not a "Rudy" story," Smoltz said. "This is about me getting back to being able to dominate."

After 20 years in an Atlanta uniform, playing both here and across the street at the old Fulton County Stadium, Smoltz is officially someone else's.

"I love this town, I love this city," Smoltz said of the South's hub, "but it just so happens that I'm doing what I do in another town and another city."

Bobby Cox, after being Smoltz's manager for the majority of his career, said seeing him in another uniform might've been stranger if Smoltz were set to start in this weekend series against the Braves.

As it is, Cox said it's not too different than when Tom Glavine put on a Mets uniform — except Atlanta played New York a lot more often.

Smoltz, by design, avoided the emotion of pitching here.

He made his first start of the year Thursday, coming back from shoulder surgery to make his American League debut.

He gave up four first-inning runs in Washington before settling to allow a total of five in five innings. Smoltz said he wished he could've had a "first-tee mulligan" but was left encouraged by how he threw and how much was left in the tank after 92 pitches on a steamy night in the nation's capital.

As Smoltz talked Friday afternoon, longtime Braves TV and radio analyst Joe Simpson smirked in the corner of the room.

At one point, Smoltz nodded in his direction. Simpson joked that he wanted to stop by to make sure all of the 42-year-old's parts were still attached.

"There's been a lot of people, really, that didn't think I could do this," Smoltz said. "I've been down that road before."

Friday, just like old times, Smoltz was cracking jokes with the clubhouse attendants in the visiting dressing room.

It's not exactly a typical road trip for Smoltz, who woke up Friday by making his kids pancakes and hitting 70 or 80 balls on a homemade golf course at his 20-acre plot just north of town in Alpharetta.

But coming back isn't just about Smoltz. And you're going to have to bear down to understand this idea.

Some Braves, when asked about it during spring training, had a sense of relief that Smoltz was gone. Please don't get them wrong, they pleaded. They loved Smoltzie, as a friend and teammate.

But there was something about Smoltz that just didn't fit in this Atlanta clubhouse. Not anymore.

He played a larger-than-life role as a symbol in this city, and he did so for a long, long time. Smoltz was the last real link to all those Braves teams that won division title after division title.

Now, two-plus seasons removed from that last East crown, Atlanta needed closure and clearance from that run. The younger "baby" Braves needed to look ahead toward a new future, a run of their own, instead of sensing a looming shadow of past success hovering over their heads.

It just so happens that Smoltz embodies that concept. Perhaps third baseman Chipper Jones does, as well. But Jones joined that run in progress.

It was Smoltz, if you'll remember, who caught catcher Greg Olson in his arms after Atlanta's improbable journey in 1991 from worst to first.

Now, the Braves are a most mediocre team for the third consecutive season, struggling to touch their noses to .500 before slipping back down four or five games below.

They're not out of the East race, by any means. (They're just four games out entering Friday.) But they don't look like a title-winning team. They're a piece or two short, whether in the heart of the lineup or the middle relief area of the bullpen.

But the team is steadily forming a new identity, separate from all those yellow banners on the left-field terrace.

In hindsight, difficult as it was, waving goodbye to Smoltz seems to be the prudent call. Waiting for him until late June would've thwarted the early portion of Atlanta's season.

Smoltz says, even as recent as a month and a half ago, he was still bitter about the way things ended. But he's OK now. Time to go to work.

"It took a while to get over some of those things," Smoltz said, "but now it's nothing but business."

In Smoltz's ideal world, he said his Red Sox would meet the Braves in the World Series. Well, at least one club seems on the way. And it has No. 29 on staff.

Reach Travis Haney at thaney@postandcourier.com and check out the South Carolina blog at www.postandcourier.com/blogs/gamecocks.