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August 2005
Jordan’s vow is to ‘finish strong’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
He was popular as a Falcon and remains popular as a Brave. He is popular in the community. He has always been popular with teammates, coaches, managers and general managers. Also with trainers, office staff, media members, postal delivery workers, the pool boy and the cable guy.
Brian Jordan has hit only .244 this season and makes those creaky loose-floor-board kind of sounds when he walks. But he’s such a nice guy that the tendency is to think only, “Oh, poor Brian.” Because if he were like every other schlep, you would say: “Dude. It’s over.”
Now, there is always the chance it’s not over for Jordan. He certainly doesn’t believe it’s over. If he thought it was over, he would quit even before the Braves had a chance to activate him today, when Major League rosters expand.
“Once I’m back on the field,” Jordan said Wednesday, “I know I’m going to perform.”
Such a nice guy. You want to believe him. But with that stance, Jordan is in the minority.
If the Braves hang on in this race and reach the playoffs for the 14th straight time, they will have a decision to make. Jordan: activate or shelve?
That’s not what the 38-year-old had in mind when he returned here in January. It was hoped he would bring the team something more than just a strong clubhouse presence. That hasn’t happened. His season has been successful only if you compare it to Raul Mondesi’s.
But Jordan is thinking about October. It’s the only reason he has put himself through this rehab.
He is asked, “If you knew right now that you were not going to be on the postseason roster … ” and answers before the question is completed.
“This wouldn’t be worth it,” he said. “The reason I’m coming back is for the playoffs. If health-wise I can’t do it, then I’d tell Bobby [Cox].”
And if the decision goes against him?
“It would hurt me a little bit. But I’d still be there for the players. I’m a team guy.”
Three outfield spots likely will go to Andruw Jones, Jeff Francoeur and the recently acquired Todd Hollandsworth. That leaves Jordan battling Ryan Langerhans and Kelly Johnson for possibly two spots. Since the Braves remain in a pennant race, Cox can’t concern himself with who gets playing time.
“This isn’t like the beginning of the season,” Cox said.
Jordan had thoughts of retiring last month. The knee pain had worked its way up to the cranium. He had been dealing with this since surgery cut short his season two years ago in Los Angeles.
It’s not a pretty sight when an athlete’s mind says one thing and his body says another. Jordan spoke to his father, Alvin, who had coached Brian since he was eight years old, and let it slip that he was considering retiring. Dad wasn’t keen on that idea.
“I knew how my knee was feeling and how much pain I was going through,” Jordan said. “I talked to my dad and said, ‘I don’t know if I can play the rest of the season.’ One thing he stressed to me is, ‘You’re competitive. You’re not a quitter. You’re not going to give up. So whenever you get back out there, you just do the best you can do.’ I had thought about retirement. But then when I got to Rome, I knew I could still play.”
Yeah. He killed ‘em in Rome. He went 8-for-16 against Class A ball pitching and a previously slumping team went 5-1 during his stay. It allowed Jordan to joke, “I was MVP of the Rome Braves.”
He managed to get over teammates calling him Mr. Jordan.
“They could’ve been my kids,” he said.
Nothing against inspiring the youth of America. But Jordan doesn’t want that to be his season highlight.
“One thing I want to do is finish strong,” he said.
That attitude goes a long way to fueling an athlete’s popularity. But mind and body aren’t on the same page. Jordan’s moving parts apparently aren’t big on sentimentality.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Maybe Price isn’t the problem
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
And then there were four.
Once there were five.
That’s right. Prior to Tuesday morning, when the Falcons shoved former No. 1 wide receiver Peerless Price out of their Flowery Branch door, there were five possible reasons as to why their passing game barely existed last season.
You had the Price theory, which goes: He only prospered in Buffalo because he was on the other side of Eric Moulds, a truly stud wide receiver. Get rid of Price, who couldn’t shake defenders and who dropped too many passes, and watch the Falcons become Air Mora or something.
Well, Price is outta here. Now what?
If the Falcons’ passing game continues to reek, you’re left with those four other theories. Such as the one involving the offensive line, which goes: Since Michael Vick was sacked more times per pass attempt last season than any other quarterback, he didn’t have time to find receivers downfield. Improve the line, and Vick evolves into Peyton Manning.
If that doesn’t happen, then what? You have the other wide receivers theory, which goes: Dez White, Michael Jenkins Roddy White, Brian Finneran and whoever replaces Price are as equally mediocre (or worse) as Price was perceived to be. Replace that bunch, and the Falcons’ offense is the most balanced in the NFL.
If that doesn’t happen, you have the offense theory, which goes: The Falcons’ version of the West Coast offense doesn’t fit Vick. Change to something more conducive to his running and passing skills, and everything will be just fine.
And what if that doesn’t happen? We’re down to the Vick theory, which goes: He can’t run this version of the West Coast offense or any offense for that matter when it comes to throwing and completing the deep pass with consistency.
Stay tuned.
Maybe, just maybe, Peerless Price wasn’t the problem after all.
Permalink | Comments (44) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Blank admits to ‘investment’ mistake on Price
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Peerless Price was a failure, but his departure should be construed as a success. Having invested so much of himself, figuratively and monetarily, in bringing Price here, Arthur Blank could have insisted his high-profile hire be given every opportunity to succeed. Instead he listened to his football men and agreed to cut his figurative and monetary losses. In the grand scheme, that’s a victory.
“It’s an example of Arthur listening to his support mechanism, and sometimes that’s not the case in our league,” said Rich McKay, one of those football men. “It’s not always the case in professional sports, as we just saw with the Hawks [meaning Steve Belkin vs. Billy Knight regarding Joe Johnson].”
Not every rich owner cares to admit he whiffed so publicly on a big-ticket acquisition. Not every rich owner would have deferred so fully to his employees. On Tuesday we were reminded yet again that Arthur Blank isn’t just rich. He’s also smart.
Only a fool â€â€? or Jerry Jones or George Steinbrenner or Daniel Snyder â€â€? insists on having his well-heeled way when his way isn’t working. Price was imported in 2003 to be the Falcons’ No. 1 receiver, but at the rate he was declining he wouldn’t have beaten out Brian Finneran to be No. 4 on this roster. “We made a very big financial investment, and it clearly hadn’t paid off,” Blank said Tuesday. “We’ve lost a player we paid $15 million. You can’t afford those kinds of mistakes and win in the NFL.”
You can’t afford many of them, no. You can get away with one, providing you address it and move on. Price was never the receiver the previous football regime â€â€? Dan Reeves and Ron Hill, both since deposed â€â€? believed him to be, but the point isn’t so much what Price didn’t do as what the Falcons did in response to his uninspired performance. They didn’t let him linger around Flowery Branch as a conspicuously disgruntled scrub. They dumped him.
A clever GM can always massage the salary cap, but mending a team’s fractured harmony is more problematic. (Ask the Eagles.) Price isn’t the sort of selfless citizen Jim Mora â€â€? or any coach â€â€? wants. Blank isn’t a coach, but he pays attention to the one he has. If anyone believed the Falcons’ talk of an organizational vision was merely a bag of wind, Price’s exit should be most instructive.
“I was very careful in selecting Jim Mora and Rich McKay,” Blank said. “The three of us have a shared set of values. This decision was painful for every single person involved, but it was a group decision.”
Said McKay: “As emotionally tied as Arthur might be to a player, once we do come to a conclusion he’s not a second-guesser. He’s ready to chalk it up as a mistake and learn from it.”
Sure enough, that’s what Blank was doing Tuesday. “This is not about Peerless Price,” he said. “This is about we can avoid making these kinds of investment mistakes in the future… . We need to ask, ‘What is it we could have done to make this work?’ “
Proud men don’t like being wrong, and they like acknowledging it even less. (When was the last time you heard John Schuerholz admit even the smallest tactical error?) Give the Falcons credit for bowing to reality. Keeping a pricey dud on the roster wasn’t going to make him more productive, and it could well have compromised the team. If the veteran doesn’t have to block, Michael Jenkins and Roddy White might have wondered, why should we?
Peerless Price wasn’t what the Falcons wanted or needed. He got open too seldom and complained too much. Asked last month if Price was indeed overrated, a member of the Falcons’ brass said, “Not anymore.”
That he’s gone so soon is cause to celebrate, not to criticize. Even the best organizations make the occasional mess, but only the best organizations sweep up with such dispatch.
Permalink | Comments (47) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Richt takes stock entering fifth season
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Athens â€â€? This is four years later. Forty-two victories, four bowl games and one SEC championship later. He’d found the right place.
“A place to raise our family, have a chance to win at the highest level and become part of a community where we can live for a long time. We found all these things in Athens and the University of Georgia,” Mark Richt said.
Actually, give Watkinsville its share of the credit. That’s where the Richt family lives, about a 15-minute drive to the coach’s office. It was the day after Christmas, 2000, when Vince Dooley introduced Richt as the new coach of the Bulldogs. The house hunt was on.
“It came down to two, one in Athens and the one in Watkinsville,” Richt said. “The one in Athens had four upstairs bedrooms with one bath. With four children, that wouldn’t work, so we settled in Watkinsville.”
Watkinsville � where a number of Athenians sleep.
“It has been a blessing in a lot of ways,” he said. “It’s more than football. The kids have done well. It’s church, it’s school, all the things you want for your family. Then, of course, [and he smiled] to have won as many games as we have.”
This was not Richt’s first shot at head coaching. Five years ago, there had been the University of Pittsburgh. Big-time in the East. Lots of media exposure.
“My wife and I talked it over. Was this where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives? And the answer was ‘no.’ “
There had been other suitors, though he hadn’t been actively chasing a head coaching job. “I could still be coaching quarterbacks today and be happy,” he said, which was his duty at Florida State before Bobby Bowden made him his offensive coordinator.
Speaking of quarterbacks, Richt didn’t walk into a program dragging bottom at Georgia. While he was being hired in Athens, the Bulldogs were in Hawaii winning the Oahu Bowl. Jim Donnan was leaving a winner, but that wasn’t enough. Richt knew he had a lot of people to please and a lot of cracks in the armor to seal. Coaching the football team at Georgia is more than a job, it’s a calling.
Richt himself said, “This is where God wanted me to go. To do the best and give it my best. This is the only job I ever worked aggressively to get. I called a lot of people. It has been tougher than I thought, but more rewarding than I expected.”
The highlight came early. “It was that scene in the locker room after we’d beaten Tennessee up there for the first time since 1980, when Verron Haynes scored with five seconds left,” Richt said. “That put the stamp of approval on what we were doing.”
It was Richt’s fourth game, a euphoric moment for the Bulldog Nation. The next season, Georgia won the SEC championship, that setting up his biggest disappointment. “The day I found out that some of our players had sold their championship rings,” he said. “It was a symbol of our success, and they had sold them, like selling their birthright.”
Coaching quarterbacks, as had once been his stock in trade, became like walking a tightrope and doing a juggling act at the same time. David Greene was the dominating all-star, but D.J. Shockley could have been starting somewhere else. Greene was a passer, Shockley a double threat, quick feet to go with a strong arm. Richt put his balancing act to work, gave Shockley enough playing time to keep him content, but Shockley’s father, a high school coach in Clayton County, wanted D.J. to transfer. D.J. stuck it out, but a lot of patience was required.
“We had a great relationship,” Shockley said of Greene. “We had respect for each other. He’s a great guy.”
Now it’s his turn, finally. But Bulldog fans’ last memory of him leaves them jittery. After Greene came down with a thumb injury in the Georgia Tech game, Shockley came on, and it wasn’t good. Five completions in 16 passes, 122 yards, and though one of the passes was for a touchdown, he was booed. Bad form. Richt had to call Greene back for an encore. It might have been a treacherous moment if Reggie Ball hadn’t lost track of the downs when Georgia Tech was threatening.
“Our people were too upset,” Richt said. “One game, in rain and sleet, is no way to judge him. Now D.J. gets his chance, and I hope everybody is pulling for him.”
If there is one thing that worries Bulldogs fans, it’s that Shockley’s style is similar to Quincy Carter’s, whose inclination was to take a glimpse downfield, then make a run for it. Coming up a coach’s son, Shockley is more soundly based, and besides, his Bulldogs coach has confidence in his style.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Furman Bisher, UGA / SEC
The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Can somebody explain to me why Denver coach Mike Shanahan is being praised in some corners for cutting his losses now with Maurice Clarett, as if this qualifies him as some sort of visionary?
9: Some clarity: Shanahan wasted a third-round draft pick. If he didn’t draft Clarett in the first place, he wouldn’t be cutting him now.
8: And if an NFL team is going to make a gamble by using a selection on a once-effective college running back who might have just lost his way, it certainly shouldn’t come before round five. Draft picks are like gold for NFL teams, especially in the salary-cap era.
7: But Clarett is still a bigger fool than Shanahan. He turned down guaranteed money ($410,000 signing bonus) in exchange for more potential money ($7 million in incentives) down the road, believing he would hit it big in the league. There’s nothing wrong with that logic, except that it was apparent from the outset of training camp that he was still one screwed up kid with attitude problems. If anything, one would have thought declining guaranteed money would give Clarett extra motivation.
6: Rafael Palmeiro goes 0-for-14 and 2-for-22, then loses his starting job. You don’t need a couch and a shrink to figure this one out.
5: I know. Cry me a river. I only wish Mark McGwire was still playing, if only to enjoy his post-Congressional plummet.
4: Evander Holyfield admits he has been devalued in this country and says his next few fights may come overseas. Think about this: Of all the ill-advised comebacks and overextended careers we have witnessed in boxing, Holyfield’s might be the worst of all.
3: There’s only one thing I have more trouble understanding. My wife ran 20 miles the other day. She is training for a marathon. This will make two things she will have done that I have no interest in: 1) running 26.2 miles; 2) parachuting out of a perfectly good airplane.
2: Think I drive her to do any this stuff?
1: That was one really uplifting photo of Peerless Price in the paper today.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Hall of Famer, but never a figurehead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
One of these centuries, baseball historians will look deep into the shadows and shine light on the truth. There, a long ways behind Curt Flood and maybe the inventor of the seventh-inning stretch, they’ll discover Frank Robinson, the most unappreciated person ever associated with the game that he helped make famous.
Then again, such is the price you pay in this society when you have a tongue and a mind that scares people as much as your Louisville Slugger once did along the way to the Hall of Fame. Let’s just say that life in baseball has been like the following for Robinson, now the manager of a Washington Nationals team that has absolutely no business doing what it’s doing, and that is competing for a spot in the playoffs: Even when many in the game patted Robinson on his back, they often searched for a soft spot to stick in the knife and twist.
“I’ve heard through the grapevine that when I left the commissioner’s office [four years ago], there were certain people up there who were very happy that they got me out of there,” said Robinson, who turns 70 on Wednesday. His reference Monday in the visitors’ clubhouse at Turner Field was about his old disciplinarian’s job in the game as vice president of on-field operations. Among other things, he ignored the objection of his peers in the commissioner’s office by thumbing his nose at the mighty players’ association and increasing the fines for on-field brawls by 100 percent. Supposed to be a figurehead, he refused to play the part.
Anyway, baseball officials were not amused. After they purchased the floundering Montreal franchise, they looked around, patted Robinson on his back and asked him to manage the Expos who became the Nationals this season. Robinson chuckled, before he recalled the many lows that are mixed with the occasional highs these days, “Some people accuse them of setting me up with this job.”
If so, baseball placed Robinson in a position to win a third Manager of the Year award in his career with baseball’s latest Hitless Wonders. That is, if folks realize that the Nationals’ early surge toward the elite of the NL East was as much the product of Robinson’s old-school managing as it was wonderful pitching and a dose of luck. Then you have those other Robinson slights. For years, when the discussion involved the all-time great sluggers, you only heard of Hank, Babe and Willie. There were no thoughts of expanding that trio into a quartet, especially with Frank at fourth on the list.
You also have the movies, books and ceremonies associated with that other Robinson breaking the color barrier for players in the major leagues. Well, this Robinson did something nearly as significant � twice. He was the first black manager ever in the American League, and he holds the same distinction for the National League.
It’s just that, through it all, Robinson has refused to function as anybody other then Robinson. The same guy who battled opponents and teammates without compromising in pursuit of victory as a player is the same guy who spent this season as a manager accusing an opposing manager (the Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Scioscia) on the field of cheating, ripping a Nationals pitcher (Tomo Ohka, now with the Milwaukee Brewers) on the mound for disrespecting the manager and saying a steroid abuser (Rafael Palmeiro) deserves to have all of his numbers yanked from the record books.
We need more Frank Robinsons, not fewer ones. You know, whether his slew of enemies like it or not. “There are just too many babies in this era of baseball, and that’s the real reason why a lot of people don’t like Frank,” said Nationals outfielder Jose Guillen. “When I got here, there was a lot of talk about how tough he is to get along with, but that’s because he’s so honest, which is a good thing. You know where you stand with him. I mean, you can count on one hand how many people have accomplished what he has, but you probably know more than I do why he isn’t getting the recognition.”
I do. I just told you.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
It’s now or never for Gailey
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Things happen faster nowadays. No longer can a coach serve at the displeasure of his constituency for years on end. Either he wins people over by winning big or he accepts a hefty buyout and eases on down the road. Jim Donnan took Georgia to four consecutive Top 25 rankings but never won big enough to suit his fans, and Jim Donnan was gone after five years.
Chan Gailey is about to enter Year 4.
Chan Gailey hasn’t had a losing season at Georgia Tech but hasn’t had a breakout year, either. His teams have won when they probably shouldn’t have and lost when they absolutely shouldn’t have. He hasn’t endeared himself to Tech fans by force of personality. (Gailey works hard to hide any signs of having a personality.) He’s clearly not a bad coach, but he hasn’t yet stamped himself as a good one. And this is Year 4. If he doesn’t win big this fall, will there be a Year 6?
