Mike Schmidt on growing up in Dayton: ‘I lived and died for sports as a young kid’

“Your own journey growing up in Dayton, Ohio, how did that shape the way that you entered pro baseball?” Morosi asked.

“Well, obviously it had a great deal to do with it,” Schmidt said. “As you said, I grew up in Dayton, Ohio. My mom was a good athlete. My father was a good athlete. His athletic career was interrupted by World War II. Who knows where that would have gone if it wasn’t for the wars back then. So I had good genes from my parents. I’ll never forget my mom could punt a football 40 yards and could throw a spiral. I got my athletic ability from them. I lived and died for sports as a young kid.

“It was a lot different then than it is now. Every minute of my spare time was spent in the park near our house playing whatever sport was within season. At that time, everybody I hung out with wanted to be the best in the neighborhood. There was a lot of competition early in my life.”

Schmidt grew up at 1618 Pinecrest Drive, which was across the street from Ridgecrest Park.

“Ridgecrest Park was our safe haven,” Schmidt told the Dayton Daily News in 2010, “and a major reason I became who I am today.”

Schmidt spent his entire 18-year, big-league career (1972-89) with the Philadelphia Phillies. He ranks 16th in baseball history with 548 home runs.

Schmidt’s mom Lois, a 1944 graduate of Kiser High School, died in 2019 at 93 in Dayton. Schmidt’s dad, Joseph Jack “Smitty,” also a graduate Kiser, died in 2011 at 85 in Dayton.

“Jack and Lois were very popular in the community,” Joseph Schmidt’s obituary read, “as a result of their family business, Philipps Aquatic Club and Jack’s Drive-in, a popular North Dayton family landmark for 45 years. Through this business, they touched thousands and thousands of Dayton families who carry the memories of their summers at Philipp’s Pool to this day.”

On the podcast, Smith also talked about the knee injuries that slowed his development in high school. The three-time National League MVP never made the Dayton Public League All-City team in the 1960s.

Schmidt did have talent at a young age, though. The first mention of him by a Dayton newspaper, the Journal Herald, came in 1960 when he was 10. A one-paragraph story told of him throwing a no-hitter, striking out 17 of 18 batters, for Phillips Aquatic against Dayton View Optimist in the North Riverdale Little League.

Smith walked on to the baseball team at Ohio University, where he blossomed into an All-American. As a junior in 1970, he helped the Bobcats reach the College World Series.

“I went there for the schooling part of it, not for the athletic part of it,” Schmidt said on the podcast. “I tried out for the basketball team at Ohio University. I actually made the basketball team. I was going to start on the freshman team. I loved basketball. Then I got dropped from the program because I had had surgery on both knees. I got called into the varsity coach’s office on time, and he said, ‘Mike, we’re not going to able to insure you as a school, and we have to let you go from the basketball program.’ It was one of the saddest days in my life. So I just went crazy trying to build the strength in my quads and my hamstrings so that I could try out for the baseball team.”