This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2009 > February > 24
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tommy Hanson: Blood, guts and a mighty big arm
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the first pitch of his first spring session throwing to live batters last week, Tommy Hanson tore the nail on his index finger. He looked down and saw blood, which would have served as a signal to most pitchers to stop throwing. Hanson kept throwing.
He felt sheepish - soon the bleeding was apparent to those standing around, Bobby Cox and some of his coaches among them - but he also felt he needed to impress these people. So he kept going. “One of our coaches finally cut it short,” Cox would say afterward. “But [Hanson] almost made his full five minutes.”
This tells us something about the 22-year-old considered the finest Braves pitching prospect since … dare we say Steve Avery? It tells us Hanson, who’s possessed of the requisite big arm, doesn’t mind shedding a little blood for the cause. It tells us he’s a young man in a hurry.
To read the rest of this item, please visit my new little blog on AJC.com.
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Bradley’s Buzz: Griffey, Frenchy, Knowshon, Vick and Kiffin!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So what exactly is it the Braves aren’t getting?
Ken Griffey Jr. — great guy, right? Not according to Gregg Doyel, who’s both a friend and a frequent contributor to these Buzz festivities. On CBSsports.com, Doyel tears into Griffey, calling him “unlikable” and “full of crap” for choosing to play in Seattle, which is 3,000 miles from the family on which Griffey claims to dote. Doyel also accuses Griffey of throwing a water bottle at him in the Reds’ clubhouse. (Griffey missed, prompting the eloquent Mr. D to write, “Gold Glove, my ass.”)
You’re free to agree or disagree with Mr. D’s opinion of Griffey, but I think we can all agree: As rips go, this one’s world-class.
As for Griffey the player … well, he’s not so hot, either. So writes Keith Law of Scouts, Inc. (I don’t know Mr. Law, but seeing as how I’ve linked to his stuff a half-dozen times now, I feel as if he lives next door. So, if you’re reading this, Keith: Howdy, neighbor!) Law believe Griffey has little left and thinks the Mariners’ move to re-sign him was “a cynical, insulting ploy to try to get fans into the park.” Whoa, Nellie!
To read the rest of this item, please see my new blog on AJC.com.
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No Griffey? Be happy, Frank! Be happy!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The guess is that one or two folks will regard this latest incompletion as further evidence Frank Wren doesn’t know what he’s doing. The belief here is that Wren keeps getting lucky like a … well, if not quite like a fox, then certainly like the luckiest dog this side of NASCAR.
Twice now an object of Wren’s affection has done an about-face. The belief here is that the Braves are better off without Ken Griffey Jr., just as they’re better off without Rafael Furcal. (As you know, I had deep reservations about Griffey and even deeper ones about Furcal.) But Wren wanted both, and what does that say about him?
It says he’s trying too hard. That’s understandable. He succeeded the matchless John Schuerholz and proceeded to put together a roster that fell apart due to injuries. Now Wren is trying to recapture all lost ground in the span of one offseason. Pursuing Jake Peavy made sense because Jake Peavy is 28; pursuing Furcal and Griffey, both on the back nine of their careers, made infinitely less.
To read the rest of this item, please visit my new little blog on AJC.com.
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