Tech people can be tough to please. Bill Curry was liked but not entirely respected, Bobby Ross respected but not always liked. The gruff but successful George O’Leary stands as the second-most beloved coach in Institute annals, behind only the sainted Bobby Dodd, and it fell to Gailey to succeed a man whose charm he couldn’t match. Perhaps to his credit, Gailey didn’t even try. Trouble is, alums don’t much like it when a coach —- especially a new coach —- comes across as aloof.
And so it was that by the end of his first season, the one that came unstuck with that 51-7 abomination in Athens and the subsequent Silicon Valley Classic loss to Fresno State, Gailey had become as unpopular as a first-year coach ever gets. Tech people hated what they were seeing on the field, and off the field they couldn’t really say they liked Gailey himself. And then, almost on cue, came the mass of flunkouts —- not Gailey’s fault, but they did happen on his watch —- and the decision to demote incumbent quarterback A.J. Suggs and ride with freshman Reggie Ball.
Two summers later, not much has changed. Tech fans still don’t know what to make of Ball, or of Gailey. The two have engineered spectacular victories —- over Auburn in 2003, over Clemson last year —- but have lost some of the worst-looking games ever played. And you wouldn’t have thought a close loss to Georgia could sting more than that embarrassment of 2002, but somehow it happened. With a chance to beat the Bulldogs last November, Ball and his coaches infamously lost track of downs. When your entire school is founded on the concept of precision, sloppiness is the sin of all sins.
So now it’s Year 4 for Gailey and Year 3 for Ball, and Tech fans are in the peculiar position of feeling optimistic about their team’s assembled talent but not nearly so good about their team’s chances. What exactly has this regime done to make anyone believe that it can succeed at a higher level? Where on this schedule do you find the seven wins athletics director Dave Braine seemed to set as a baseline last fall? Yes, it’s likely Tech will upset somebody on the road, but isn’t it just as likely the Jackets will then lose to somebody they shouldn’t?
This is Chan’s chance, maybe his last real chance, to turn the doubters into something approaching believers. If Tech finishes 6-5 or worse, its coach will be seen as having left his AD’s target unmet and will surely be viewed as a lame duck headed into 2006. But if the Jackets could get to 7-4 or even 8-3, the perception will be of a program that has fought its way up from mediocrity and is capable of accomplishing even more.
One way or another, this season figures to tell the tale of Chan Gailey at Georgia Tech. If he wins big, he might still be able to win over a critical audience. But if he doesn’t now, he never will.
Permalink | Comments (33) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Barks not annoying Richt ears
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Here’s another reason why Mark Richt is the definitive football coach for the University of Georgia: Either he doesn’t get it when it comes to the types of barking around the Bulldog Nation (ignorance definitely is bliss in this case), or he is wonderfully tone deaf.
I mean, there is barking, and then there is barking. The difference? Well, according to the post-Herschel standards of those around Bulldog Nation, it depends on whether Georgia is functioning as the fairy tale that it was during Richt’s previous four years in Athens along the way to the national elite, or whether the Bulldogs are evolving into a horror story by operating less than great during a given season.
Take this season, for instance. Those around Bulldog Nation see outrageously grand things for Richt’s fifth Georgia team, despite the graduation of the winningest Division I-A quarterback in history, despite a program rocked during the offseason by a slew of player defections and arrests, despite a conference that isn’t exactly built for the squeamish.
“I think everybody has high hopes every year, and everybody wants us, of course, to win the East [division of the SEC], the conference and the national championship when the season begins,” said Richt, telling only the truth about the growing fanaticism among Georgia fans. “That’s an exciting thing, but I don’t think many SEC fans in general expect their team to win the league every year, you know? I think they understand what we’re facing. Although those are the things that we are shooting for every year, I just don’t think the Georgia fans sit here and say, ‘You know what? We need to win the SEC every year.’ “
Hmmmm. With apologies to Richt, I hear that barking getting louder. As for the kind of barking, we’ll see.
On the one hand, this is a Georgia team that has more than a few running backs who can sprint from here to the pros. It also is a Georgia team with the foundation for a stellar defense despite losing its top player at lineman (David Pollack), linebacker (Odell Thurman) and defensive back (Thomas Davis) to the NFL within the first two rounds of the draft. On the other hand, this is a Georgia team that still has its traditional land mines on its schedule at Tennessee, along the banks of the St. Johns River and maybe around the Flats at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Not only that, with David Greene working for the Seattle Seahawks these days, Georgia’s quarterback is D.J. Shockley, the gifted backup turned gifted starter. All Shockley must do to keep the ugly barking away is convert his potential into reality in a hurry. Well, that and help the Bulldogs add to a program that has averaged 10 victories each season during the Richt era.
Sounds like enough pressure to send the roof of Uga VI’s doghouse flying toward Jupiter. Even so, Richt isn’t fazed by it all. He hasn’t needed to be. If you combine his eternally mellow personality with his relative youth as a head coach at 45 and his penchant for winning as soon as he left Florida State for Georgia as an assistant coach, you have the closest thing to a rock star in Bulldog Nation.
“I get treated extremely well,” Richt said, with a soft chuckle. “People are very kind, and they’ll have their opinions on what we need to do, but they’re always very respectful in how they ask their questions about the program. I’ve never really had any negative experiences face to face.”
Even so, Richt knows the shadows hold all sorts of evils for a team of high expectations that ends a season with low results. “In the very beginning when I got here, I think it was cautiously optimistic [from the fans’ standpoint], I guess, and then I think after the 2002 year [13-1 and SEC champions], they began to believe that we can win it during any given year,” said Richt, whose predecessor, Jim Donnan, wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great enough to keep the barking (the bad kind) away. “I think it is a realistic goal that maybe we can win, whereas in some other years, they [the fans] may not have believed it.”
They believe, all right. Georgia fans definitely believe. Just listen to the woof, woof, woofs. Hopefully, for Richt’s sake this season, those woofs will remain soothing to his ears. That is, if he actually hears them.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
French pique at Lance just silly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In these times of lies and tap-dances in the world of artificially inflated athletics, I’d like to make a proposal. This three-step program should increase the public’s trust of athletes and grant some latitude for the athlete merely trying to better himself.
1) If you are diagnosed with testicular cancer and later learn the cancer has metastasized and spread to your brain and lungs, you need not fabricate lies about flaxseed vinaigrette. Take any drug you like. You get a pass.
2) If you need surgery to remove your right testicle and two brain lesions, you get a pass. In fact, I’m feeling generous. You get a pass if you lose either testicle or have even one brain lesion.
3) If you have 11 malignancies in your lungs and you choose a form of chemotherapy that oncologists consider so extreme that they warn you it might be too toxic for your kidneys and bone marrow � and in the best-case scenario, you will be weak, bald and puke your guts out � you also get a pass. Chug all the meds you want.
Last week, there was yet another report that Lance Armstrong is a “cheater.” L’Equipe, a French sports newspaper, says it has evidence that Armstrong tested positive during the 1999 Tour de France for erythropoietin (EPO), a hormone that helps develop red blood cells and increase endurance.
The French head of the Tour â€â€? amazingly, run by the same company that owns L’Equipe â€â€? refers to six-year-old “B” urine samples from tests shown to be unreliable as “proven scientific facts.” (Must be something lost in translation.) Some, including the head of USA Cycling, have defended Armstrong. Some, including almost anybody with a French accent, have attacked him.
Le Monde, another French newspaper, reported police staked out Armstrong’s hotel room July 18 after being tipped off that an unidentified man delivered a blue cooler to Armstrong’s room. Syringes? No. It was breakfast and dinner. “I did not consume any food, drink or product from any of the hotels for fear of sabotage,” he told an Austin newspaper.
Thus far, L’Equipe, Le Monde and their sister publication, Le Bunk, have held off from blaming Armstrong for losing the Olympic bid.
“This is a bunch of French journalists trying to dig in and rehash things and making a last-ditch effort [to discredit Armstrong],” said Micah Rice, who manages the Jittery Joe’s Cycling Team out of Athens.
“It’s a thing of pride for a lot of people. Someone’s lying. But you’re innocent until proven guilty, and there’s no proof that he’s done anything. Until I see proof, this is tabloid stuff.”
I’ll take it a step further. If I see proof Armstrong took EPO before the 1999 race, I’m giving him a pass. He hit all three of my qualifiers.
If Armstrong “cheated” six years ago, I don’t care.
And should this be translated over there: “Je m’en fiche.”
I mean, do we really need to know this?
This isn’t a healthy baseball player taking steroids to hit more home runs. In the worst-case scenario, somebody who was given a 40 percent chance of survival fought back, and in his first Tour since surgery, radiation and excessive puking, took EPO.
Why, that no-good, dirty low-life.
This reminds me of when golfers were upset that Casey Martin, who had a disability, was allowed to use a cart in PGA Tour events. (My PGA exception: If you’re willing to accept a degenerative blood disease, you can have a cart, too.)
EPO is commonly used during cancer recovery. Armstrong was no exception. He took Epogen to counter what drugs did to his system. When asked by Outside magazine in 1998 if he had an unfair advantage, Armstrong said, “If anything, I have a manhole cover attached to me. A year of chemo and platinum is hardly a boost.”
Thank you.
Miguel Indurain, a five-time Tour champion, has questioned the reliability of the test.
Two-time winner Laurent Fignon said only: “I don’t give a [poop].” (For this, he might lose his French citizenship.)
The sports world is filled with cheaters. There are plenty worth outing.
EPO or no EPO, Armstrong isn’t one of them.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
Braves no surprise now until they fail
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Let’s start with this: It’s not 1991. Your pants don’t fit any more, nobody’s having Nick Esasky acid flashbacks and Terry Pendleton isn’t hitting that rare baseball exacta: comeback player of the year and MVP.
“You can’t really say this is like ‘91,” said Pendleton, now the Braves’ hitting coach, whose ‘91 pants also don’t fit anymore. “Some people didn’t think we had chance to win the division this year, but some also said, ‘You never know about those Braves. They may do it again.’ That didn’t happen in ‘91. NOBODY expected us to win.”
It’s not that nobody expected the 2005 Braves to be in position for another division title. It’s just that nobody expected these circumstances could lead to anything but six feet under.
Injuries, bullpen fires and a lineup brought to you by the Fisher-Price Gwinnett County Distribution Center: Welcome to your 2005 Atlanta Braves.
With five weeks left in the season, the Braves are clinging to first place in the East. But they are teetering. A six-game lead was halved. It’s like they were sitting in a tent when the wind kicked up, and one guy turned to the other and said, “I forget. Did we stake the corners?”
They have 33 games left. Of those, 26 come against the four teams right on their hineys: the Phillies, Marlins, Mets and Nationals.
Pendleton said he “honestly never expected” a bunch of kids would do this well. So he’s not about to start soothsaying on the rest of the season.
“You could probably list as many reasons about why we won’t win it as why we will,” he said.
Oh, they’ll win it. They’ll win it because John Smoltz has returned to the rotation to give the team a consistent power pitcher. Almost 200 innings and his arm hasn’t fallen off.
Then again, without Smoltz, the bullpen has moved to within one blown save of qualifying for FEMA funding. Forget it. The Braves will never win it.
Oh, they’ll win it. I forgot. Dan Kolb isn’t the closer anymore.
Now he’s either a middle reliever or the set-up guy. They’ll never win it.
Chris Reitsma. Good.
Chris Reitsma. Dan Kolb.
Kyle Farnsworth. Save!
Kyle Farnsworth. Ball three. Ball three. Ball three.
Aug. 23: Jeff Francouer makes the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Aug. 29: President Bush reinstates the draft and, of course, decides to start with anybody nicknamed, “Frenchy.”
July: 18-8. Bravo!
August: 11-12. Bravo â€â€? isn’t that the channel that carries “West Wing” repeats?
Fear not. They’ll win it. Andruw Jones has already hit 40 home runs. Andruw rocks. Andruw went 22 straight games in which he struck out only nine times and walked 13.
Then Andruw played 18 more games. He struck out 19 times and walked on nine. Andruw only rocks a little now.
Rafael Furcal has a .344 average and a .414 on-base percentage in the last 53 games.
Also, his knee looks like it’s in the third trimester.
The Braves will win it because Brian Jordan is back. He’s a great guy, a great leader, and when he comes off the disabled list …
Um, did I already say he’s a great guy?
The Nos. 3 and 4 starters, Mike Hampton and John Thomson, went a combined 7-3 with a 2.56 earned run average in April and May.
The Nos. 3 and 4 starters, Mike Hampton and John Thomson, are a combined 1-4 with an 11.79 ERA since. The good news is, their health insurance hasn’t been canceled.
Doesn’t matter. The Braves will win it. They’ll win it because after John Smoltz and Tim Hudson, it really doesn’t matter who the third starter is heading toward October.
Glavine-Avery-Smoltz. Kaput. Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz. Kaput. Maddux-Glavine-Millwood. Kaput.
They’ve won 13 straight division titles. They’ve been here before.
They’ve won 13 straight division titles. They’re not going to be here forever.
And the wind is kicking up.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
PREDICTIONS: It’s not eight wins, but…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Chan Gailey’s boss says he wants improvement. But after three seven-win seasons, Dave Braine won’t define what improvement is, even avoiding the obvious answer (duh, eight wins). We only think we know that Braine wanted Gailey to hand over his offense to somebody else. And we think Gailey said, “No!” and Braine said, “Fine! Be that way!” So I think we think Gailey might be tying his noose. Here’s what I think I know. If I had to deal with a talented but erratic Reggie Ball the past two years, academic roadblocks and those pesky NCAA issues, all in the shadow of Tech basketball and Athens football, I’d be burying myself in several pints of Haagen-Dazs. Instead, Chan Gailey lost 30 pounds. That has to count for some improvement. Which is not to say it will mean squat in the Miami game. Let’s find out:
Sept. 3, at Auburn: When you’re trying to save your job, do you want to start the season at Auburn? Cuz I’m thinking it might’ve been worth the jokes to open against Samford again. The Tigers have lost Ronnie Brown, Carnell Williams and Jason Campbell. But they’re not losing this game. Jackets go down.
Sept. 10, North Carolina: If John Bunting (19-30) has more job security than Gailey (21-17), it’s only because nobody in Chapel Hill realizes Carolina has a football team. Bunting’s specialty is defense, but his team allowed 32 points per game in the ACC last year. A win for the Buzz.
Sept. 17, Connecticut: Five UConn players were charged in May after a pellet gun was fired from inside their SUV in a convenience store parking lot. Charges against each were either reduced or dropped. Nonetheless, the SEC has begun expansion talks. If the Huskies seem a little cocky coming into this game, it’s because they start with Buffalo and Liberty. Tech to 2-1.
Sept. 24, at Virginia Tech: Given that weight loss, Gailey won’t look like a schlep when he stands next to Frank Beamer. Before the game, anyway. This week, reality comes-a-knockin’. Bees go down, and they go down hard.
Oct. 6, North Carolina State: Does any coach have less to show for a great reputation? The Wolfpack was 5-6 last season and is only 20-20 in the ACC under Chuckles. The team was a minus-17 in turnover ratio. Amato, entering year six, just hired his fourth offensive coordinator. And he sounds like a wimp. I think I just talked myself into a win. Make that 3-2.
Oct. 15, at Duke: You know that saying, “One day, I’ll look back and this will all seem funny”? Duke coaches almost never say that. Tech to 4-2.
Oct. 22, at Miami: These schools have met only twice since the Hurricanes first expanded their recruiting base to various penitentiaries in the 1980s. In eight quarters, Tech has scored one touchdown. Not good. Not getting better. Bees back to 4-3.
Oct. 29, Clemson: Last season, team Sybil beat Miami, then lost to Duke. Their win totals under Tommy Bowden: 6-9-7-7-9-6. It’s the same backward as forward. Not sure, but I think that means he’s an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in an Amato. But Bowden is handing over his offense to somebody else, so that can’t be bad news. This’ll be close. But Clemson drops Tech to .500.
Nov. 12, at Virginia: The Cavaliers have won 25 games in the past three years. But they haven’t redefined the pecking order. They started 5-0 last year, then got body-slammed by Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech in the second half. Of course, Tech isn’t like any of those three. Back to 5-5.
Nov. 26, Georgia: The last Tech coach to beat Georgia was George O’Leary, and that almost got him a really, really good job. Wait, that didn’t come out right. Gailey has been making it closer the past three years: 51-7, 34-17, 19-13. This one could save his job. Or not. Jackets close with an upset.
Nov. 5, Wake Forest: I’ve given this game a lot of thought. Right. OK, Jackets win.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
PREDICTIONS: Hey, it’s only two losses
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
We are counting down the days to the start of the college football season, which isn’t always an easy thing to do. Fortunately, there are tools to help us. Schedules. Calendars. Or, in the case of Georgia players, little scratch marks on prison walls.
At last count, I think 27 players had been suspended for the opening kickoff of the Boise State game, which is as tough as punishment gets in Athens. Even Uga was asked to run steps for disciplinary reasons. (Something about the fleabag using his camera phone to take pictures of the answer key in obedience school, then scooting out to the hallway to erase the evidence. I dunno. I can’t imagine a player ever doing that.)
Fortunately, for Georgia fans, all that really matters is Mark Richt is 34-6 in the past three seasons. So about this season’s priorities:
Sept. 3, Boise State: It’s the year’s fashionable upset pick, which just tells you everybody is ignoring Chapter 3, Section 2, Page 16 of the Weekend Predictions Investment and Turbo Tax Cheat Codes Handbook: Don’t ever get sucked in by a team that plays its best football at home on blue plastic grass. These dudes will be catatonic just from the first Bubba Beergut they spot selling mushy peanuts on 316. Dogs win.
Sept. 10, Spurrier: But if they don’t beat Boise State, what’s the over/under on tight sphincters in Athens for this game? Yeah, yeah, South Carolina stinks. But the Poultry seldom make things easy for Georgia, and neither does this coach. It’ll be close. But make that 2-0.
