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March 2008
Braves hopes hinge on aging arms
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Let’s begin with the presumption that this is a preview from behind home plate. As unbiased as the call of an umpire. It’s open season on pick-‘em, and this is how the Braves may look from the neutral zone, and we’ll start with pitching.
You realize, of course, that two starters are 40 or older. A third hasn’t thrown an official pitch in two years and two months. A fourth was just the sixth-best major-league prospect in the Eastern League before Detroit called him up from Erie. The fifth is sound and solid Tim Hudson, who can be counted on without fear of calamity.
Say this, though, for the bullpen: For the first time in a long time it is sound and solid and seasoned, much more attractive than in the springs when it featured a fat, unathletic wheezer as a closer. This bullpen has left-handed balance, has the highly esteemed Rafael Soriano and the cunning Australian, Peter Moylan. But can this offset any setback that might befall Tom Glavine, John Smoltz or Mike Hampton? Frankly, you hold your breath when any of them starts a game, as it goes with the nay-sayer.
Otherwise, Bobby Cox can fill out a lineup card that gives him a smile as broad as the Nile. And while on the subject, just how much longer will he be filling out the card? Not that the subject of his retirement hasn’t been chopped up and shredded enough already. First, he has no fixed game plan. He smiles a patient smile when the subject is in the air, and he has one conclusion: He’ll manage until he has had enough, which is not in view yet.
“I’m just going to do it until I get ready to quit,” he said. And my guess — which is strictly that — is that he’ll go three more years, then retire when he’s 70. At any rate, when he does go it will be a sad day in Atlanta.
The Braves haven’t had a gold-plated infield like this in this century. Yes, Edgar Renteria is gone, but Yunel Escobar gives them more range and a stronger arm at shortstop, and there will be no attrition at bat. Kelly Johnson improves by the moment at second base, and that is a strong upgrade. Nothing like an efficient midfield to improve every day in the life of a pitcher. At the corners, the main consideration is the extended health of Chipper Jones. He hasn’t had a full season — 150 games or more — since 2003, and his presence and his bat are essential to the health of this team. Cross your fingers. Mark Teixeira, could be MVP material.
You will find, I think, great comfort in the outfield of Matt Diaz, Mark Kotsay and Jeff Francoeur. Diaz is a hitting machine, and has ascended to the role of the everyday left fielder. Francoeur in no time will become an annual candidate for MVP of the year. Kotsay is no Andruw Jones, thank heaven, which means anywhere from 50 to 80 fewer strikeouts, and an improvement over a .222 batting average. He has given an impressive preview of his defensive highlights this spring, but whatever develops with him here will be a revelation to us all.
Pitching, of course, is the key to it all. Presumably, John Smoltz’s personal spring training regimen came off successfully, even though he opens the season on the mend. Glavine is not one who lights up the speed gun, but impresses with location and guile, and something is to be said for not having to commute between here and Flushing. Hampton, well, you hold your breath with every pitch. Presumption is that after all these vacant seasons the Braves should get something for their $13 million. As for Jair Jurrjens, Curaçao’s first pitching missionary to the major leagues, your guess is as good as mine.
Is this team good enough to take out the Mets? With their new American League defector Johan Santana, this is the team the Braves have to beat. But don’t overlook the fact that he lost 13 games last season, so no guarantee comes with him. For that matter, that says it all.
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Braves’ AAA team should honor history
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: (Value to be determined by you, one item at a time.)
• Don’t say I’m not persistent, or even annoying. But it was suggested here awhile ago that, to do honor to the old denizens of Ponce de Leon Park, it might be a good marketing ploy to call our new Braves AAA team the Gwinnett Crackers. How now?
• Now here is one you rarely ever hear of, if ever: When LSU loses its projected QB-to-be, Ryan Perrilloux, he might be succeeded by a transfer from Harvard. A transfer from Harvard! Now that really reshuffles the academics world.
• All right, Dogwood Farm’s two Kentucky Derby candidates go back to work shortly. Atoned, second by a neck in the Tampa Bay Derby, takes his race to the Illinois Derby, and Blackberry Road goes to the gate in the Arkansas Derby. Both could use a bump in earnings to be assured of a place in the gate in Louisville, but Atoned would appear to be safely in.
• And speaking of the “Kentucky Derby, presented by Yum Brands,” that’s the preferred name, as ridiculous as it sounds. Offhand, I’d say the Kentucky Derby is able to travel on without any boost from “Yum.”
• Joe West, the umpire who sings and strums, may have hit it big in his country-music career. He’s out with a new CD, “Diamond Dreams,” and they say that “Cowboy Joe” may have turned up the sound of his second career with this one. He’s always got balls and strikes to fall back on.
