Always feeling a need to give back to his community, Smith runs a foundation with two of his close childhood buddies, Ron Miller and Tim Ravare. The mission for Baseball Generations (BBG) is to make the game accessible to kids by providing resources, equipment, life skills programs, and opportunities to play and succeed on and off the field.
It receives assistance from other big-leaguers and corporations and is mostly geared toward inner-city kids in Los Angeles. Smith said he’d like to incorporate his off-field work into Bay Area communities, especially if he can stick around with the Giants.
“It’s a way for us to let them know we can’t use where we come from as a crutch,” Smith said. “Our paths may be a little bit different, but we can still get to where we want to be, whether it’s playing baseball or working off the field. You can be a coach. You can be a broadcaster. You can be a beat writer. You can be anything.
“When I got to the big leagues, yeah, it was fun and great, but it didn’t feel whole. Giving back to where I came from and making an impact in life feels really good. I’m proud of being able to do that. To impact these kids and see their lives change over the years is something I really care about.”
Smith loved baseball from a very young age, and his favorite team was the Angels. The 2002 World Series was a rough memory for Giants fans, especially the Game 6 meltdown, but those were Smith’s guys. He was 7 years old but can still recite the lineup featuring Tim Salmon, Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad, Troy Glaus, Adam Kennedy, David Eckstein, Scott Spiezio, and Bengie Molina.
“They had a ton of great ballers,” Smith said. “I wanted to emulate my game after them. These guys were scrappy, they played hard, they made it tough on opponents.”
Giants fans don’t need a reminder. Had the Giants held on in Game 6, the undisputed World Series MVP would have been Bonds. The young Smith admired Bonds even back then, and all these years later, he said Bonds “was one of the main reasons I started playing baseball.”
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