Sept. 17, Louisiana-Monroe: This school has gone from Ouachita Parish Junior College to Northeast Center of Louisiana State to Northeast Junior College of Louisiana State to Northeast Louisiana State College to Northeast Louisiana University to University of Louisiana-Monroe. They can run all they like, but they can’t escape the fact they gave the world Bubby Brister. Georgia to 3-0.
Sept. 24, at Mississippi State: According to the city’s Web site, Starkville “offers a unique blend of old Southern charm and 21st century technology.” Unfortunately, both are housed inside a Wal-Mart. Make that 4-0.
Bye week: Richt has players form a conga line in leg chains. Athens sleeps peacefully.
Oct. 8, at Tennessee: Somebody’s been drinking too much orange Kool-Aid. People are talking title game in Vowel-land but there’s a good chance Tennessee will be 2-2 coming into this game (losses at Florida and LSU). So what happens when the Shockley Defining Moment happens in Knoxville and Phat Phil rolls into Tuscaloosa 2-3? Bulldogs to 5-0. (Really, I didn’t plan it this way.)
Oct. 15, at Vanderbilt: Upset! (Ratings trick.) 6-0. My hate mail from Athens plummets.
Oct. 22, Arkansas: It’s homecoming. Georgia has lost three homecoming games in the past 41 years. Fortunately, nobody ever found the bodies. Dogs continue their best start since 2002, when they went 8-0 before losing to Florida. (Foreshadowing. Writer’s trick.)
Oct. 29, Florida, Jacksonville: Splat! OK, little Chihuahuas: Take your 7-0 start and a win over the Zooker last year and be happy with it. Urban (Meyer) Renewal is about to do a tap dance in your head. Gators, Gators, Gators.
Oct. 30-Nov. 11: Georgia fans complain they were jobbed by officials.
Nov. 12, Auburn: Last year, the Dogs left Auburn with a 24-6 loss and only 68 percent of their body parts. But most of the Tigers’ offense is now in the NFL, and Georgia gets the leftovers a week before the Alabama game. Dogs to 8-1.
Nov. 19, Kentucky: Rich Brooks has hired four new assistants, which is sort of like fitting the Elephant Man with fresh socks. Easy win. National Title Hopes Revived!
Nov. 26, at Georgia Tech: In 2000, Jim Donnan lost this game, fell to 7-4 and lost his job, but was allowed to experience all the tradition of the Oahu Bowl. I have some good news for Richt: He won’t lose his job after this game and he won’t go to the Oahu Bowl. But he’s going down. Jackets pull season-ending upset.
Permalink | Comments (59) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Holtz does Spurrier no favors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: Oh, boy, I guess it depends on which state you live in, but any way you look at it, you could say that Lou Holtz was really setting up his old pal Steve Spurrier for a fall at South Carolina. Picks Georgia to be “down a little bit.â€? Picks the Gamecocks to win their big game — in Athens. Says Spurrier came to South Carolina because he felt he could “win big.”
Now Steve is left to live with the penalties brought on by Lou’s discretions while he was head Gamecock. Oh, Lou has apologized, but that’s easy, after you’re off the reservation…
Now we know where the Roger Craig of baseball is: The old pitcher-manager is living on Hilton Head and playing golf regularly with Bob Kent, who pioneered The Omni… So whatever became of Travis Jervey?
*There is one striking similarity in Braves history to the astonishing surge of Jeff Francoeur. In 1957, the Milwaukee Braves called up a South Carolina farmhand named Bob Hazle when Bill Bruton broke a leg, and Hazle broke in such blazing style he was nicknamed “Hurricane.” (There had been an Atlantic storm that year named “Hurricane Hazel.”) Down the stretch to the pennant, Hazle hit .403, seven home runs, drove in 27 runs in 41 games and was a sensation. That was it. The following season he was soon gone, traded to Detroit and out of the big leagues. He settled in Newberry, became a liquor salesman and died in 1992 at age 61.
*It’s doubtful you have ever seen as much bad golf played on the final round of a major championship as on the Sunday at Baltusrol. And that “strongest field in golf” claim, CBS makes on behalf of the PGA of America, hardly stands up with 25 club pros in the field. My guess is, it’s The Players Championship.
*Mystified by the origin of the name, Baltusrol, somebody on television suggested (uh-oh) “it was some Indian tribe.” It was the name of the farmer who owned the property, Baltus Roll, who was murdered mysteriously.
*Take nothing away from Jeff Francoeur, but considering the pressure under which the amazing Brian McCann performs day after day, a kid dealing with all those pitching veterans, his youthful cool plus his strong bat. You rarely ever see a 21-year-old handle himself with such aplomb. He may not be rookie of the year, but the year has a while to go.
*Hey, it’s out of the NCAA’s league, but how about General Motors naming one of its cars after Chief Pontiac?
*Seems we’re into a generation that wouldn’t know the difference between Pearl Harbor and Pearl, Miss., and cares less.
*Tell you one thing, if I had one golf shot that would decide if I live or die — and I don’t care if it’s in the actual trees — I’d want Tiger Woods hitting it for me.
*Jack Nicklaus’ design firm is laying out a golf course on Okinawa, but the supervisor on the project is son-in-law Bill O’Leary, the onetime Georgia Bulldog linebacker.
*Oh, you Pete Babcock-bashers. He’s not looking too bad now, with all the turmoil swirling around the Hawks. And how much do you know about Joe Johnson? Seventy millions for five years! Is Magic Johnson back?
*On Instant Replay coming to the SEC: In the Big Ten, the cost of installing the system was $400,000; three officials were required in the booth; 43 plays were questioned and 21 were reversed in 57 games last season.
*Get this: The Russian Open, a European Tour event, was sponsored by Cadillac this year. Cadillac Russian Open. Putin goes to bed with capitalism.
*Davis Love III, on being paired with John Daly: “It’s like a circus. It’s like playing with Elvis, being out there with Daly.� Not that Davis ever played a round with Elvis.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Other
Ball Sr. worked on son’s psyche early at Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
As difficult as this may be, it’s time for those in the Yellow Jacket Nation to get a grip, but not around the neck of Reggie Ball, the Georgia Tech quarterback who continues as a punching bag for the naïve. I’ve seen Ball’s father, Reggie Sr., and he is a big reason (we’re talking a really, really big reason) why this relentlessly silly pounding of Reggie Jr. could become hazardous to your health.
There was last season, for instance, when Tech struggled against Virginia at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Around the first or second interception by Reggie Jr. (hey, I never said he was perfect), the father heard somebody in his vicinity yell toward his son, “Reggie, you’re an idiot.�
That’s the clean version.
“I just touched the guy, and I said, ‘Listen. I’m not going to let you talk about my baby with me right here, because I will tear the whole end of this stadium apart,’â€? said Reggie Sr., 40, an ex-Marine who looks the role. He also was a three-time world champion at power lifting before he went into law enforcement. Now he’s an athletic trainer for a downtown gym and the ultimate protector of Reggie Jr., the oldest of his six children (five sons and a daughter).
Mostly, the elder Ball seeks to make sure that Reggie Jr. is the ultimate protector of his own mind against his many detractors who just don’t get it. Yes, he has slung more interceptions than touchdowns. Yes, he joined coach Chan Gailey among the Jackets most responsible last season for their meltdown near the end against Georgia, when they forgot that fourth down always comes after third down.
Still, there is everything else involving Ball, and it’s pretty good. You have his ACC Rookie of the Year honor after a stellar career at Stephenson High School. You have his dramatic comebacks, highlighted by his pumping life into Tech at Death Valley with three touchdown passes in the last five minutes against Clemson. You have his MVP award after he helped Tech smash Syracuse in a bowl. You have the likelihood of more nice moments than bad ones from Ball this season, since he already has started a slew of games for the Jackets and remains only a junior.
Here’s the big thing, though. Well, make that the really big thing. You have Reggie Jr.’s proud, supportive and big (we’re talking about really, really big) father who began working at developing his son’s psyche at Tech in a hurry. Like seconds after Reggie Jr.’s second college game ever. It also happened to be one of Tech’s biggest upsets ever. We’re talking two seasons ago, when the Jackets dumped Auburn so emphatically that the crowd threatened to carry Reggie Jr. from Bobby Dodd Stadium to the far side of the moon.
Reggie Sr. wasn’t impressed. He slid through the masses who were chanting, “Re-ggie, Re-ggie, Re-ggie,� and when he reached the smiling son, the expressionless father shouted, “You better take the boos just like you’re taking these cheers, because you’re going to screw up. You’re going to have to have enough character to realize that, with every bit of laughter, there are tears.�
In reflection, Reggie Sr. said, “I told my son all of that, because I knew in my heart that things would change.�
What didn’t change was the abuse that the younger Ball takes from his siblings and closest friends. “Sometimes it hurts, but it’s the truth, and I listen to their feedback,� Reggie Jr. said, referring mostly to the impromptu film sessions at the Stone Mountain home of Catherine Geiger, Reggie Sr.’s former wife. The elder Ball laughed, saying, “It’s vicious. So when you have all of these people who really don’t mean that much to him saying what they say, it’s not going to affect him.�
Well, not as much. Although the son claims otherwise (“I don’t care what people say or write, because I’m more concerned with my own high expectations�), the father said the son was distraught until the end of last season over talk of his inconsistency and threats of losing his job to quarterbacks of lesser talent.
Now Ball has two more seasons to get it right, and he will. Until then, give the guy a break, or Reggie Sr. might have you dangling over the edge of a stadium by your Reggie Jr.-bashing tongue.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Jenkins steps up among receivers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Jacksonville — This is the preseason. That means you shouldn’t have a meltdown if somebody misses a block or a tackle. Miss the bus — that’s another story.
This is the preseason. That means if Warrick Dunn gets flattened by a 250-pound linebacker on third-and-2, it’s not time to start screaming for T.J. Duckett. What it probably means is, it’s time to put Dunn in bubble wrap until the season opener.
That said, Jim Mora actually considered Thursday night’s exhibition something of importance. Typically, the only people who consider exhibition games important are the NFL’s money-grubbing bean-counters who charge full price for games that don’t count, presumably because a multi-billion-dollar TV package just isn’t enough.
But Mora considered the Jacksonville game important for a significant reason: There had been no tangible evidence that the Falcons’ offense had improved, which assumes tangible evidence translates to catches, first downs and touchdowns.
On Thursday, there was evidence. Michael Jenkins was like a big thumbprint on the Falcons’ game plan.
In the first three exhibitions, Jenkins caught two passes — total. Against the Jaguars, he had four catches for 35 yards and two touchdowns in the first half.
If he keeps this up, opponents might actually have to start caring who plays in the secondary.
“This game will help his confidence, and it will help the people around him have confidence in him,â€? Mora said after the 23-7 win. “He’s just a young kid who needs time on the field… He took a big step today in maturing as a football player.â€?
Mora, who has been searching for a receiving threat, seemingly was basking in the moment even more than Jenkins. When somebody asked if it was unfortunate that the team played without the injured and maligned Peerless Price, as well as Roddy White, Mora paused and said: “I like the way Michael Jenkins played.�
In other words: Don’t ruin my night with a question like that.
Price didn’t make the trip because of a concussion. By the time his headache goes away, he may not have a job any more.
The team is carrying 88 players and must cut down to 60 by Sunday. Price has played unimpressively in three games. He missed quasi-tryout No. 4 Thursday. There is one exhibition remaining, which is not to say Price has one exhibition remaining.
Roddy White, this year’s first-round pick, was home with an ankle sprain. (That starting job the coaching staff had penciled in for him: You may want to erase that for now.)
This was Jenkins’ night. He had an 18-yard scoring catch from Michael Vick in the first quarter. In the second quarter, he amended for a drop — which led to an interception â€â€? by catching a 4-yard score from Matt Schaub. The pass actually was intended for Alge Crumpler but was tipped.
“We’ve got the guys here [for an effective passing game],� Jenkins said. “We’ve just got to make plays when the opportunity arises. “This offense could be a two-headed monster if we can start throwing the ball down field. If we get the passing game going, it will be hard to stop us.�
Mora said there wasn’t any intent to go at Jenkins more Thursday just because the season is nearing.
“In terms of the passing game, that’s hard to do that because coverage is going to dictate who you throw to,â€? Mora said. “I wasn’t going to hand-signal [Jacksonville coach] Jack [Del Rio], ‘Hey, give us single coverage so we can try to throw the ball to Mike.’ There was no concerted effort to force the ball to him.â€?
Which makes it even more impressive that Jenkins stood out.
Permalink | Comments (31) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Devine promotion a desperate move
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Braves haven’t done Joey Devine any favors. Calling him up after 18 minor-league games has left him with a big-league ERA of 31.50 and has allowed him to become the first pitcher ever to yield grand slams in his first two appearances. This isn’t the way you’d want your prized young arm to be baptized.
The Braves usually don’t set up rookies to fail. They tend to promote guys later rather than sooner. (Witness Jeff Francoeur.) Given that they’re always in first place, they know they can err on the side of patience. But the disarray in their bullpen and the approach of October caused the Braves to promote a guy who’d been a pro for barely two months. They didn’t need to do that. They shouldn’t have done that.
In the grand scheme of a 10-year career, a lousy beginning might make no difference, but think how hard it will be for Devine to get that ERA under control and to shake off the memories of consecutive slams. Bobby Cox, as you’d expect, has said that Devine is just fine and is throwing great and is starng at a bountiful future, and maybe he is. And, giving the Braves the benefit of the doubt, you can’t always soften the blow of reaching the bigs. (Witness Kelly Johnson going 1-for-30.)
Still, this move smacked of greater desperation than Braves’ moves do. Surely the club had visions of Devine becoming their Francisco Rodriguez this October, but the difference is that K-Rod wasn’t asked to save the Angels’ bullpen when he arrived in 2002. Troy Percival was already in place. The Braves were asking too much of Devine, and two grand slams are what they’ve gotten.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Under Mora, no one-year wonders
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Jim Mora says he doesn’t mention the Falcons’ history of frustration â€â€? in 39 years of trying, this franchise hasn’t yet had consecutive winning seasons â€â€? to his players, but sometimes that negative nugget arises on its own. And, rather tellingly, it gets dashed to smithereens.
“I was talking with Pat [Kerney, the defensive end] this week, and he said, ‘The heck with 9-7 â€â€? we want to win a championship,’ ” Mora said Wednesday. “We look at nine wins as something we’d pass on the way to 10 or 11.”
Or to the Super Bowl. The Falcons nearly got there last season, and more than halfway through preseason they look capable of going further this time. Yes, there are questions about the receivers â€â€? more about them in a moment â€â€? but there’s no doubting this team’s growing sense of self.
Little things have gone wrong, but little things go wrong everywhere. What’s notable about the Falcons is their grasp of the coach’s theme for this training camp. “We wanted to maintain and recapture that sense of urgency you have at the start of every project,” Mora said, “and the players have really embraced that. I really don’t even have to mention it.”
Billy Knight has spoken at length about the need to “change the culture” of the downtrodden Hawks. Mora uses the same word so often â€â€? “culture” â€â€? that he looked it up in the dictionary to make sure he was invoking it correctly. (He was. The irritating thing about Mora is that he tends to be right.) He didn’t come here from San Francisco to be part of a one-year wonder; he came here to win as big and as often as the 49ers used to win. And he’s on his way.
“You want an environment or a culture that’s conducive to winning,” he said. “A lot of that has to do with who you let in the door. It’s like the Braves or the Patriots: We’re looking for a certain kind of player, and we’re asking, ‘Do they fit what we want ourselves to be?’ … Last year we got rid of some guys who were slowing the boat down.”
Last year the Falcons were learning a new offense and a new defense and were acclimating themselves to a new coaching staff. They now know where to stand and what to do. With the mass substitution inherent in exhibition games, it’s hard to get a glimpse of any sort of continuity, but what you saw in the Falcons’ opening drive against Tennessee last week â€â€? a zippy march culminating in Michael Vick’s touchdown pass to Brian Finneran â€â€? seemed a sign of an offense beginning to find its stride.
“We’re less a West Coast offense and more â€â€? I don’t know â€â€? a Mike Vick movement offense,” Mora said. “Greg [Knapp, the offensive coordinator] is fitting our system to our players.”
Regarding players: Would Mora be comfortable starting the regular season with these wide receivers? “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve got a couple of young guys [Michael Jenkins and Roddy White] who are going to continue to get better, but Roddy [who has a bad ankle] has to get on the field. I think there’s been so much focus on the receivers that it’s gotten a little bit overblown. Think about Philadelphia’s success going to the NFC championship game: Before T.O. [Terrell Owens] got there last year, could you have named any of their wide receivers? What’s important is to be balanced and have the same strength we had in the running game.”
If you can run, you’ll be able to throw no matter how unassuming your wideouts might be. That’s basic football. The Falcons might not be the slickest crew in creation, but they’re getting pretty good at the basics. They don’t look like a team grown fat on sudden success. They look lean and hungry.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
NCAA foolishly caved in
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
When it comes to the controversy involving Native American mascots and imagery in college sports, the NCAA just blinked, and those associated with Florida State won the stare down.
Not good.
Not the fact that Florida State people apparently have that much power (make that too much power). Not the fact that those running the NCAA are showing that they are absolutely spineless. Not the fact that schools basically have the right now to do whatever they wish regarding mascots and imagery.
That is, if a school has something like Florida State’s political muscle.
Remember? After the NCAA announced earlier this month that “hostile or abusive� mascots and imagery from schools would be banned from postseason play, Florida State had a fit. The school goes by “Seminoles,� and those associated with Florida State wanted to keep it that way, with much help from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose brother just happens to be the President of the United States.
It certainly didn’t hurt Florida State’s chances to get its way that its football coach is Bobby Bowden, known as Saint Bobby to the NCAA establishment.