• How do they get off calling these imported Japanese players “rookies”? They all have several seasons’ experience in their major league. The Red Sox rage, Daisuke Matsuzaka, for instance, is 27 years old, was a 17-game winner with a 2.13 earned-run average with Seibu the season before landing here, hardly the numbers of a “rookie.”
• Just a wild guess or three about some Braves: Scott Thorman is being put on display for marketing; Jordan Schafer, “center fielder of the future,” was sent down early to get his cockiness in hand; and you might not go too far wrong guessing that Gregor Blanco, the Venezuelan, would get as much playing time as Mark Kotsay down the road.
• When Jake Peavy got the start in the baseball All-Star Game last July, half the population of his hometown, Semmes, Ala., flew out for the show. They got to see one inning of him.
• One editor I’ve just read says that there will be no more “Tiger Lurking” headlines in his paper, unless it’s a real tiger. “I can’t take another 20 years of ‘Tiger Lurking’ headlines in my paper.”
• Let’s see, “Dim-uh-troff,” “DIM-uh-troff,” or “Duh-ME-troff,” which would you prefer for the Falcons’ new GM? I’d say “Duh-ME-troff,” sounds truer Slavic. … Selah.
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Dogs’ final week put fun back in season
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well, I’ve got my “Team of the Year.” All sports. Major or minor. Amateur or pro. Never have I enjoyed basketball as much as the last two days of last weekend, some tenuous minutes of it in a rental car Saturday night, trying to squeeze the squeaky sound of the Georgia-Mississippi State game out of an underpowered radio. With its last fading whimper, the news finally got through that the Bulldogs had won.
Playing twice in one day, something no other SEC team has had to endure since 1952, Georgia won the games that put them in the tournament final, and you know the rest of the story. On a floor, by the way, with Bobby Cremins’ name on it.
Frankly, I’ve paid little attention to college basketball this season. Not much to inspire a fellow, either at Georgia Tech or Georgia. In Athens, football drowns out the sporting glee out of all other campus games, of course. Since Mark Richt sent his team a-swarming onto the field after the first touchdown of the Florida conquest, the football Bulldogs have commanded undivided attention. Already the table is being set for a national championship run next season.
Basketball has always been the ugly stepchild. For years home games were played in a leaky old barn named Woodruff Hall, and when I use the term “leaky,” it is not misapplied. It did leak. Big posts were situated near enough to floor surface to endanger the athletes. It was the only indoor court, the late coach Red Lawson said, in which wind direction and velocity had to be taken into consideration. Basketball was taken so lightly that a coach was hardly ever fired, just moved around. Sometimes a football assistant took the job for an extra paycheck.
Not so in this age, and therein lies the heart of this story. As the season ground down into the grit of an unhappy run, there was much ado about Dennis Felton and hints that not much longer would the losing be tolerated. Here was a man, Felton, who was hired to follow Jim Harrick, whose program was rotten to the core. Georgia was on probation, and what Felton did was clean house and give the place a good fumigation. He doesn’t play thugs. In the past two seasons he has lost three leading scorers.
What he does he does right. He is a beacon light among college coaches, but that didn’t muzzle critics. The very fact that Damon Evans, the athletics director, had thrown down the gauntlet, that at the end of the season there would be an “evaluation” of the basketball program threw up a red flag. Conjecture was that Felton would be the victim.
So you see why the results of the weekend in storm-wreaked Atlanta set off such a stirring rally to the side of this decent man. In three days, the Bulldogs beat Kentucky at noon Saturday, Missiissippi State that night, then on Sunday afternoon shot down Arkansas and cut down the nets at Alexander Coliseum. They took it all, these guys who came into the tournament with the SEC’s worst record. Two seniors led them, Sundiata Gaines and Dave Bliss. It was a diverse team, players from New York, Wisconsin, Virginia and a sprinkling of Georgians. (On that line, take the coach himself. Felton was born in Tokyo, where his father was serving in the Air Force.)
Felton is a patient man where patience is merited, and heaven knows, it was stretched to the extreme this season. Then at the end, when it was done, after doing nothing to assuage the threat of a firing, the AD Evans came charging out of the stands and swamped his coach with reassurance and affection. The loss to Xavier was tainted by a flood of fouls that sent the Musketeers to the line 33 times to Georgia’s five. Where there is such a discrepancy, it leads one to suggest that something is amiss.
Even The New York Times made note of it. “That gaping disparity and the clock stoppages that go with it allowed the Musketeers to come back,” wrote Pete Thamel.
It was maddening. One of the Georgia players said it felt like someone was after them, more than just the five players on the court.
When asked if Felton would be back, Evans cheerily said, “Of course he’s going to be back. He’s our basketball coach.”
Sorry, Damon, not a heartwarming show.
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