ATLANTA — Before John Smoltz made his first start in his comeback from shoulder surgery, a Boston writer asked him: Why are you doing this?
Smoltz is 42. He's bound for the Hall of Fame. He has to be wealthier than he ever imagined. He's newly remarried. And he has a miniscule golf handicap in what sets up as the perfect hobby for retirement.
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Yet here he is, pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals after the Red Sox unceremoniously released him.
Smoltz has achieved things no one in his sport has; the only pitcher to win 200 or more games and save 150, he's the winningest pitcher in postseason history. Yet he is like so many aging star athletes who just aren't ready — or don't know how — to retire.
That Boston writer could have asked the same question of Brett Favre, who just un-retired to sign with the Vikings at 39. Or Tom Glavine, who targets next year at age 44 for a comeback from elbow and shoulder surgery.
Or Jamie Moyer, who could have ridden off into the sunset after winning the World Series with the Phillies last year and instead came back at 46. Or Pedro Martinez, who just replaced Moyer in the Phillies' rotation, coming back from out of baseball at age 37.
The question, posed to Smoltz in June, made him wince.
"Why do you do what you do?" Smoltz asked the writer, he recalled recently.
"Because I love it," the writer said.
"I don't need to say anything more," Smoltz said.
For the love of the game. That's one way athletes staving off retirement try to explain it. Smoltz talks about the thrill of competition, a chance to win one more championship and feeling like he is still good enough to help a team win.
Favre used similar reasoning in his press conference after he signed with the Minnesota Vikings.
"All I came back for is to win," Favre said. "There's nothing like it and for guys who have played this game, and sports in general, guys in the latter part of their careers, they'll tell you: it's tough. There's no substitute for playing on Sundays."
Some might figure athletes have a hard time leaving professional sport because their identity is so wrapped up in it. They'd be lost without the constant reinforcement, the instant gratification, the fame.
At this level, in this tax bracket, with athletes like Favre, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, it can't be about the money.
Jim Fannin, a sports psychologist who's worked with professional athletes for more than 35 years, believes what these athletes feel is a chemical addiction.
Fannin, who works with players like Carlos Delgado of the Mets and Casey Blake of the Dodgers, thinks athletes get addicted to that feeling of "playing in the zone," a phrase he is credited with coining.
"It's a physical and mental phenomenon," Fannin said. "A chemical cocktail floods through your body as glycogen, adrenaline and endorphins. And it's a feeling of a purposeful calm. When you have this feeling, you feel that nothing can go wrong. You feel in control. And you are completely immersed in the moment."
That moment is created when the body reacts to stress, he said, and overcomes it.
To explain what he means, Fannin compares it to getting stabbed in the leg. At first, he says your eyes would shutter faster than normal, giving an illusion that things are moving in slow motion. Blood rushes to your brain, giving heightened clarity, he said, as well as to large muscles to improve quickness, strength and agility. Rational thoughts take a back seat to the subconscious, he said, and intuition takes over.
Pitchers might feel this "purposeful calm" working with a catcher. Or a quarterback when he's knows a receiver so well, understands neither has to speak to know what the other is going to do.
This feeling, Fannin said, is magnified in team sports.
"I've coached singular athletes like golfers and tennis players who can get in that mind-set but when you're on a team, with many people in that mental and physical state, it's contagious," Fannin said. "If you notice, most of the athletes that struggle with retirement are the ones that have not only had personal success, but they've also had team success."
Fannin compares that connection to old army buddies, who form a friendship for life going through battle together.
"You're in a foxhole, you're in a zone state with somebody," Fannin said. "You're still friends with that guy, if you both survived the thing, 50 years later. You have a common bond that you shared that you just can't replicate. And words can't describe what you experienced ...
"That's a mental dance that's hard to replicate in business. It can be done. It can be done in relationships. But those things take time."
Time is not a luxury athletes on the brink of retirement have. And they have performed at such a high level for so long that the normal physical cues that might signal the end don't register with them.
Even if their bodies start to break down, Fannin points out, coming back from injury is something these athletes have always done. It's part of the job.
"As long as they still have that youthful energy, they know that with their experience and knowledge, they can still get guys out, they can still make passes," Fannin said. "... Maybe I'm not as quick, but you still believe because you can still conjure up that mind-set. And that mind-set can drag an old body around a pretty long time."
Carroll Rogers writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: crogers(at)ajc.com.