Definitely not good. The NCAA either should have stuck with its original decision regarding mascots and imagery or declared that it would return to the status quo. As it stands now, Saint Bobby is the unofficial head of the NCAA.
Or is it Jeb Bush?
Permalink | Comments (76) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
‘Noles rise up, NCAA retreats
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Let that be a lesson to you, NCAA. Don’t mess around with T.K. Wetherell!
You Florida State lovers don’t have to say “Semi-” Noles any more. You may say the whole word, and deflate those stuffed shirts at the NCAA. Surely they have more to do in Indianapolis than worry about tribal relations. (Hey, wait a minute. Notice the first six letters in its address? It spells out I-N-D-I-A-N. Enough to call a powwow about.)
About T.K. Wetherell, he’s the president of Florida State, but on his way up the ladder, he was a fine pass receiver as one of those Seminoles himself. When he got word that the NCAA had decided that college athletic teams should sever all references to Indians in postseason, T.K. broke out in a rash.
What he said was, You just try breaking up our good relations with the Seminole tribe and you’ve got a lawsuit on your hands, or words to that effect.
Not only that, but the Seminole tribe rose up in a wrath. Hey, some of our best friends are FSU Seminoles, the tribe said. We like the arrangement. Why don’t you go pick on Penn State, see if the Nittany Lions are happy with that connection.
The NCAA went quietly. In view of the “relationship Florida State has long enjoyed with the Seminole tribe of Florida,” it said, for openers. “The review committee noted the unique relationship between the school and the tribe as a significant factor.”
Barf! They wanted no part of T.K. Wetherell and his tribe in a Florida courtroom. You notice, they niftily passed over the words “hostile” and “abusive” this time. Surely, these eggheads have more to do than fret over the name some college teams choose to go by in postseason. And if it’s not “hostile” and “abusive” over the regular season, why is it when emphasis is on bowls and championships?
What one reader wrote was, “Trying to be politically correct, the NCAA stepped on its [censored].”
It’s not over yet. They’ve only scratched the surface. This review committee may be working overtime to clear up all the tribal warfare now at hand. How about the Illini, for heaven’s sake? That refers to tribes long since dead. Do they ban the whole state of Illinois? Hell, most of us didn’t even realize that Illinois related to Indians.
Let’s see what other warring violators the NCAA can step on. There’s the Utah Utes, the North Dakota Fighting Sioux, the Central Michigan Chippewas, and I’m sure I’ve let some slip through the cracks. Should the review committee insist that North Dakota become the Docile Sioux? No team wants to wear some pantywaist name. Florida State chose the Seminole name because the tribe never lost a battle.
Take Stanford, for instance, their Indians became the Cardinal, referring to we know not what. A bird? A pontiff? The Miami of Ohio Redskins became the Red Hawks. Did anyone ever consider that a hawk has pride, too?
It’s much ado about nothing, as you can plainly see, or I wouldn’t be spending my time writing this drivel. Carry on, you ‘Noles, like your namesakes, you’ve won another battle. (You’ll notice I didn’t say you’ve added another scalp to your belt. I didn’t dare. I was afraid I’d have to face the review committee.)
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Will Heatley find new direction in Ottawa?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Two weeks ago, Dany Heatley phoned Don Waddell and told him he was changing agents again. Also, if it were at all possible, he would like to be traded.
As the Thrashers’ general manager, there are at least two scenarios you would never envision. One is a late night phone call informing you that two of your players were in a horrible car wreck, both are in intensive care and one is near death. The other is that the face of your franchise wants out - and you’ll seriously consider it.
The fact that one scenario preceded the other speaks volumes.
“Prior to the accident — no, I never thought something like this could happen,” Waddell said Tuesday. “But I guess with everything that has happened, it’s not a total surprise. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But in the end, I had to do what’s best for the franchise.”
Trading Dany Heatley.
Best for the franchise.
How could those sentences possibly ever intersect?
Heatley wasn’t merely the Thrashers’ best hope for respectability, a player admired by everybody on the ice, behind the bench or in the executive suite. He was the league’s top rookie one year and the MVP of the All-Star Game the next.
In his rookie season, 35-year-old veterans found themselves looking up to a 20-year-old. In year two, Heatley scored 41 goals and looked like captain material. He was that rare mixture of skill, leadership and charm.
That was Heatley then.
This is Heatley now.
He appeared out of shape to observers at the recent Canadian Olympic camp and suddenly is no certainty for the 2006 Games, which once would have seemed ludicrous. He was unimpressive at the recent World Cup.
There have been questions about his knee, which was among the injuries he suffered in the 2003 car accident that killed his teammate, Dan Snyder. There have been questions about his vision since suffering a fractured left orbital bone when a puck hit him during a game in Bern, Switzerland, during the NHL lockout.
There are the injuries we can’t see. Rumors of depression and questionable off-ice activities followed him from Canada to Switzerland to Russia and back to Canada (site of the World Cup). During the lockout, friends and some in the Thrashers’ organization were stunned when he signed with a team in Switzerland, then came to Atlanta for the resolution of his court case, then immediately bolted town to sign with a different team in Russia rather than begin his court-ordered community service.
It was as if he couldn’t get out of Atlanta fast enough.
Heatley told Waddell he needed a “fresh start.” That need wasn’t in place following the accident but it must have increased during the lockout. Rumors circulated around draft time that Heatley wanted to be traded. But Waddell didn’t give them much thought. Rumors and the Canadian media go together like ponds and pond scum.
“I didn’t acknowledge the rumors because I never heard it from Dany,” Waddell said.
Until the phone call on Aug. 9. I’ve changed agents again. I want out.
Heatley is unsigned and this was not going to be an easy negotiation. Heatley stripped first agent, Stacey McAlpine, of negotiating power and replaced him with the respected Don Baizley. But Waddell and Baizley couldn’t agree on Heatley’s long-term value because of the uncertainty of the player’s health and mindset. They agreed a short-term deal was best.
Baizley went back to Heatley to report that. Then he was fired, too. Heatley is now on his third agent since playing his last NHL game. This looks like a kid with some issues.
Most Atlantans never have heard of Marian Hossa. They only figure he didn’t go to Auburn. They don’t know that he has averaged 35 goals and 72 points over the last five seasons. They only know he’s not Dany Heatley.
But this trade can’t be judged now. Nobody knows the direction in which Heatley is headed.
If mind and body heal and he evolves into the special player he was for two seasons, it won’t matter how good Marian Hossa is — because Heatley will be better.
If mind and body don’t heal, it will be a sad story for Heatley, but Waddell will look like a visionary.
Even if this was a trade he never expected to make.
Permalink | Comments (58) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
Shaking out the Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The Tuesday Countdown:
10: Walked up to Billy Knight last Friday after a press conference and congratulated him for navigating through BelkinGate. We shook hands. I said, “Thanks for shaking my hand. I realize you don’t do that every day.” He said, “I have no problems shaking hands with you. You never lied to me.”
9: This really shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of either the Joe Johnson trade or even extreme confidence in Knight. But given that he blew up the roster, he does deserve a chance to build it as he sees fit. That’s what GMs do.
8: But I was still hoping the soap opera would linger a while. Wanted to see Steve Belkin walk into Philips Arena for next season’s home opener.
7: Jeff Fisher says Alex Gibbs teaches dirty blocking. Next week, Jeff Fisher is expected to announce that Lindbergh made it.
6: My childhood TV crush, Barbara Eden, turned 71. Somehow, I don’t think that butt’s making it through the top of the bottle any more.
5: Never shook hands with Lawrence Phillips. Good thing. He would’ve stolen my watch.
4: Phillips has been charged with suspicion of attempted murder (after allegedly running his car into three teenagers) and domestic abuse (for allegedly twice attacking his girlfriend, once choking her into unconsciousness). Really, I mean, give the kid a break. It was legal at Nebraska.
3: I defy you to name any high profile athlete who has had a more spectacular crash. OK. Mike Tyson. That was easy.
2: I’m trying to figure out why Randy Moss admitting he has — and possibly still is - inhaled the wacky tobbaccy is considered such a big deal. The fact he admits it probably makes him the most honest athlete in professional sports.
1: Now Barry Bonds says he’s getting healthy again. If he returns, I’ll be there to not shake his hand.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Some early answers about football season
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
About college football, everybody has questions. Few have answers. This space, lucky for you, provides both.
Q: Which quarterback will have the better year â€â€? Georgia Tech’s Reggie Ball or Georgia’s D.J. Shockley?
A: Shockley. He plays for a quarterback-friendly coach whose offense includes a lot of easy completions (meaning screen passes in the red zone). Chan Gailey’s offense, such as it is, calls for Ball to make more downfield throws, which can get intercepted. But Ball will be pretty good himself this fall and, come midnight on Sept. 3, he’ll be 2-0 against Auburn.
Q: Which team will win more games � Auburn or Georgia Tech?
A: Neither. Each will win seven. That’s bad for one, good for the other. You can guess which is which.
Q: Which legend will resign by season’s end â€â€? Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno?
A: Both.
Q: Roughly how many times a game will Georgia align itself in the wishbone?
A: Three. And the Bulldogs will still throw screen passes two of the three times.
Q: If Bobby Bowden indeed quits, will Mark Richt leave for Florida State?
A: No. He has a better job already.
Q: If Richt doesn’t take the FSU job, who’ll get it?
A: The Seminoles will look long and hard before deciding on the caretaker approach and promoting Mickey Andrews. By the way, the caretaker approach never works.
Q: Will double coverage prevent Calvin Johnson from being a game-changer?
A: He could see quintuple coverage and still be a factor.
Q: Which of Georgia’s many running backs will have the bigger season?
A: Thomas Brown will start fastest, but Kregg Lumpkin will finish strongest.
Q: How long into the season will it take for Steve Spurrier to suggest he made a mistake in taking the South Carolina job?
A: Ten days, or right after the Gamecocks lose 31-10 in Athens.
Q: How long into the season will Florida fans start saying they prefer Urban Meyer’s spread offense to you-know-who’s Fun ‘n’ Gun?
A: One day. Fans are, as we know, rather fickle.
Q: If Mack Brown wins the national championship, will Texas fans finally admit the guy’s a pretty good coach after all?
A: Fans are fickle, but not that fickle.
Q: Which Tennessee quarterback will get most of the snaps?
A: Erik Ainge, not that it matters. The Vols quarterback’s chief responsibility will be to turn around and hand the ball to Gerald Riggs Jr.
Q: If Paterno indeed quits, who gets the Penn State job?
A: Bob Stoops will get the customary calls, but Kirk Ferentz will actually say yes.
Q: How long before Bobby Petrino leaves Louisville?
A: He’ll have closed on a house in Iowa before Ferentz touches down in Happy Valley.
Q: P.J. Daniels led the ACC in rushing in 2003. Will he lead Tech in rushing in 2005?
A: No. Tashard Choice will.
Q: How long will it take for some Georgia fans to proclaim Brian VanGorder “the real brains” behind the Bulldogs’ recent success?
A: Seven minutes and 37 seconds into the opening game, by which time Boise State will have taken a 10-0 lead.
Q: So Georgia will lose to Boise?
A: No, Richt will think of something. (Fewer screen passes, perhaps.) And so will Willie Martinez, who’ll do just fine in VanGorder’s stead.
Q: How many of these answers will prove correct?
A: I have every confidence my success rate will equal that of the screen pass in the red zone.
Permalink | Comments (118) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
A dose of fear may go long way
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Just so there is no misunderstanding, division-lead shrinkage is not being taken lightly by the Braves. The door to the clubhouse was closed before Sunday night’s game for a players-only meeting. Anybody entering was certain to be grabbed by a security guard and escorted to either the nearest tub of leeches or the Braves’ bullpen (both of which have been outlawed in 37 states).
Once the doors swung open, however, there were few signs of bloodshed.
“Just the court,” said pitcher Tim Hudson, who keeps the books for the team’s kangaroo court. “Having some fun.” (Hey, it doesn’t get any more serious than fining John Smoltz for a wimpy ring tone on his cell.) So there is no panic in Bravesville. They broke from the courtroom and then salvaged the last game of the San Diego series with a 6-2 win, ending a three-game skid. They are 9-10 in August. That’s not great but it’s also not worth chugging a Prozac smoothie over.
You go 9-10 in the National League West, you get sprayed with Moet. But there is a problem with going 9-10 in the East. It obliterates all of those preconceived notions that when the Braves passed the Washington Nationals into first place last month, it secured much beyond a pulse in August.
Even with Sunday’s win, the Braves’ division lead stands at 3 1/2 and their magic number for clinching over Philadelphia or Florida is 35. The fact you’re not hearing much about a magic number illustrates the absurdity of foregone conclusions. (For the record, the magic number over New York is 33. But we can reasonably count out the Mets because, well, they’re the Mets.)
“I don’t pay attention until it’s something like 15,” Bobby Cox said.
“Maybe 10,” said coach Terry Pendleton.
“I don’t pay attention to anything until I see the plastic,” said Marcus Giles.
The plastic?
“To cover the lockers.”
Of late, the only things you have wanted to cover is your eyes. The Marlins are 9-1-1 in their last 11 series. The Phillies are 5-1-1 in their last seven. The Braves are 2-3 in their last five.
Here we are in August and there’s only one thing scarier than hearing, “The Braves trail going into the ninth.” That is, of course, “The Braves lead going into the ninth and coming in to close …”
But maybe this isn’t so bad. Locking up division titles early hasn’t exactly been a winning formula for October. There are still nine naked fingers.
“To be honest with you, I think that’s been our problem,” Giles said. “We clinch it too early and then we relax and try to play with our hands in our pockets. We play tentatively and try not to get hurt. We try to save everybody - save arms, save legs. The next thing you know we’re sitting on the couch after the first week of the playoffs. I think we need to quit being so excited about making the playoffs so often and be a little bit more worried about getting further in the playoffs and closer to a World Series.”
There have been thoughts that this Braves team will succeed where others have failed. That stems from the roster’s youth, enthusiasm and, it follows, blind stupidity. As in: “Nobody told us a team that plays 16 rookies is not supposed to be here.
There have been endless comparisons to this team and the one in 1991 team. That year, never more than 2 1/2 games separated the Braves and Dodgers after Aug. 10 in the West Division. They reached game seven of the World Series.
“I don’t want to clinch,” Giles said. “I mean, I do want to clinch. But not now. That’s just been our problem in the past. We get lackadaisical. This game is the opposite of football. In football you can flip a switch and get mad. This game is about momentum and getting into a groove. We’re just not doing that.”
No, this is not your basic groove. But if they don’t find one soon, clinching too early will be the least of their concerns. And somebody else will be counting down a magic number.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Weis refuses to let Irish be mediocre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
South Bend, Ind. â€â€? The first thing you notice about Charlie Weis is not only is he evolving into the next Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian and Holtz before the Fighting Irish’s eyes, but nobody fibbed about his unyielding ways. Once football camp starts, he becomes more rigid than one of these legendary statues around the Notre Dame campus.
Weis does smile, though. It’s just that they are quick ones. They appear only long enough for this pleasantly cocky coach in his first season with the Irish to make a point. For instance: When the subject is Notre Dame’s slide toward mediocrity, accelerated by the underwhelming coaching and recruiting of Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham, Weis’ point is along the lines of, “Believe me, pal. I know something that you don’t, but keep watching. Greatness is about to happen.”
My words, not his.
As for Weis’ words, listen to what he says about resurrecting Notre Dame’s mostly dormant recruiting in the South. (Just so you know, the Irish once grabbed national championships with those such as South Carolina’s Tony Rice. They currently have Buford running sensation Darius Walker, but mostly because he was ignored by the University of Georgia.)
So will Weis seek to battle his counterparts on the Bulldogs for the prize talent around the state of Georgia? He flashed that quick smile, took a swig from his water bottle outside of Notre Dame’s new Taj Mahal of a football building worth $25 million and said in a hurry, “Absolutely.” Then came another quick smile and another swig, before Weis added, “I have a few guys in particular, which I’m not telling you who they are, that I’m hoping like [heck] to get.”
The quick smile became a long one, before Weis added, “See, in recruiting, you can’t be afraid of losing. If you’re going to go against the big boys of the SEC, for instance, and if you don’t get [some of those prize recruits], you don’t get them. Just to assume that they’re going to Georgia, that’s a loser’s mentality.”
Speaking of which, any derivative of the word “lose” is foreign to Weis, fresh from helping the New England Patriots win three of the past four NFL world championships as Bill Belichick’s offensive coordinator. He also got a Super Bowl ring with the New York Giants under Bill Parcells. And, yes, he chats often with the two Bills about coaching stuff.
As for Notre Dame stuff, he already huddles with Ara and Lou, owners of three of the Irish’s 11 national championships. “I just ask questions of them and listen,” said Weis, who had a long breakfast last week with Holtz. “Whenever they have a thought about something, I want them to feel free to give me their opinions without holding back and without sugarcoating it.”
Translated: Weis is conjuring up the ghosts. Rockne. Leahy. The Four Horsemen. The Gipper. The nearly century-old legacy that includes those national titles, seven Heisman Trophy winners, the Rocket and the Victory March.
Since Weis is a 1978 Notre Dame graduate, he embraces the ghosts. Willingham and Davie were scared of them. “The old philosophy was kind of like, ‘Let’s start our own legacy,’ whereas Coach Weis wants us to create our own legacy while honoring the past,” said offensive lineman Dan Stevenson, among those whose eyes nearly leaped from their sockets after the start of camp.
First, Weis showed the movie “Rudy” to the team. Afterward, he said he couldn’t imagine what the real Rudy experienced, so he pointed to the real Rudy sauntering into the room amidst gasps.
“We didn’t have many of the former players come back in the past,” said wide receiver Maurice Stovall, recalling how Weis also used Joe Montana, Joe Theisman, Tim Brown and Chris Zorich as honorary coaches in the spring game. “It’s helping us focus more, and it’s helping us remember how grateful we should be to be at Notre Dame, and that it’s important for us to bring back the tradition.”
This is just as important: Notre Dame suddenly has a slew of dandy assistant coaches (compared with those of Davie and Willingham), including three former head coaches. It’s the Irish’s current one that has everybody’s attention.
“He’s so brutally honest at times that it can catch you off guard,” said Brady Quinn, the junior quarterback, threatening to turn potential into reality through Weis’ offensive genius. “The best thing about his honesty is that it’s fair. He doesn’t play favorites. He’s even more intense now than he was in the spring, and I’m sure that he will become even more so when we start playing the season.”
Even so, Weis does smile (sort of), which Quinn saw on this day, when the team stretched before practice. “I didn’t know if it meant it was going to be a good day or a bad day,” Quinn said, laughing.
It meant it was going to be a Weis day at Notre Dame. Or else.
Permalink | Comments (44) | Categories: Other, Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
For Devine a day of surprise, frustration
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Well, look at it this way: The Kansas City Royals have lost 19 straight. This was only three for the Braves.
Yeah, but it was the way it was lost. This was the third in a row to one of those teams from that “weak” West Division that some of the Braves are hoping they’ll draw in the postseason playoffs, so I read in the paper. It took ‘em 13 innings to lose to San Diego, but that isn’t the saddest part.
You probably hadn’t even heard of Joey Devine before. He was the pitcher the Braves chose first in the draft. It’s not that long a trip from N.C. State University to the National League, even if you detour through Pearl, Miss., but with Joey, it was so sudden. He had just gotten in from the Braves’ farm at Pearl and drawn a crowd at his locker, which didn’t even have his name tag yet.
Frank Wren, John Schuerholz’s assistant, brought Leo Mazzone over to meet him. “This is Leo Mazzone, the pitching coach,” Frank said.
“I’m Joey Devine,” Joey said, as if Leo didn’t already know. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“When did you pitch last?” Leo asked.
“Two days ago.”
“Be ready,” Leo said, and as it turned out, he wasn’t kidding.
By the time it was done, Devine had absorbed a full dose of that old introductory phrase, “Welcome to the big leagues, kid.” He had heard boos. He had failed to get a bunt down and it was turned into a double play. He had served up a bases-loaded homer to a guy whose name begins with an “X,” Xavier Nady. That turned a 13-inning marathon into a loss, and the losing pitcher was Devine.
To err is human, to forgive is divine, so the old axiom goes, though not as Joey spells it. That’s the message that goes out to the lusty patrons of Turner Field. How more horrible a way for a 21-year-old lad to break into the big leagues, and on top of that, to hear boos. Shame on you, people.
There were highly paid senior Braves who had their chances to end the agony earlier. Horacio Ramirez, rescued from the bullpen and returned to the rotation, gave his employers eight solid innings. Rafael Furcal had given the Braves a 2-1 lead with a home run that struck the netting on the fair pole. Then an uncelebrated catcher named Miguel Olivo delivered a home run that tied the game, and from the seventh to the 13th inning, the score sat there, 2-2. Then the “X” factor struck.
By that time, Bobby Cox had just about ransacked his bullpen. He had a couple of options, including the roundly jeered Dan Kolb with his obese ERA, but he played the Devine hunch. The holidaying Andruw Jones had come close to pulling it out in the 10th when he pinch-hit, swung mightily and gave it a charge, arousing one brief moment of hope, which died in the glove of Brian Giles. Ryan Langerhans, in relief for Andruw, had his shot in the 11th with the other two members of the all-rookie outfield on base, Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson, and sadly raised a soft fly to right.
Then the 13th, two men on, an intentional walk, followed by an unintentional one, and the boos, when Nady struck. This was a game of a thousand plots, all heartbreakers for the Braves, who are beginning to show some chinks in their armor, some weariness under the heavy load of caring for a lead under constant challenge.
While the tenderfoot Devine was suffering defeat, the victory went to an old warhorse who has hung his clothes in the Braves clubhouse at least twice. Rudy Seanez, a man of many surgeries, the Padres winner, is now pitching for the 26th team in his career, approaching 20 seasons, pockmarked by injury. Two extremes, a kid suffering his first indignity, and an old warrior trudging ahead like a guy on a treadmill of a career.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Knight emerges as biggest winner in Hawks dispute
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Billy Knight is free to do anything with the Hawks he wants. He’s that powerful. He’s so powerful that he just became the first general manager in the history of sports to fire an owner.
Knight won more than a slap-fight with Steve Belkin. Knight won the sort of approval that few GMs ever get. The remaining Hawks’ owners speak of Knight more glowingly than corporate Time Warner has ever spoken of John Schuerholz, whose team has won 13 consecutive division titles. Knight, lest we forget, presides over a club that won 13 games.
“It speaks to Billy as a person that he was willing to step up and say, ‘No,’ ” Michael Gearon Jr. said Friday. And now the one owner who doubted Knight is being bought out, which is probably a good thing. Knight knows way more basketball than Belkin, and Knight is moving with bold dispatch to replace a rusty old roster with a shiny new one. But with the lone dissenter gone, somebody still needs to ask: What if Knight’s wrong?
“Then I get fired,” Knight said. “That’s the way it goes in this business. You get fired for being wrong. Sometimes you get fired for being right. I drafted the rookie of the year [Pau Gasol] in Memphis and still got fired.”
Publicist Arthur Triche labeled Friday as “a glorious day for the Atlanta Hawks,” and the man of the moment wasn’t the incoming Joe Johnson or the exiting (and absent) Belkin. The loudest applause heard inside Philips Arena â€â€? albeit from invited Atlanta Spirit employees, hardly a bastion of impartiality â€â€? was for the GM who wouldn’t shake hands.
The Hawks are treating the Phoenix Suns’ fourth-best player as if he’s Kobe Bryant. The holdover owners believe Johnson can play point guard because Knight says he can play point guard. (Never mind that Johnson has averaged 3.2 assists over 323 NBA games.) They believe a team of midsize players can win because Knight, who’s 6-foot-7, likes 6-7 guys who can move between positions. Here’s this from Gearon: “Billy could be revamping what people’s vision of a basketball team is. Who says you have to have a 6-3 point guard and a 7-foot center?”
From a harmonic standpoint, it’s nice to have this long-addled organization believe in something and someone. On a more pragmatic note, it would be nicer still if the Hawks had more to show than 13 wins (against 69 jaw-dropping losses). “It’s still early,” Knight said. “I’ve only been doing this for two years. I still have to get more players.”
And if he can’t get them, it won’t be because his ownership gummed up the works. What’s left of Atlanta Spirit LLC believes Knight, whose nickname as a Pitt Panther was Moonie, has indeed hung the moon. “They see what I’m trying to do, and I appreciate their support,” Knight said. “It’s unusual, but what they’ve showed and done for me speaks volumes.”
Said Gearon: “You’ve got to have somebody you challenge and support. You empower somebody and see his dream, and then you challenge him: ‘You want this guy? OK, why do you want him?’ And then you support him.”
Say this for Knight: He knows his mind. Last summer some of his owners kept pushing him to raise his offer to the free agent Erick Dampier, but Knight insisted the journeyman center wasn’t worth more than $50 million. So Dampier signed with Dallas for upwards of $70 million. Said Knight: “I’m going to get the guys I want. I’d rather save some money and move on to the next guy.”
The next guy, as we now know, was Joe Johnson, whom Knight values at $70 million, plus Boris Diaw and two No. 1 draft picks. For the Hawks’ sake, Johnson needs to be really good. For Billy Knight’s sake, Johnson needs to be magic.
Permalink | Comments (56) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
Long overdue, bygone great’s honor still short
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Ah, at last, the world has come to notice Herman Long, much too long after he was a Boston Beaneater, before they were Braves. Today he finally enters the Hall of Fame, but still not the right one. The Braves have two shortstops in the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, Davy Bancroft and Rabbit Maranville, but neither record is a match for Long’s, an 1890s player swallowed up in the flow of time.
He was a little fellow, 5 feet 8, about 160 pounds, but he packed some dynamite. In the days when the ball was like a clump of lead, he hit 91 home runs in 16 seasons, and in 1900, when he hit 12 for the second time, he became the first shortstop to lead the major leagues in home runs. Bancroft hit 32 lifetime, Maranville 28.
His lifetime batting average was .280, including four seasons over .300. He drove in 100 runs or more twice. He still holds the franchise record for stolen bases, 43l.
Enough of his offensive side, Dan Daniel, a renowned New York sportswriter said of him, “He was never excelled in the brilliancy of his fielding.” Grantland Rice himself included him as the shortstop on his own “most graceful team.” Walter Barnes, a Boston writer, wrote of him “a brilliant fielding shortstop and master of inside baseball.”
So with all these credentials, why isn’t Herman Long in Cooperstown? Oh, the Braves Hall of Fame, into which he will be inducted (posthumously, of course) is late but nice, but still far from what he deserves. For several years, I bombarded the Veterans Committee of the baseball hall with all these credentials, a splendid defensive shortstop who could hit with power and run the bases, and what else would you care for, gentlemen? There were many joining me, but failing in our passion.
It’s probable that all shortstops of that general era were overshadowed by Honus Wagner at Pittsburgh, but none was so obviously qualified as Long. Wagner even pilfered Long’s nickname “The Flying Dutchman,” further detracting from his fame. He was also known as “Germany,” reflecting his family heritage.
Long came along in an era of some powerful sluggers, Wagner, Ed Delahanty, Bobby Lowe and Hugh Duffy, who still holds the National League record with his .440 batting average, but the tough little shortstop got in his licks and made his presence felt on both sides of the ball. Yes, some rules differed from the rules today, but as they say in golf, you play it as it lies.
Braves Hall of Fame inductions
• When; where: 11:30 a.m. today; Turner Field, 755 Club
• Inductees: Longtime Braves scout Paul Snyder; Boston Beaneater Herman Long
• Tickets: Event is sold out
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Aaron singing the praises of A. Jones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Andruw Jones had 39 home runs entering Thursday, just eight off the Braves’ franchise record. The top 10:
Hank Aaron 47 — 1971
Eddie Mathews 47 — 1953
Eddie Mathews 46 — 1959
Hank Aaron 45 — 1962
Chipper Jones 45 — 1999
Hank Aaron 44 — 1957
Hank Aaron 44 — 1963
Hank Aaron 44 — 1966
Hank Aaron 44 — 1969
Dale Murphy 44 — 1987
Andres Galarraga 44 — 1998
I don’t mean to interrupt another bullpen bonfire or what-did-Jeff-Francoeur-have-for-breakfast moment with something so insignificant. But Andruw Jones â€â€? he doesn’t stink.
It’s somewhat ironic that in a season when Andruw Jones is finally living up to everybody else’s expectations, getting referenced in MVP debates and is about to break a Braves franchise home run record shared by Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews, he has dropped into the shadows.
“Good,” Jones said Thursday. “Just the way I like it.”
He is sitting in front of his locker before a game against Los Angeles, wearing a Samurai headband. The writing translates to either “Kamikaze,” “Warrior” or “Eat At Joe’s” â€â€? Jones isn’t sure. A Japanese TV station gave it to him, and he just thought it looked cool.
In other years, we might think, “What a talented goofball. When will he grow up?”
We don’t think that any more.
Hank Aaron â€â€? even he doesn’t think that any more.
“I have to be honest with you: I wasn’t exactly excited about what Andruw was doing before,” Aaron said, cognizant he was speaking of a player who had hit 30-plus home runs five times. “But it seems like his whole demeanor has changed. His approach is different â€â€? the way he wants to be depended on. He wants to set the example for the kids. He wants them to follow in his footsteps.
“I was never worried about Andruw’s baseball ability. My concern was for his approach to the game in the off-season. Sometimes kids spend too much time reading yesterday’s news. What you do in baseball today has nothing to do with what you’re going to do tomorrow. Baseball is a 12-month game. Andruw is beginning to realize that.
Much was made of Jones’ rejuvenated dedication to the game this off-season, his hitting in a home batting cage in December, his maturity. Then, after a 10-home run spring, the season opened and he went splat. After 21 games, he was hitting .182 with two home runs.
“People asked me, ‘What happened?’” Jones said. “I said, ‘I don’t know.’ I wasn’t doing anything different.”
Patience started to pay off. So, apparently, did his belief of his importance to the team. After a solid May, Chipper Jones suffered a foot injury in early June. Jones, hitting sixth in the order, said he went to hitting coach Terry Pendleton. “I told T.P., ‘If you want me to help this team, I need to be in the middle of the lineup.’”
We call this, the light going on. Jones hit .317 with 13 homers in June and was named National League player of the month. The Braves’ resident legend took notice.
“The thing that impressed more than anything else about this year is the way he played when Chipper was out,” Aaron said. “Nobody could get him out, and he didn’t really have anybody around him [in the batting order]. It was like for the first time, Andruw said, ‘OK guys, and jump on my back.’”
Jones hit his 38th homer, a career high, Wednesday night, moving to within nine of the franchise record held by Aaron and Mathews. He was on a season pace entering Thursday. But Jones is asked about the record and the MVP talk and he barely responds.
“I don’t think about hitting 50 homers,” he said. “I think about being consistent.”
He says he recently “went through a funk. I was tired and I let it bother me at the plate. I don’t want to let my mind shut my body down.”
That’s an interesting way to put it. But it makes perfect sense for a player whose career had been punctuated by spectacular strikeouts between spectacular moments.
Aaron again: “Andruw has always been the type of player who everybody said, ‘Oh, he’s hitting the ball well.’ But then maybe the next week, he’d stop. That consistency has finally come about. He’s finally got it together.”
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
The Bradley Jinx can’t stop Francoeur
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I was getting worried. I’d written a little something about the greatness of Jeff Francoeur — it ran in Monday’s AJC — and usually what happens after I write something like that is the guy goes 0-for-50. See, I have this reputation.
Our copydesk people used to expect whatever college basketball team I ranked No. 1 to lose its first game, which happened, believe it or not, three times in the ’80s alone.
And you might recall a certain World Series when, after Game 2, I wondered how the ‘27 Yankees might match up against the unbeatable ‘96 Braves. (Those Braves, you’ll also recall, didn’t win another game, making me the toast of the New York media over the winter.)
Sure enough, Francoeur responded to the Bradley Treatment by having a lousy (for him) game Tuesday. He didn’t hit a home run. He didn’t throw anybody out. He actually made an error. Just as I was starting to wonder if the old mojo was working once again, Francoeur had a big Wednesday. He hit a homer. (Also a triple.) He threw out Odalis Perez. And I felt altogether better.
Even I can’t jinx this guy. He’s too good.
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Quick Hit
Lousy time for Braves’ bullpen to go AWOL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
There are alternatives, yes, but there aren’t really any answers. August is the wrong month to fix a bullpen. The time for that was before the trade deadline, and back then the bullpen seemed ducky. If Chris Reitsma isn’t a bona fide closer, he picked the exact wrong occasion to be named Rolaids Relief Man for July.
The party line from the home clubhouse at Turner Field: There’s nothing wrong with Reitsma except, ahem, a little trouble with his location. One good outing and he’ll again be closing games with dispatch and this whole tempest will be forgotten come October. But what did you expect from a team managed by the most optimistic man in the history of the species? Furniture-flinging angst?
For the record, Bobby Cox said this Wednesday: “[These relievers] could be good enough. They should be good enough. There’s talent out there, no doubt about it. It’s our job to get it out of them. [Everything] could be fine â€â€? we’re in first place with a pretty darn good bullpen.”
Half of that is true. The Braves are in first, but suddenly this bullpen is an issue. After converting nine consecutive saves, Reitsma has flubbed his last three. The team has blown 15 saves this season, more than it did in the entirety of 2002. That ironclad ‘pen, you’ll recall, featured Chris Hammond and Mike Remlinger as set-up men and John Smoltz as closer. Only Smoltz is still here, and he’s no longer a closer. And therein hangs a tale.
In their zeal to strengthen the rotation over the winter, the Braves re-assigned Smoltz and thereby weakened their bullpen. The soft-tossing Dan Kolb lost the job he was imported to do within two months. Reitsma didn’t so much win the spot as he fell into it. Through June and July he looked splendid in the ninth inning, which was somewhat surprising given that he’d always been considered an eighth-inning pitcher, but now he seems to be catching Kolb’s cold. And what appeared a strength 10 days ago looks more and more like a liability.
There’s no such thing as a solid bullpen with a shaky closer. Everything in neo-baseball is geared toward getting the game to the ninth inning with a one-run lead. Reitsma doesn’t fit the closer profile â€â€? he has good stuff, as opposed to great â€â€? but there is the Braves’ clubhouse a reminder that stuff isn’t always the determinant.
Kyle Farnsworth, acquired at the deadline, should have been a smart buy. He throws hard and strikes people out, which is what you want a closer to do, and he figured to offer cover in case Reitsma faltered. But nothing Farnsworth has done since his arrival has been terribly impressive, and already the Braves must be wondering, as the Cubs did before shipping him to Detroit, why a guy equipped with such an arm isn’t a better pitcher. Just on demeanor, the placid Reitsma seems more suited to the task of working the ninth inning than the flighty Farnsworth.
Beyond those two, who else is there? Kolb has generated 78 baserunners in 47 innings, a terrible ratio. John Foster is the get-out-the-lefties guy. Jim Brower is a fill-out-the-bullpen guy. You can’t switch Smoltz because then you’ve got nobody of his stature to start Game 1 of the Division Series, and not having a No. 1 starter is how the Braves lost their last Division Series, which is where we all came in.
“We’ll play it by ear,” Cox said, but there aren’t many plays to be made. The Braves simply have to hope Reitsma perks up. He’s the best they’ve got, and at his best he’s good enough. He was at his best in July. Then again, July isn’t October.
