AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2008 > February > 25
Monday, February 25, 2008
Check egos at clubhouse door
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Top of the mornin’ to you. Still rubbing sleep from my eyes and slamming coffee after staying up watching the Oscars and the Jimmy Kimmel Show (if you didn’t see the latter, which I’m fairly certain most of you probably did not, because you have real jobs and enjoy sleep, then ask someone or Google the segment with Ben Affleck, Kimmel’s response to girlfriend Sarah Silverman’s recent announcement of an, uh, “affair” with Matt Damon.)
Anyway, Jeff Francoeur.
You might say Francoeur has the world by the tail. In fact, Chipper Jones has said exactly that a few times (Hoss likes to weave in a homespun saying now and then).
But if any of you ever wonder about Francoeur, or any other young Brave, facing the danger of an unchecked ego, it’s only because you haven’t spent time in the clubhouse or around the batting cage.
Most of the stuff overheard is not suitable for a family newspaper, or even for its sometimes uncouth offspring, the blog. Besides, guys wouldn’t say anything around us if we started printing everything we heard in their workplace.
But here’s an innocuous slice of life at camp, a G-rated slice of an often R-rated pie, to give you some idea of how egos are kept in check around a baseball team.
Francoeur, whose offseason weightlifting regimen and significantly increased muscle mass have been well documented this spring, hit one towering fly ball after another onto the grass berm beyond the left-field fence Sunday at batting practice.
He was pulling everything to left field, which doesn’t always sit well with Chipper or hitting coach Terry Pendleton. Disciplined hitters (and old guys) want to see the kids practice going the other way, hitting to the opposite field.
Anyway, Francoeur pounded five consecutive batting-practice pitches from bench coach Chino Cadahia onto the berm. It was an impressive power display, drawing oohs and ahhs from hundreds of fans.
Chipper was in the same hitting group, and he stood by the batting cage and smiled. “Throw some outside [pitches],” he said to Cadahia, because Jones wanted to see Francoeur hit some balls to right field.
“Those are outside,” Cadahia said from the mound. “He’s just got that kind of power.”
Chipper smiled again and said quietly, to a couple of players nearby. “Yeah, he does.” Then he gave it one of those Chipper smirks and said a little louder, “What time is it?”
Someone answered, “3 o’clock.”
And Chipper nodded and said, “They don’t play a lot of games at 3 o’clock.”
Francoeur heard it all and just smiled. He can take it, and dish it out, as well as anyone on the team.
So 5 minutes goes by, Chipper and Mark Teixeira each take their turns in the cage, each hitting some line drives up the middle and the other way, and then Francoeur gets back in the cage. Again, he starts pulling balls over the left-field fence.
Chipper chimes in, this time sharpening the needle: “Lose an Andruw, gain an Andruw.”
Ouch.
Francoeur immediately responded. “Chino, outside.”
Cadahia threw the next pitch outside, and Francoeur blistered it back up the middle off the screen the coach was pitching from behind.
And that was that. Chipper smiled. Francoeur smiled. Pendleton chuckled.
And batting practice continued.
Good luck, mate: Before I head down to the field, I’d like to say something about a sensitive subject.
Kangaroo testicles.
Now, before we go any further, I’d like to make it clear I neither condone the hunting or taxidermy of kangaroos or their body parts. Let’s get that straight. I can’t even fathom someone shooting one of those cute, goofy looking animals.
But for whatever reason, some are killed legally in Australia (you can look it up, but they laws that permit annual quotas and also allow farmers to kill kangaroos on their property, something like that. Like I said, complicated).
Anyway, back to the testicles. Apparently a pair of taxidermied kangaroo testicles is regarded as a good-luck charm by Aussies, like a rabbit’s foot (or like me rubbing my bust of Elvis that I bought one late night many years ago at a cheap gift shop on the Canada side of Niagara Falls).
So Braves reliever Phil Stockman, a good bloke if I’ve ever met one, gave starting pitchers Tim Hudson and Mike Hampton each a pair of kangaroo testicles on a key chain. And told them to rub them before each start.
Hudson’s “charm” was hanging in his locker last I checked.
That’s all. I really don’t need to add to this note, do I?
OK, gonna get down to the field: Clubhouse access was limited this morning, because Braves had a tea meeting with the team doctor, a sort of followup after taking their physicals Saturday and Sunday (which is why they were still working out at 3 in the afternoon Sunday).
So I need to get down there and talk to some people. Going to write a story on Jair Jurrjens today, and we’re expecting to get the pitching lineup for the beginning of the Grapefruit League season after the workout.
That should allow us to count forward and figure out how it’s likely to line up when the regular season begins.
Later.
”DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” by Bruce Springsteen
They’re still racing out at the Trestles
But that blood it never burned in her veins
Now I hear she’s got a house up in Fairview
And a style she’s trying to maintain
Well if she wants to see me
You can tell her that I’m easily found
Tell her there’s a spot out ‘neath Abram’s Bridge
And tell her there’s a darkness on the edge of town
Everybody’s got a secret Sonny
Something that they just can’t face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag ‘em down
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town
Some folks are born into a good life
Other folks get it anyway anyhow
I lost my money and I lost my wife
Them things don’t seem to matter much to me now
Tonight I’ll be on that hill ‘cause I can’t stop
I’ll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town
