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Saturday, January 3, 2009
Year-end sports statement shows mostly gains
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Look, you can knock the year we just finished if you choose to. As an investor, I do. As a member of the local sports society, I don’t. Bear with me.
Yeah, the Braves were sickening, started bad and became a lost cause. It just isn’t sound business to open a season counting on two pitchers in their 40s, both with damaged arms, and another who hasn’t thrown an official pitch in three seasons. (And far as I’m concerned, good riddance, Mike Hampton, mainly a drag on the payroll.)
Then there was the Mark Teixeira charade. Traded five good prospects to get him, then traded him away for a young first baseman and an unknown soldier. The one bright spot was Chipper Jones, who led the league in hitting — though able to take the field only 128 times.
And frankly, the spring doesn’t look much better this year.
Ah, but let’s look at the brighter side, and it begins with the Georgia basketball team. If there ever has been a more unlikely champion of the Southeastern Conference, the floor is open for nominations. Those Bulldogs stand as a testimonial to Dennis Felton, who keeps his house in order. It was a freshman lad who threw up the key basket during the tournament run, which I heard straining my ears on a car radio in a dark parking lot.
The Hawks, well, they were just tuning up when they carried the Celtics to the limit in the NBA playoffs. I’m not sure how Mike Woodson and Billy Knight got along, but Mike seems to be doing very well without the discarded general manager.
Now we really hit the high note — the Falcons, new and improved, as they say in those commercials. A new general manager, new coach, new quarterback, new running game and a cagey day at the draft. From the day Thomas Dimitroff hit this town, the Falcons began working their way out of their doldrums. Mike Smith followed, then the draft, in which Dimitroff paid heed to his own judgment and chose Matt Ryan, a fresh graduate of Boston College, now offensive rookie of the NFL season. Michael Turner was cleverly claimed as a free agent, and he gave the running game some clout.
Smith did the rest. For a man who had never been a head coach, he showed an unusual propensity for finding the right player for the right job. Rarely ever will you see such an uncanny turnaround in an NFL team, a just reward for Arthur Blank, whose ownership had been beset by some unfortunate judgments. Picking winners after the game has been played is easy, but as this is written, the Falcons and Cardinals haven’t yet taken the field. I take the privilege of being a “homer.”
Then there was the improbable turn of fate at Georgia Tech. Paul Johnson came aboard with his uncanny offense that worked magically until New Year’s Eve in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. This Tech team had been beaten before, but never so thoroughly as by LSU. The North Carolina game was a calamity. This one was worse. As the woman convicted of murdering her husband said, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Mark Richt began the season on top of the heap of at Georgia, No. 1 before the season began, fell from that lofty perch the first week and never made it back. The Bulldogs recovered in the Capital One Bowl, but got little credit in the press for beating Michigan State. More accounts dealt with two players who might, or might not, turn pro afterward. Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno, in case you missed it.
Bill Curry returned to coaching and faces the monumental charge of establishing a football program at Georgia State, from the ground up.
Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards won NASCAR’s two races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and in Busch’s case, it was the start of one of the hottest streaks of the year.
Golf took its licks in the area. AT&T pulled out of Sugarloaf, and there was no replacement. The Tour Championship made its annual return to East Lake, but the air had already been let out of its balloon. Though Camilo Villegas won it, the FedEx prize had already been nailed down by Vijay Singh.
This is just sort of skimming the cream off the top, and with that I depart, wishing for you a new and improved 2009.
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