Permalink | Comments (32) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Hawks need a team mascot can be proud of
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
What about Harry the Hawk? I mean, what were the folks involved with the new Mascot Hall of Fame in Philadelphia thinking this week? Surely they had to use one of their first ballots to include the most consistently wonderful thing about Hawks games.
Actually, Harry the Hawk is the ONLY consistently wonderful thing about Hawks games.
Those other first-ballot inductees are deserving. You have to pick the Famous Chicken or the San Diego Chicken, which was the best mascot in history. And who can argue with the Phillie Phanatic, a green thing that was a fun thing and never a mean thing, except to Tommy Lasorda? Then you have the acrobatic and exciting ways of the Phoenix Suns Gorilla.
Well, Harry the Hawk is a little of them all, with a mighty dash of uniqueness. Here’s the big thing, though: Unlike the team that Harry the Hawk represents, he never is boring, and he never loses. Like the team that Harry the Hawk represents, he often is rather silly. It’s just that Harry the Hawk gets paid to look that way, while the Hawks players don’t.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Quick Hit
‘No offense intended’ isn’t acceptable anymore
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
It took somewhere between forever and Tuesday before the light opened my previously blinded eyes. Now I see clearly enough to have pride in my alma mater for doing more than just producing Hall of Fame coaches (Paul Brown, Weeb Ewbank, Ara Parseghian, etc.), the founder of Smucker’s jelly, the first fraternities and sororities, along with the maternal grandfather of George W. Bush.
The wise heads at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, were a decade ahead of the NCAA in realizing that the use of American Indian mascots and imagery should go the way of Chief Noc-a-homa.
What did I just type? I mean, until Tuesday, I shared the popular view that NCAA officials have too much time on their hands. They announced earlier this month that they will bar schools from using Indian nicknames, mascots or logos deemed “hostile and offensive” at their champion- ship events. Florida State howled the loudest since its sports teams go by “Seminoles.” Florida governor Jeb Bush (George W.’s brother) even mentioned that the Seminole Indian tribe supports Chief Osceola, the War Chant and all of FSU’s other Native American excesses.
Been there, done that. Before Tuesday, I continued to mourn the loss of “Redskins” by Miami (Ohio), named after an Indian tribe that populated southwest Ohio during the early 19th century. Said the venerable Philip Shriver, 83, the former university president and local historian, “No university adopts a name to be ashamed of it. Indeed, if you look at the names of our states and our rivers, they are Indian.” Shriver added over the phone from Oxford, “Even the state right next to us, which is five miles from where I’m sitting now, is ‘Indian’ then ‘a.’ So when you start changing Indian names, you have to redo the entire map of the United States.”
Yeah, well. That’s not the point, which I didn’t see until two things happened Tuesday: First, I had lunch with a friend named Milt. The conversation turned to the NCAA’s nickname controversy, and I said I still was perturbed that Miami (Ohio) replaced “Redskins” with “RedHawks” during the mid-1990s. I mentioned that the university has a splendid relationship with the Miami Indian tribe, now located in northeast Oklahoma, and that the university gives scholarships to children of tribe members.
“Plus, when Miami used ‘Redskins,’ the university made sure that the mascot was respectful of all of the Miami Indian traditions,” I said proudly. “For instance, the costume that the mascot wore was authentic from the tribe.”
Milt cringed, before throwing a slither of light my way by saying, “Aren’t you the same guy who fumed last month when you visited Robert E. Lee’s mansion in Washington, D.C., and the tour guide boasted about how well the Lee family treated their slaves? As you said then, ‘Slaves were treated like slaves.’ A mascot is a mascot, and a mascot is demeaning. A Redskins mascot ranks with that gorilla for the Phoenix Suns and the Phillie Phanatic. Not good.”
Then came blinding light. After lunch, I called Oxford again to speak with Joseph Leonard, a management professor at Miami (Ohio) for the past 22 years. More importantly, he is the son of Floyd Leonard, the chief of the Miami Indian tribe in Oklahoma. The younger Leonard said he once joined the majority of the 3,000 or so tribe members in supporting the use of “Redskins” by Miami (Ohio).
“I changed my mind over time through the 1980s, as did a lot of people in the tribe,” said Leonard, 57, whose son graduated from Miami (Ohio) and whose daughter will be a sophomore at the school. “The administration here did a good job and worked hard and tried rigorously to do things to honor the tribe and not try to show us as 18th or 19th century savages just running around.
“The problem was, when the football team would go play LSU or outside the conference, people would get a little bit carried away. Too much emphasis on distorting the image.”
Added Leonard, referring to the NCAA’s stance on Indian mascots and nicknames, “Theoretically, if you find even one person that thinks something like that is offensive, it should change. In this case, it’s way more than one.”
Oh, I definitely see the light. I hope some of it shines on others â€â€? “Redskins” supporters, tomahawk choppers and even tour guides at Civil War sites trying to rewrite history.
Permalink | Comments (178) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
NCAA will regret mascot misstep
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or the NCAA, as we commonly refer to it, was formed with all the good intentions in the world. I assume so, for that was in 1906. I wasn’t around yet. But it’s beginning to get on my nerves now. The NCAA is actually a monopoly, one of the most powerful monopolies in sports society. If you don’t think so, just ask Bob Knight, the current basketball coach at Texas Tech. Of course, there may be a bit of rancor in Knight’s opinion, for the reaffirmed president of the NCAA is the man who fired him when he was basketball coach at Indiana, Myles Brand.
The NCAA does some really inconsistent things. Like, banning the sale of beer on the scene of NCAA championships, but allowing the advertising of beer on telecasts of same. It’s the godfather of the Bowl Championship Series, which has caused nothing but haggling. It also stands by while one conference pillages another of its members to create two divisions, thereby setting up a postseason playoff that brings in millions. And I don’t know that the Big East Conference will ever recover.
Now, the latest flap is so trivial that it’s a wonder this powerful body would even take the time to dally with it. You know the one I mean, the attempt to ban Indian (Native American, if you prefer) nicknames, logos and such from postseason NCAA championships. On the grounds that the practice is “hostile� and “abusive,� which provokes the slack-jawed response, “Say what?� That treads on the toes of some rather prominent institutions that have long since brought pride to the tribes whose names they have chosen, in the eyes of the beholder.
Two most prominent schools would be Florida State and its Seminoles and Illinois and its Illini. (I never realized that Illini were Indians, but that being the case, then shouldn’t the whole state of Illinois be struck? Definition of Illinois is “a confedration of Algonquin Indian tribes.�)
There are several others, including the Central Michigan Chippewas, the Arkansas State Indians, and, I suppose, the Hawaii Warriors. I don’t know where that puts the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette, not necessarily tribal, but a caste of people rather proud of their own lineage.
Now, I’d suppose that what I’m about to say will brand me as an old (censored) out of touch with the times, but I’ll say it anyway: I always thought that bestowing an Indian name on an athletic team would bestow honor on any tribe. Depicting the tribe as valorous and brave, a matter of pride.
So I’m wrong, by NCAA definition? Instead “hostileâ€? and “abusive.â€? In the garden of the academe, there had been an off-and-on leaning toward stripping these nicknames from college teams, but never such a sudden blast as this. One college president isn’t taking this blow sitting down. T.K. Wetherell was a speedy pass receiver as a student at Florida State, and from his office as president now, he has thrown down the gauntlet — or was it a flaming spear? — to the NCAA.
This is both “outragerous and insulting,� the FSU president said, and indicated that an even more ferocious message was to follow, indicating a lawsuit. The Seminole tribe of Florida proclaims its pride in the affiliation with the collegiate Noles. Many of the Seminoles of Oklahoma say they’re not offended, then why should these stuffed shirts in the ivory tower be?
My old Newsweek friend, Joe Cumming, says maybe it’s the “mascot� designation that’s offensive. He suggests signo, as in hoc signo vinces, which he says translates into “in this sign thou shall conquer.� That would relabel his West Georgia teams as the West Georgia Signos instead of the Braves. But then, who would know what he’s talking about? Offhand, I’d say there’s not much to be worried about. I suspect Myles Brand and the NCAA are sorry they even brought it up, and they’ll put out the fire, saddle up and head for cover.
Permalink | Comments (24) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10 — T.O. T.O. T.O. (Sorry. I’m just working on my impersonations and I thought I’d start today with ESPN. I also do Nixon and John Wayne.)
9 — Owens is a holdout. David Pollack doesn’t have a contract. That’s a distinction apparently lost on Cincinnati coach Marvin Lewis, who this week referred to the first-round pick from Georgia as a holdout. Given some other comments, I’m going to give Lewis the benefit of the doubt and assume he was dropped on his head as a kid.
8 — Seriously, has there ever been more of a team guy come through Athens than Pollack? And yet, this was the coach’s take on Pollack’s contract problems: “We have guys who have chosen to be here, and we’ve eliminated selfishness that occurs. If that’s what it comes down to, a dollar here a dollar there, they’re on the wrong football team.”
7 — Pollack selfish? I don’t know all of the specifics of these negotiations. But I think I know what this kid is all about and I certainly know the inglorious history of the Bengals’ organization in matters of economics. What a dolt.
6 — Last Friday, T.O. released a statement on TerrellOwens.com in which he thanked his fans, none of whom he would sign autographs for at Eagles’ camp.
5 — The statement also includes: “Regrettably, recent events have unfolded in a way that may paint a negative picture of Terrell. This situation has mushroomed far beyond what should be considered adequate coverage, and Terrell has become the media’s favorite whipping boy.â€? I’m not certain if this was penned before or after Owens did a workout in his driveway.
4 — I broke down. Was flipping channels last night and watched five minutes of the Pamela Anderson Celebrity Roast. Must’ve been 1,000 people and 97 brain cells in the building.
3 — Brian Jordan says he’s ready to come back with the Braves. This should be interesting.
2 — The Mets are only 4 1/2 games back in the wild-card race. (Just trying to raise the hopes of Mets fans. Makes it more fun to watch the crash.)
1 — Evander Holyfield has been banned from fighting in New York. Gee, that means he can only fight in 49 other states, the District of Columbia and, like, a hundred other countries.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
WR jobs are open, but the candidates haven’t been
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch � We are three weeks and two exhibitions into prep time, and Jim Mora is still waiting for the “wow� factor. There was that one play when DeAngelo Hall reached back and intercepted a pass and everybody said, “Wow!� But Mora isn’t so desperate that he would move his best cover to wide receiver. Not yet, anyway.
Three weeks, two games, and this is the head coach’s assessment of the Falcons’ wide receivers: “I guess you can look at it two ways. You can say, ‘Well, we’re getting better as a group.’ Or you can be pessimistic and say, ‘We’re in trouble. No one has jumped out.’ â€?
The Falcons still have some time until their Sept. 12 opener against the Philadelphia Eagles (who have a “wowâ€? factor — he’s merely loony). But if you’re the Falcons and the primary objective this season is to turn the passing game into some semblance of a threat, things have not gone well.
We won’t go into numbers because exhibition numbers are meaningless. (An Indianapolis quarterback leads the NFL in passing yards, but it’s Travis Brown, not Peyton Manning.)
But it’s noteworthy that the receiver Mora heaped the most praise on Monday was rookie free agent Cole Magner. Magner isn’t even listed on the four-deep depth chart. But he has long blond hair and is nicknamed “Sunshine� after the “Remember the Titans� character. So he has that going for him.
NFL training camps seldom offer much in the way of roster drama. Generally, few spots are available. Coaches spew that “Anybody can win a job� stuff in meetings. But the fact remains that a solid starter can drag his way through camp and nobody will blink because the coaching staff knows what the player’s track record is once the games start counting.
That’s not the case with the Falcons’ wide receivers. The core is unimpressive on paper and has been unspectacular this summer. (The only “wow� Monday was more like an “Oh, jeez.� Peerless Price dropped consecutive balls thrown to him.)
Give Mora credit for his candor. When asked if he had any sense of what he was getting with any of his receivers, he paused and said: “Maybe with Fin [Brian Finneran] and Dez [White]. I mean, I feel comfortable knowing exactly what they are as players.
“With the other three guys we’re focusing on, I can’t say that. You certainly can’t say that about Roddy [White] and Michael [Jenkins], because none of us have really seen them play at this level. “And with Peerless, there’s issues of how’s he responding to being demoted. Has his blocking improved to the point where he’s not a liability on runs but he becomes an asset? It’s kind of funny we’re still saying that about a five- or six-year veteran, but that’s the facts of the matter.�
So for all of the cheering we’ve heard about Price’s work ethic and his “professionalism� since being demoted behind the unproven Jenkins, there’s your cold slap of reality: Conclusions about Price’s attitude remain open-ended, and “liability� just showed up as an adjective following his name.
Roddy White, this year’s No. 1 pick, certainly has displayed more upside than Jenkins, one of last year’s first-rounders. In each exhibition, Mora has seen White get open “seven or eight yards� behind the defense. “But the ball hasn’t gotten to him.� (For the record, the quarterbacks were Matt Schaub and Ty Detmer, not Michael Vick.) But now White has a high ankle sprain that will sideline him for at least a few days and possibly two weeks.
Mora again: “Maybe the guy who’s going to jump out of the pack is injured.�
Why is this starting to look like somebody waiting for the daily lottery numbers to be read?
Mora goes back and forth. One minute, he said, “It’s not a huge concernâ€? because of today’s date. The next minute, he admits, “You don’t want to wait forever… . Somebody, do something.â€?
Nothing against Cole Magner. But it needs to be somebody else.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
There’s no doubt now : Francoeur is legit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
At some point you stop waiting for him to cool down. At some point you stop seeing him as just another rookie off to a flying start. At some point you yield to the increasingly apparent and you say, “Look, the guy’s just good.”
And that point is …
“Now,” Marcus Giles said. “He’s a great ballplayer. He’s legit. He’s definitely legit.”
Giles was speaking of Jeff Francoeur, as if you couldn’t guess, after the pride of Parkview had fashioned another of those Francoeur-like days. He’d hit a three-run homer to break open Sunday’s game, and he’d thrown out two runners â€â€? actually the same runner twice â€â€? at the plate. After the second mighty throw, the forlorn Luis Gonzalez looked at Braves pitcher Mike Hampton and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Over the past 38 days, we’ve all mouthed those same words about the same 21-year-old. He hasn’t just looked talented and promising, the way rookies are supposed to look. He has looked like the best Braves player to come along since Andruw Jones, maybe since Chipper Jones, maybe since Dale Murphy. Everybody keeps saying, as both Hampton and Giles did Sunday, “He’s not going to hit .400 all year,” but Francoeur has played a month’s worth of games and has tailed off only to .382. And he has, as we know, had to hit his way on â€â€? he hasn’t walked yet.
“It’s pretty special what he’s done,” said Bobby Cox, trying not to get carried away but getting carried away anyway. “He can have some bad at-bats and still change a game.”
He changed Sunday’s. Francoeur struck out his first time up on a slider in the dirt from Javier Vazquez. “First time I’d seen that pitch,” Francoeur said. He hit the next pitch he saw from Vazquez over the wall in left-center. “A two-seamer,” he said. The guy, as we’re constantly being reminded, learns awfully fast.
Some rookies start hot but don’t have the physical resources to sustain them when they become known quantities. Francoeur is so symmetrically gifted it’s ridiculous. Playing two-way football as a Parkview junior, he had 14 receiving touchdowns and 15 interceptions. Playing big-league baseball for the first time in his life, he has nine homers and eight assists.
“I would be lying to you if I said I expected this,” Francoeur said, meaning his banner debut, but why should we ever expect him to struggle, to flail, to disappoint? He won state championships in football and baseball as both junior and senior. Despite suffering a broken cheekbone last summer, he reached the majors barely three years after being drafted. He has been a fast-tracker since he was a Parkview sophomore, and there’s a reason: He’s one of the finest athletes you’ll ever see.
It’s a surprise that he’s had this great an impact this soon, yes, but the greater surprise would have been if he’d pulled a Kelly Johnson and started 1-for-30. To borrow Cox’s word, some guys are just special. Walking by Francoeur’s locker Sunday, Tim Hudson said, “The bus to Class AAAA leaves tonight, Frenchy,” and that was obviously a joke. Francoeur isn’t one of those fictional Class AAAA players â€â€? a guy who does it in the minors but can’t quite stick in the majors. Francoeur is a big-league fixture already. He’ll be here until he retires.
“I’ve been getting lucky,” Francoeur said, but if that’s true he has been lucky his entire life. He has been getting pitches to hit, he said, because Chipper and Andruw Jones have been hitting, but lots of guys get pitches to hit and never hit them. Amid a host of impressive Braves rookies, Francoeur has stamped himself as the best in his class. He always does.
By the way, he was an even better football player.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
T.O. and his circus pay visit to Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Uh-oh. Here were the Falcons and the Ravens having a relatively sedate preseason game Saturday night at the Georgia Dome, and in the middle of it all, it got lively in a hurry. That’s because you had the most famous initials this side of A.I. sitting in Section 117, Row 5 and Seat 4.
What in the name of trying to get traded to the Falcons was T.O. doing here? “Just watching the game,” said Terrell Owens, with a little smile, before turning away from an AJC columnist to catch more of the (ahem) action.
If you had an opportunity to play for the Falcons, would you? “I just want to play football,” Owens said, with another little smile. So will you talk to anybody associated with the Falcons after the game about coming here? This time, Owens’ face turned serious before he said, “I know Coach Stewart [Falcons wide receivers coach George Stewart] who was my coach in San Francisco, and I know [Falcons linebacker] Ike Reese, who is a former teammate of mine, and I saw [Falcons safety] Ronnie Heard, and we played together in San Francisco, and I know Mark Anelli, who is playing tight end.”
Then Owens’ little smile returned, before he added, “I’m just here enjoying the football game.”
Uh-oh. I mean, surely T.O. was more than a spectator for this one, especially given the circus that he created during the past few days in Bethlehem, Pa., the training camp home of the Philadelphia Eagles. In case you haven’t heard, Owens became the ringmaster, the elephants and the clowns after he feuded with teammates and coaches before he was asked by Eagles officials to get lost until next Wednesday. If he can’t get his contract renegotiated (the one that he signed before last season with the Eagles without anybody sticking a knife to his throat), he wants to go elsewhere.
Like Atlanta, for instance.
Uh-oh. Owens lives in Lithonia, and although the Falcons snatched Roddy White in the first round of the NFL draft last spring, White still is a rookie with potential while the other guy lives in the Pro Bowl during most seasons. And remember: We’re talking about a league in which teams have a tendency to get amnesia if they think somebody has a dose of talent and the capacity to get your fingerprints on a Lombardi Trophy.
It’s just that this is the same T.O. who created that big top in San Francisco before Philadelphia. There was that Sharpie thing and that stomping on the star thing at Texas Stadium. Mostly, there were all of those blowup things with the 49ers, and the worst involved his screaming into the ear of offensive coordinator Greg Knapp on the San Francisco sidelines.
This is the same Greg Knapp who is the offensive coordinator for the Falcons these days. Not only that, the Falcons head coach is Jim Mora, the 49ers’ defensive coordinator during all of T.O’s San Francisco rants. No way they’d join Falcons general manager Rich McKay in bringing Owens to a locker room seeking chemistry.
Owens is anti-chemistry. We’re talking about a player who couldn’t care less that he joined the Eagles from San Francisco with much help from stellar quarterback Donovan McNabb. Ever since the Eagles stumbled last season in the Super Bowl to the New England Patriots (despite a glorious game from Owens recovering from a broken leg), he has whipped McNabb with his tongue.
That is, when Owens isn’t doing the same with coach Andy Reid, offensive coordinator Brad Childress or others wearing Eagles colors.
Supposedly, after Owens departed Bethlehem this week, he was heading for the Bahamas. Supposedly. Although Owens said he was at the Falcons-Ravens game, because, “I got some tickets from some friends,” you don’t just decide to come to a meaningless preseason game if you’ve got famous initials. In other words, it likely wasn’t a coincidence that Owens was positioned behind the Falcons bench. At one point, he shouted and waved toward Michael Vick, the guy that Owens wishes to throw passes his way instead of McNabb.
So what exactly did you say to Vick across the way? Owens swung his head around with another quick smile to say, “I’m just here to watch the game.”
Good. Let Owens watch. As for playing, let’s just hope that T.O. just G.O. â€â€? but not to the Falcons.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Bennett knows role is to push Ball
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Barely a week into practice, this much is clear: Taylor Bennett isn’t going to take Reggie Ball’s position. This isn’t to say Ball couldn’t lose his position, which he has come close to doing twice already. But Ball, for better or worse, is simply the superior quarterback, possessed of a stronger arm and fleeter feet and 25 games of collegiate seasoning to Bennett’s none.
Chan Gailey confirmed â€â€? or conceded â€â€? the point this week. Reggie Ball is Georgia Tech’s No. 1 quarterback, Taylor Bennett its No. 2. That order isn’t apt to change before the season commences, if then.
So what, you’re wondering, was that December blather about Ball having to re-win the job? And what did Gailey mean when he said two weeks ago that he might well deploy two quarterbacks? If the competition is essentially closed less than a week into practice, was it ever really otherwise?
Asked if Ball had risen to the challenge or Bennett had fluffed his audition, Gailey was loath to say either had occurred. Here’s what he did say: “Reggie has increased in knowledge, but until he gets on the field [in a game] we won’t know how much he has improved. And it’s hard for [Bennett] to show very much because he hasn’t been with the No. 1 [unit] that often.”
No, that didn’t sound like a gushing endorsement (or a rank dismissal) of either, but that’s what happens when you’re a coach and Reggie Ball is your quarterback. You wait for the other shoe to drop. In two seasons you’ve seen him do enough good things to win 14 games but enough silly things to keep Tech from winning two or three more. You’d like him to be more consistent, and sometimes you get so frustrated that you trot out Taylor Bennett as an option. Only Taylor Bennett, a redshirt freshman who played in high school only as a senior, isn’t really an option yet.
After Ball had one of his wretched days against Miami last October â€â€? eight completions, three interceptions â€â€? Gailey considered playing Bennett, who was supposed to be redshirting. “Before the Maryland game, they told me to get ready,” Bennett said. “I got a little nervous.”
But Ball was solid enough against the Terps that the issue was tabled. Then he lost track of downs against Georgia and Gailey declared that the job would be open come 2005. On cue, Ball was MVP of the Champs Sports Bowl, and he outplayed Bennett in the spring and has looked much better in the first week of fall practice. And now Gailey sounds as if Ball will again take every important snap unless he messes up royally.
“I don’t believe in jerking a guy out,” Gailey said. “Nobody out here is perfect. If I’m looking for that first mistake, then that’s wrong on my part. It would take something somewhat prolonged before I’d make a change, and I’m not looking for that. I actually think [Ball is] going to play pretty good this year.”
So where does this leave Bennett? Of Ball, he said: “He’s our starter; he’s our man. I’m out here trying to push him.”
And maybe that’s the most important function Bennett can perform. For two seasons Ball has played knowing there was no viable alternative behind him. (Gailey, you’ll recall, demoted A.J. Suggs and moved Damarius Bilbo to receiver two summers ago when he handed Ball the job, and Ball essentially worked without a backup last season.) Bennett seems an alternative. He could move Tech in a pinch. He’s just good enough to keep Ball focused on boring stuff like precision and execution, which is more than half the battle.
Reggie Ball can do the big things. What has kept him from being a true big-timer is his failure to grasp the basics. Just by being on the active roster, Taylor Bennett is performing a vital service. He’s both safety net and nagging reminder.
Permalink | | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Star-crossed Mauch was one of a kind
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
In all my baseball days, I had never met a manager who knew more about the game. And I had known managers who had grown gray on the job. Gene Mauch was only 27.
He had just arrived in town to manage the Atlanta Crackers in 1953 , which struck me as strange, since he had hit .324 in the American Association the year before and apparently had a career ahead of him. But John Quinn , who ran the then-Boston Braves, felt he had a budding genius in his hire and wanted to get him plugged in. Quinn was right, but a few years ahead of his time.
Mauch would be a playing manager. “I’ll play third base, so I can be nearer the pitcher,� he said, “if I can make the team, and if I can’t, I’ll play second.� Which he did.
No doubt about who was in charge. Those piercing blue eyes could bore a hole through you. He made you nervous while he carefully thought through his next sentence. He would stand at a bar and argue baseball with you until the lights were turned off. In one season, I came to know and enjoy him more than any manager I crossed swords with. Mauch was, indeed, ahead of himself. He returned to the field for three good seasons in Los Angeles. (One year he hit 20 home runs.) In 1960, Quinn, then moved to Philadelphia, called on him again, and for the next three decades he managed the Phillies, Montreal, Minnesota and California , in the process, suffered three major heart breaks. Three times within a murmur of a pennant.
“Best manager in baseball who never made it to a World Series,� it was said of him, and who’s to debate that?
Oh, no doubt who was in charge. Captain Bligh was a scoutmaster by comparison. He took over the Phillies in 1960, and lost 23 games in a row the following year . They weren’t called “phutile� without license. If there was anything Mauch couldn’t stomach, it was complacency, and one night in Houston, after a dismal performance, he shocked his dawdling hirelings by spraying the clubhouse with spareribs, cutlets, sandwiches and all the postgame food the clubhouse man regularly laid out. It’s a rampage that hasn’t lost its place when baseball tales are being told.
He was the Expos’ first manager, and if there’s any fate worse than managing an expansion team, it’s managing one that can’t rise above .500. Then to the Twins, where he endured Calvin Griffith’s tight-fistedness as long as he could stand it. Then Gene Autry put in a call for him. Mauch later said that the Angels had more talent than any team he ever had, but twice they led him to the brink and stranded him there.
The Phillies had given him an indoctrination in close calls in 1964. Six games ahead, 16 games to play, they were sitting cozy. But he relied too heavily on two pitchers, Jim Bunning, same as the senator from Kentucky now, and Chris Short, and all the Phillies did was come up short. In California, it was even more cruel. The Angels were within one strike of the pennant in 1986, but instead blew a three-run lead and another one got away. You never saw a more bedraggled human being, standing alone in the dugout after it was all over.
Physically, he wasn’t a big fellow, but inwardly, he was as tough as a clenched fist. He had attracted John Quinn’s attention as a rookie with the Braves. The team bus, on the way to a spring game, had become wedged beneath a railroad overpass. Players got out, stood around, cursing the driver, when Mauch stepped up with the solution.
“Let some of the air out of the tires,� the rookie said. They did. The bus squeezed through, players boarded again and Mauch was a hero.
He gave me some of the days of my life I’ll never forget. His Crackers team finished third, and he later told a Philadelphia sportswriter, “Bisher told me, ‘I’m glad for your sake, you didn’t win the pennant. You’re overbearing enough â€â€? with a winner you’d be unbearable.’â€? It was written that he laughed.
Gene passed away last Monday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 79, and not a dull moment among them.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Falcons catching a break with Eagles’ turmoil
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch â€â€? I would say things have been quiet here, but then that wouldn’t constitute news. This is Flowery Branch. There hasn’t been big news here since bingo was moved to Tuesday nights.
But if you play for the Falcons, you love the peace. You let the serenity wash over you. You light a candle and sit on a pillow and chant and blow colors. And then at night, you make popcorn, turn on ESPN, watch Terrell Owens do sit-ups in his driveway and laugh so hard that the neighbors think, “Wow. Must be some bingo tournament they’re having next door.”
This has been a good training camp for the Falcons. Not because they have won a preseason game. It has been a good training camp because nothing worthy of an inglorious SportsCenter sound bite has occurred — especially when contrasted with the chuckle fest in Philadelphia.
The impact of NFL holdouts can be overstated. More often than not, the player eventually reports and insults are forgotten, at least until the next off-season.
But Owens’ I’m-out/I’m-in/You-Shut-up/No-You-Shut-up slap fight with the Eagles has escalated — or degenerated — to another level. Eagles coach Andy Reid suspended Owens for a week. Coaches generally stay out of players’ contract squabbles because that’s about business and they’re about football. They’re the ones who deal with the athlete on a daily basis, not the guy with the calculator and salary charts.
When Reid suspended Owens, it created a new issue. When Owens returns, he will now be a player coming off a suspension who has openly feuded with the coach. When he performed his suburban driveway workout and managed to appear on all 17 ESPN networks, it made matters even worse. He whined. He picked fights. He took the focus off the team. He actually made his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, look like the calm one.
Owens has turned a bad situation into something that is one elephant short of a circus. Suddenly, this isn’t a simple contract holdout. It is something that is filtering down to Owens’ teammates and causing cracks in the team.
Ike Reese knows this as well as anybody. The linebacker spent seven seasons with Philadelphia before signing with the Falcons as a free agent. He’s also a friend of Owens.
“Those are two major things that happened,” Reese said. “Now everybody is looking at your team for the wrong reasons. Those players have to deal with answering questions about this every day, not just to the media and the public, but amongst themselves.
“All 80 guys they have in camp right now are not on the same page as to how they feel about the situation. That can be a problem. You want your team to have the same mind-set, but everybody doesn’t have the same feelings about what’s going to happen.”
Reese said the Eagles “could put a lid on this if they can keep a camera out of T.O.’s face.”
Is that possible?
“I’m not sure,” he said, smiling.
The Eagles are not the only team standing in the Falcons’ way of a Super Bowl. They’re just the best one. Chemistry can be an overused word in sports, but that’s not the case in football. Talent levels tend to be fairly equal. Nobody has depth. Success usually comes down to injuries and how a team reacts to adversity.
The Falcons had two potential time bombs entering camp. One was Peerless Price and the receiving situation, but Price has worked hard and kept quiet. The other was Rod Coleman, who had another of those pesky driving issues before camp opened. He also has stayed out of the news (perhaps because Jim Mora hid the car keys).
“The guys took it upon themselves to take ownership of the team,” Reese said, “and not let anything get in the way of what we want to accomplish. It’s hard enough to get to the Super Bowl even without distractions.”
Peace doesn’t always carry into the season. As Reese put it, “You’ve got a whole ‘nother ball of adversities you might have to go through.”
The Eagles, Reese said, “are the team to beat in the NFL. But T.O. has to be there for them to have a chance.”
But whether he is there or not, Owens won’t be a calming influence, and damage control may soon be out of reach.
Permalink | | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
The end is near in Belkin saga
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
At 3:55 p.m. Thursday, the Atlanta Hawks stopped frowning. The e-mail detailing David Stern’s support of the other eight owners and his rejection of one Steve Belkin reached team officials just as the press conference to introduce Zaza Pachulia — who’ll forever be known as the free agent who isn’t Joe Johnson — was concluding. Just like that, there appeared an exit strategy from the abyss of this wretched week.
Assuming the Boston judge was telling the truth about requiring Stern’s prior approval to oust an NBA governor, the end of Belkin’s short, capricious ownership is at hand. First he gets defrocked, and then he gets bought out. And then the Hawks make the deal for Joe Johnson and everybody lives, if not quite happily ever after, then at least with one fewer megalomaniac to accommodate.
We may never know what impelled Belkin to do what he did. A guy waits 20 years to buy into the NBA and then, 16 months in, he all but begs to be bought out? Does he need cash that badly? Did he decide that holding 30 percent of the Hawks didn’t count as owning a real team? Is he the one man left in this world who thinks Boris Diaw is a real asset?
Billy Knight didn’t shake Belkin’s hand for a reason. “You have to have principles,� Knight said, and by blocking the trade Belkin had essentially announced that he knows the NBA better than his general manager. Asked if he could work for Belkin from here on, Knight said: “If he’s a minority owner, sure. If he’s the sole owner, no.�
The latter won’t happen, thank goodness. Haggling over the price of Belkin’s buyout has already begun. (What, you expected the ol’ trade-blocker to take the first offer?) He’ll be gone within a month, not that he was ever really here in Atlanta. But what of those few locals who still, boats against the current, care about the Hawks? Will this latest embarrassment convince them that the Hawks aren’t worth caring about?
“I’m trying to get players,� Knight said. “I don’t worry about things I can’t control. I don’t sit around pining away about things like that.�
And that’s exactly what he should say. The only thing that will put a 13-69 record and Belkin of Boston behind the Hawks is enough good players and enough early wins to make people believe that, recent events notwithstanding, this franchise can walk and chew gum at the same time. Johnson will help. Marvin Williams will help. Salim Stoudamire will help. Heck, even Zaza from (the other) Georgia will help. In this as in everything else, Belkin got it wrong. Knight knows his business. Knight has taken a bad old team and is replacing it with a shiny new one.
Had the Johnson deal gone through the first time, there would be more enthusiasm about the Hawks than there has been since Dikembe Mutombo arrived in the summer of 1996. We can quibble about giving Phoenix two first-round picks and spending $70 million for the Suns’ fourth-best player, but that’s just quibbling. The Hawks were desperate for a big-name free agent, and doggone if Knight hadn’t gone and gotten one. And then Belkin said no, and we all started saying, “See? Same old Hawks.�
Only they aren’t. Once Belkin departs and Johnson arrives, you’ll see a franchise with a shared agenda. You’ll see a talented young team — not yet a good one, but on its way at last — assembled by a clever GM whose refusal to shake Belkin’s hand will stand as the lasting image of this strange episode. And it’s surely just coincidence that, one day after he spurned Belkin, Knight banged up his right pinky while working in his yard. So he really can’t shake hands now.
No matter. He made his point. He stood on principle, and he’ll be here long after Steve Belkin is a forgotten footnote. At 3:55 p.m. Thursday, the forgetting officially commenced.
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA
Longing for the Hawks good ol’ days
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Is it just me, or have the events of the last 10 days cast Stan Kasten and Pete Babcock in a brighter light?
The Hawks have made mistakes over the years: Jon Koncak’s contract, Alan Henderson’s contract, Lon Kruger’s hiring, J.R. Rider’s mere presence. But nothing they did under Kasten and Babcock was as damaging as the Page 1 picture — worth about a million words, this one — of Billy Knight spurning Steve Belkin’s handshake. (By the way, did you notice the person sitting in the background? The AJC’s Tim Tucker, taking it all in.)
Real organizations don’t behave like this. For all their failings, the Hawks had never behaved like this. And there are, as we’re learning, different levels of failure. The Hawks under Kasten and/or Babcock were seen as a disappointment because they couldn’t advance past Round 2 of the postseason, but let’s recall that they at least made the playoffs 13 times in 16 seasons. The Hawks today are both the NBA’s worst team and its worst front office.
Yes, things can get better. (They could hardly go any lower.) Belkin can get removed as governor and the Joe Johnson trade can get made and the Hawks can improve to 25 or 30 wins next season, but the events of the last 10 days will linger long in memory. Knight has done some good work over the last two seasons, but Belkin undid much of it simply by saying no and giving the world the clear impression that the Hawks are rank amateurs.
Why, it’s enough to make you long for the days of absentee ownership.
Come back, Time Warner. All is forgiven.
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
Partners should have seen Belkin problem coming
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The only surprise about the Hawks ownership mess is that folks actually are surprised. To quote an AJC sports columnist from March 2004, when Time Warner sold what allegedly was an NBA franchise to a group that allegedly was the savior of that franchise: “Nine owners? That’s nine successful businessmen, with nine different personalities and nine different egos. Plus, they will hire a CEO to oversee much of their operation.
“That’s another different personality and another different ego. That’s why there is the potential for 10 different voices whispering into the ears of Hawks general manager Billy Knight, when he should hear only his own.�
Surely anybody involved with this crazy deal knew that disaster was a Steve Belkin away. Speaking of which, it was clear within weeks of its formation that Atlanta Spirit LLC had an Alexander “I’m in control here” Haig. One day I checked my telephone messages to hear the voice of somebody I’d never met. It was Belkin, the Boston portion of the Hawks’ three-tiered ownership group that also has a Washington and an Atlanta connection. In sum, Belkin introduced himself, then gave his credentials and then spoke for minutes, hours and days about how he truly was the primary owner of the Hawks. He left his number in case I needed more information, but he had said it all: Forget the Haig analogy. In Belkin’s mind, the other eight owners were the rest of the Rolling Stones to his Mick Jagger.
When I told a couple of the other owners about Belkin’s message, they were not amused. They said the Boston faction of Atlanta Spirit had no more power than the ones from Washington and Atlanta. They said they knew about Belkin’s efforts to become their Jagger. But here’s the strangest thing: They still elected the guy as their NBA governor. They also did the equivalent of wrapping lead weights around their ankles and jumping off a cliff by giving Belkin a five-year term.
“We looked at it at the time as just being a very ceremonial position,� said Michael Gearon Sr., 70, among the few wisemen for the Hawks through the decades, speaking on Wednesday. He joins his son, Michael Gearon Jr., as the most prominent members of the local portion of Atlanta Spirit. Added Gearon Sr. about Belkin’s designation as NBA governor, “I don’t think we realized at the time what was involved.�
Obviously not. One moment, you had Knight continuing as the quietly effective miracle worker that he is for the franchise by trading for the talented Joe Johnson (a nice fit for a Hawks team already with several promising youth). The next, you had Belkin using his authority under NBA rules as team governor to kill the deal.
According to Belkin, he doesn’t wish to lose the two first-round draft picks that Knight promised to the Phoenix Suns for Johnson. According to everybody else with Atlanta Spirit, Belkin is just cheap. They say he views the $70 million that Knight is offering to Johnson as ghastly � especially since they say Belkin wants a Hawks payroll of $32 million while the other owners are willing to spend $16 million more.
As a result, the Hawks have a soap opera, with eight owners seeking to remove Belkin as governor, with Belkin dragging the other owners into a Boston court over the matter, with Knight calling Belkin a liar, with NBA commissioner David Stern preparing to discuss the matter sooner than later, with the Hawks’ dwindling fan base on the verge of dwindling further.
All of this was avoidable, because all of this was foreseeable.
“Well, I really didn’t view (Belkin) as a serious problem until we got to this recent issue,� said Gearon Sr., a former Hawks general manager and a minority owner of the franchise for years. “I’d seen some problems with the fellow, but it wasn’t to this magnitude. He doesn’t wish to spend money on the franchise. That’s fundamental.�
So is this: You can’t have nine Mick Jaggers. Those with Atlanta Spirit either should accept their self-proclaimed one or declare another one. Then leave Knight alone.
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore
Hawks’ ownership better than any warped reality show
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The Tuesday countdown:
- It’s Steve Belkin vs. The World today in court. The World is a 3-2 favorite. The winner of today’s game gets to own the Hawks, sort of.
- Wait. The WINNER gets to own the Hawks?
- Does Belkin even know the Thrashers just gave Bobby Holik a $12.75 million contract? Does Belkin even know he also owns the Thrashers? When Belkin wakes up in the morning, does he look down at his bracelet with the initials, WWSD (What Would Sterling Do)?
- I am not making this up: An online betting service has listed 3-1 odds that Rafael Palmeiro will be found guilty of perjury for telling Congress he never used steroids. In a related development, Palmeiro said $70 million is too much for Joe Johnson.
- In one paragraph, Kate Hudson says, “I don’t believe monogamy is realistic.� In the next paragraph, Kate Hudson says, “I will not disrespect my husband and stray.� See, this is why 26-year-old blonde actresses just shouldn’t talk. Or own sports franchises.
- ESPN has entered into a business relationship with Bob Knight for a new realty show (“Knight School�). I’m sure that won’t cloud ESPN’s judgment in the least bit when it’s time to do a news story on Knight. I mean, when they get to the news. Between the “ESPYs� and the “X Games� and bad late-night TV series.
- See, that’s the great thing about the Atlanta Spirit ownership group. We don’t need a reality show because the actual version is entertaining enough.
- The wholesome NFL, which was infuriated about the Janet Jackson Super Bowl de-robing a couple of years ago but directs soft-porn cheerleader webpages on every team’s website, has entered into a marketing venture with the Rolling Stones. Can’t wait to hear, “Brown Sugar,� “Let’s Spend The Night Together,� and “Jump On Top of Me� during all those sideline cheerleader shots.
- David McDavid is considering dropping his lawsuit against AOL/Time Warner, based on the fact that he hasn’t laughed this much in years.
- Speaking of which, how come nobody is complaining about AOL anymore?
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Jeff Schultz
Hawks’ debacle not just Belkin’s doin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Sometimes there comes a point when an owner asks himself, “How do we spin this?” and Himself responds: “You don’t, Bozo.”
Because the fact is, no matter how much everybody wants to pile on Steve Belkin � and you know something is wrong when even Billy Knight turns into a quote machine � this has been a group failure by the Hawks.
At the very least, the non-Belkin majority of Atlanta Spirit operated in Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy Land for too long, maybe. It’s the residue of inexperience. Belkin-related problems didn’t vaporize, as the others deluded themselves into believing. They grew. Like fungus.
You can’t spin this. Bruce Levenson, one of the lead owners and a nice guy, knows it’s way too late for that. He knows that from the outside, the nine-member ownership group might as well be fitted for red noses and exploding shoes.
On Tuesday, he addressed the damage that has been done to a Hawks franchise he mistakenly believed had hit bottom with a 13-win season. Didn’t take long for the words to morph into self-flogging.
“There is a plan to build this team into one Atlanta can be proud of, and Joe Johnson is a part of that plan,” Levenson said. “We really believe that if we follow [Billy Knight’s] plan, our team will blossom and we’ll have some success. If we’re successful, hopefully our fans will start to judge us by what we do on the court â€â€? and forgive us for our off-court foolishness.”
It’s not every day a sports owner calls himself a fool.
They’re still waiting for those words from Harry Frazee. And Donald Sterling, Ted Stepien, Denise DeBartolo York, Bill Wirtz â€â€? you get the idea.
“Look,” Levenson said. “The most well-intended marriages sometimes end in divorce. The reality is that when that divorce involves a sports franchise, it’s done in the light and, frankly, the heat of the media.
“This has been embarrassing. It’s uncomfortable to go through, and nobody understands that more than I do.”
Levenson and the others publicly remain optimistic that this sign-and-trade with Phoenix for Johnson somehow will go through. For that to happen, seemingly two things have to happen: 1) NBA commissioner David Stern agrees Belkin should be removed from the league’s Board of Governors; 2) A Suffolk County Superior Court judge in Boston does the same.
No. 1 is plausible. No. 2 is iffy, at best. In the end, this is about a document spelling out an ownership agreement and how a judge reads that document.
Regardless, here’s how things are viewed now: Atlanta Spirit is a dysfunctional group of millionaires. It’s hard to imagine Belkin sticking around, under the circumstances. Could he ever attend a home game? He would be less popular than a Hawks’ player, thought to be a scientific impossibility.
Even if Belkin sells his 30 percent, who is to say there won’t be disagreements among the others down the line? This is a business, not a Tuesday night poker group? These are first-time owners who have been successful in their own ventures. They are used to being the face on things.
Then there is the Hawks’ franchise. If it’s not viewed as the worst in professional sports, I’d like to hear the argument for finishing second. The Hawks used to be a punchline during the season. Now they’re a punchline in August.
The only thing worst than having to admit publicly, “I’m a Hawks fan,” right now might be, “I’m a Hawks employee.”
Levenson recognizes the stigma. It’s why he is flying back to Atlanta today to address workers in the front office.
“I know how difficult this is for the fans right now, but my more immediate concern is our employees,” he said. “This is a time when they need to hear from ownership directly, not read it in a press release or an article in the paper.”
Before Tuesday’s hearing, Belkin approached Knight with an outstretched hand and Knight looked away. A photographer caught the moment. Trade or no trade, images like that don’t fade easily.
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Jeff Schultz
Belkin leading Hawks down disastrous path
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
We begin with the assumption that the Joe Johnson trade will, one way or another, go through. Beyond the immediacy of that flashpoint issue, beyond even the impending indignity of the Hawks’ many owners gathered on separate sides of a Boston courtroom, is an even greater concern: What becomes of this fractured partnership?
Said Stan Kasten, who knows the principals and principles involved: “There’s no question this particular configuration [of owners] cannot survive this episode. Something’s got to happen. At least they’ve gotten past the happy talk, which was hardly believable before, and now the battle has been joined. But they need to go all the way with it. It will be bloody, but they need to finish it.�
Put simply, either Steve Belkin is defrocked of his NBA governorship and gets so mad he sells out to his partners, or Belkin’s power is upheld and those partners get so disgusted they sell to him. Sixteen months into their alliance, it’s clear these men cannot coexist. The other owners hold the same regard for Belkin that Vince Dooley does for Michael Adams.
Of this latest Hawks misadventure, Kasten hauled out the most damning comparison there is. “It really looks like Elgin Baylor and Donald Sterling,� he said, naming the addled architects of the infamously forlorn Los Angeles Clippers. “But it’s much worse than that. At least Elgin got to make his own decisions.�
Until Atlanta Spirit LLC moved to buy the Hawks, the Thrashers and Philips Arena, Kasten was president of all the above. He was likewise president of the Braves, who have become the model for organizational success, and he served for more than 20 years under Ted Turner, who created the caricature of the capricious sports owner. “This is what I was able to stop,� said Kasten, speaking of such a public tempest. And then: “Ask John [Schuerholz] or any of the other top 10 GMs if they could work under these conditions. The Braves would have never become the Braves if this [ownership] were in place.�
By moving unilaterally to undercut the biggest acquisition of Billy Knight’s tenure, Belkin has told the sporting world he doesn’t value the counsel of his general manager. (Said Kasten, “I may have disagreed with the GMs who worked for me, but you never knew it.�) Just as others in the organization were waxing ecstatic over Johnson � a big-name free agent willing to commit to a team that wasn’t sure it could lure a big-name free agent � Belkin was sullying the Hawks’ image in a bold new way. Any bad team can lose a slew of games, but it takes a spectacularly inept operation to drag itself into court.
“It’s extremely damaging,� said Michael Gearon Sr., one of the Atlanta-based owners. And what about Belkin, Gearon’s lawful partner? “He’s exactly what we don’t need � an absentee owner who doesn’t want to invest in the franchise.�
When partners start saying such things about one another, they can’t stay partnered. Belkin being a minority unto himself, you’d bet he’d be the one to leave. But he’s stubborn, and he’s also litigious. Said Kasten: “He might stay longer than you’d think. He’s waited 20 years to get into the NBA.�
And here we pause to consider the havoc that Belkin as majority owner would wreak. He doesn’t want to spend money. He doesn’t come to games. He doesn’t trust Knight. He wants to own a team not because he wants to make it a winner but just so he can say he owns a team. Who of stature would work for such a man?
In their checkered existence, the Hawks have had their share of bad coaches and players, but those men could always be fired or traded. Steve Belkin is in position to do more lasting harm. His partners need to shove some money at him and make him go away. Quick, while there’s still a franchise left to run.
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
Shockley fully prepared to prove his doubters wrong
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens � D.J. Shockley has played in 26 collegiate games, and not once has he gone to the sideline knowing the next series would be his, too. Anyone tempted to cite instances of Shockley looking shaky � against Florida in 2002, against LSU in 2003, against Georgia Tech last season � should stop and ask: Given the unwieldy circumstances under which he was deployed, could he have been expected to look composed?
“It kind of hurt me [as a quarterback],� Shockley said Friday, meeting the media after Georgia’s first practice of this transitional season. “I tried to do [in those widely scattered series] more than I had to.�
Forget that skittish showing against Tech. Forget everything you’ve seen the last three seasons. Shockley will be fine. He’s a terrific talent and an exemplary human being. About Donald Eugene Shockley, all you need to know is this: Without benefit of starting a game, he has become a team leader. “It’s kind of unique,� he said, addressing that peculiar status. “It’s kind of an honor that people respect you even though you’re not starting.�
D.J. Shockley had trouble sleeping Thursday night, and no wonder. After four years of waiting, he was about to open practice as Georgia’s No. 1 quarterback. (“I never figured it would take this long,� he conceded.) It wasn’t his fault that he happened along at almost the exact same time as David Greene, and it’s to Shockley’s credit that he’s still here after Greene has gone. Not many players of such portfolio � USA Today All-American, Parade All-American � would have stuck around. Almost none would have served such a protracted apprenticeship without becoming an absolute pain.
“He could easily have blown it off and said, ‘I don’t want to play anymore; I don’t want to be in school,’ â€? said Leonard Pope, the burgeoning tight end. “But he waited and waited, and now it’s his time.â€?
Georgia fans may be apprehensive about their quarterback. Georgia coaches are not. “The people who see him day in and day out are really excited,� said Mark Richt, who knows something about quarterbacks. “You get to the point where you can’t really improve until you play in a game, and he’s been past that point for maybe two years.�
As Richt discovered, there was no way to use Greene and Shockley without doing a disservice to both. The few fleeting chances Shockley was granted didn’t really whet appetites, let alone satisfy them. Asked his fondest personal memory as a Bulldog, Shockley mentioned a game against Kentucky in 2002, and even that sounded hollow. As we know, everybody looks good against Kentucky.
But now he gets to try and look good against everybody, and he’s about to remind everyone why signing D.J. Shockley was such a big deal in the first place. He runs well enough to lend a further dimension to Richt’s finesse-y offense, and he throws better than outsiders have reason to believe. Said Shockley: “People are going to see us sit back and throw the ball out of the pocket � that’s going to be the biggest surprise of the year.�
He could have transferred to Maryland and become a starter a year ago, but he stayed because he wanted to be Georgia’s quarterback. He bided his time and did his due diligence – “There’s never been a game I wasn’t prepared for,� Shockley said � and the fruits of such uncommon perseverance are about to show. Georgia fans needn’t worry about D.J. Shockley because Georgia fans haven’t yet seen the real D.J. Shockley.
He can’t go back and become the impact freshman he once dreamed of being, but D.J. Shockley can still make a sudden splash as a senior. Said Pope, intending no pun: “He’s going to shock the world.�
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Thrashers find the perfect player for their team
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
If the Thrashers wanted to sign the best goal scorer on the open market, they didn’t get him. They didn’t land the fastest skater or the best playmaker or the guy who makes you say, “Wow,� when he has the puck.
This is who the Thrashers did sign Tuesday: The absolute perfect player for their hockey team.
It’s not just that Bobby Holik played on two Stanley Cup teams in New Jersey, although that’s a nice place to start. (When you thumb through the history of Atlanta Thrasher transactions, you’ll find that’s not the norm.) Rather, Holik was coveted three years ago as an unrestricted free agent for the same reason he is coveted now: Because there just aren’t that many players who can void so many potential negatives on a team — on the ice, in the locker room and in the heads of opponents. There just aren’t that many players who can turn you into a playoff team.
“I played with Bobby when he was an 18-year-old in Hartford, and everything about him is straight ahead,� former Thrasher Ray Ferraro said. “He’s intelligent. He’s opinionated. He’s very direct, and that’s the way he plays on the ice. You’re not going to see him go around very many individuals. He goes over the top.�
It’s not easy to find an impact center. Think of football: Every team wants a great running back, but not to the extent it wants a great quarterback. Centers take face-offs. They set the tone. They have increased responsibilities at both ends of the ice. Centers have to think the game.
Holik isn’t merely a center. He is 6-foot-4, 235 pounds. (That’s also not the norm in Thrashers’ history.) On the offensive end, he will park himself in front of the net and take a beating to position himself for a goal. On the defensive end, he will clear space.
If you want to know what Bobby Holik is, just consider what Patrik Stefan too often hasn’t been: a nuisance to the opposition.
Ferraro on Holik: “I hated playing against him.�
Sometimes, it’s even hard to play with him. That’s also what makes him perfect for this team. He talks a lot. He antagonizes and complains so much at times that you half-wonder if some teammates don’t smile a little when an opponent elbows him in the mouth. (“I can’t keep my mouth shut,� he once told The New Yorker.)
The Thrashers needed that. This has been a young team too often punctuated by skilled but soft players. It’s also a team often laden with Europeans. Holik is a rarity: a Czech-born forward who plays a more physical North American style and doesn’t know the meaning of the word “tact.”
General manager Don Waddell has long embraced Holik’s “passion for the game� and his demanding nature. His roster has cried for that.
“The leadership of our team has drastically changed with [the additions of Scott] Mellanby and Bobby,� he said. “These are guys who [speak out] - and particularly Bobby, since he has won championships, the respect factor has to be there.�
Holik, as Ferraro noted, “can be abrasive.� If a teammate is fat, Holik will tell him. If a teammate is slow on the backcheck, he’ll tell him. When the New York Rangers lost a game to Toronto two years ago, Holik was upset some teammates blamed officiating. “That’s a great excuse for some people,� he said, “but you don’t allow nine goals in two games and blame it on the referees.�
He sounds like a hockey player should sound. He looks like a hockey player should look. His head resembles a block of concrete. His nose has been flattened. His hair is buzzed. His face is scarred.
He lacks finesse but hasn’t been starved for offensive production. He has nine 20-plus-goal seasons and that balance coaches love: 642 points and 1,102 penalty minutes. Of his 281 career goals, 53 have been game-winners.
Holik will lead players that need to be led, not just by words but also by his actions.
“You can say all you want about a guy being a vocal leader,â€? Ferraro said. “But he wins. He can say to guys, ‘Do you want to win the Stanley Cup? Here’s how.’â€?
The Thrashers never had that before. They’ve also never made the playoffs. One void ended Tuesday. Expect the other to end next April.
Permalink | | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
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