The retirement of Lee Smith

Lee Smith with the Montreal Expos

Montreal’s Lee Smith, then baseball’s all-time saves leader, announces his retirement 26 years ago today, leaving Ugueth Urbina to become the Expos’ full-time closer.

Urbina remains Montreal’s closer into the 2001 season before the Expos trade him in midseason to Boston, beginning a meandering journey that sees the right-hander pitch for five teams over the next four-plus seasons before his major league career bottoms out in 2005 with the Philadelphia Phillies.

As for Smith, he finishes his Hall of Fame career with 478 saves and a 3.03 earned-run average over 1,022 appearances.

His style always is the same: Go right after the batter.

“You hear people talk about wasting a pitch. I don’t do that,” Smith says in a 2012 interview with the Odessa American. “Every pitch had a purpose, and I stayed within myself. I had to do it right the first time.

“Even if a guy got a hit, as long as it was a pitch I wanted to make, OK. I never wanted to underestimate the hitter. But I didn’t give him a whole lot of credit, either.”