Steve Smith's Amazing Race: Volunteer Painter

Steve Smith's big introduction to The Amazing Race audience was as a father wanting to spend time with his daughter.

He'd been in baseball for more than three decades. By the time he managed Oklahoma City in 1990 (making him card 171 of the 1990 CMC set), his daughter was 3.

Steve Smith, Amazing Manager

"In baseball, you're gone seven months of the year," Smith told the camera. "We need something the rest of our lives that we can come back and say 'wow, we actually did that.'"

That was the take on Smith through the entire first leg of Amazing Race 16.

Bonus clip with Steve and Allie talking about their relationship:



But the Amazing Race can be an unforgiving competition. When the pressure's high, tempers can run short. And Race producers aren't shy showing those moments. It makes for good television, but also strains relationships.

As we saw earlier, Smith is no stranger to arguments. On the baseball field, he's been suspended multiple times for arguing with umpires. One time he inadvertently got tobacco juice in an ump's eye.

But, when Coach Smith is arguing with umpires, that done in defense of his team. I can't see Smith getting short with his daughter. But I can see him getting tobacco juice in other teams' eyes if they get cross his daughter.

Evidence of the former can be seen in the what-has-to-become a classic Race scene. Looking for a house to paint, Smith ushers them inside a house and they start painting, when the challenge was somewhere else entirely.

The bewildered resident finally said in Spanish, critiquing their job: "That is ugly. They don't know how to paint."

Then they realized their mistake.

"I went from 'genius' to 'are you kidding me, dad?'" the nice father said as Allie laughed and gave the universal sign for "loser."

At another point, Smith confirmed to other racers the location of the required form of transportation.

"I've been in team sports all my life, so I deal with teams, other players: 'I help you, you help me," Smith said in the voice over.

Parent-child teams haven't been that successful in past races. In the 12th installment, a father-daughter team came in second; the 14th installment a mother-son team came in third. In the first 11 races, no parent-child team finished higher than ninth.

The painting incident aside, Steve and Allie seemed to have it together in Episode 1. They still came in fourth out of 11 teams.

And, for the first episode, at least, Smith was just a father spending time with his daughter.

"Allie has the balance, great balance," Smith said before his daughter yelled a "Hi, Dad" while traversing a high wire in Chili, "and she' has courage and, uh, I'm going to start crying thinking of her. She's my little girl."

Steve Smith Tally
Steve Smith: Amazing Manager
Episode 1, LA to Chile: Fourth Place
Episode 2, Chile: Seventh Place
Episode 3, Chili to Argentina: Second Place
Episode 4, Argentina to Germany: Second Place
Episode 5, Germany to France: Second Place
Episode 6, France: Third Place
Episode 7, France to the Seychelles: First Place
Episode 8, Seychelles to Malaysia: Eliminated

Watch the full episode here. The painting episode is in the final segment.

Here's another bonus clip from CBS where Smith says another racer looks like Cole Hamels: