AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2005 > November > 01 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USThe Tuesday Countdown: Braves, Dogs, Birds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: So one year after winning their first World Series in 86 years, the Red Sox barely reached the post-season, lost in the first round of the playoffs and had their general manager leave town on Halloween night. So who wants to be the first to set an over/under on the Sox’ next title?
9: I know. I know. One year before the Braves. Speaking of which…
8: I took some abuse from the masses in the Land of the Devoted But Uninformed after daring to suggest in a recent column that losing pitching coach Leo Mazzone wasn’t anything to panic over. But just the other day, our David O’Brien drew this reaction from pitcher John Smoltz on Mazzone’s exit: “I’ve been with him longer than anybody, and he’s helped me a lot. But people on the inside understand. Maybe not from the outside; people on the outside think there is a huge void to fill. It’s not a huge void.â€?
7: No apologies necessary. Maybe a beer.
6: I personally don’t care whether DeAngelo Hall wears Nike or Reebok. Getting faked out of either pair seems like the bigger concern.
5: Not that it matters. But I still can’t figure out how Georgia falls from 4 to 11 in the rankings when it was a four-point underdog to Florida without D.J. Shockley — and lost by four points. Are they being ranked with Joe Tereshinski or with Shockley? The Dogs suddenly find themselves behind LSU (6-1), UCLA (8-0), Notre Dame (5-2) and Penn State (8-1).
4: In this week’s Tuesday Countdown Celebrity News, things are getting nasty in the Kim Basinger-Alec Baldwin split. Baldwin says Kimmy has a “pathological need� to turn their daughter against him. Kimmy says jerk-face has “severe emotional problems.� Clearly, both are telling the truth. But I’ve gotta side with who looks better in stilettos.
3: Roger McDowell, Mazzone’s replacement, was famous in his pitching days for practical jokes, including using gum to stick a book of burning matches to a teammate’s shoe. That certainly would’ve made mound visits interesting this season.
2: An online betting service has posted odds on what baseball player from a playoff team supposedly secretly tested positive for steroids. Gary Sheffield is listed as the favorite among 12 players at 2-1. No Braves were listed, which means either that they’re clean or everybody has stopped paying attention to them in October.
1: Thrashers. Hawks. Bird flu?
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
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By Jay
November 1, 2005 06:34 PM | Link to this
St. Jeffrey:
The Bulldogs, as you made us aware so many times over the past few months, are being punished by the football gods for their off-season sins.
Go Dawgs
By desertdawg
November 1, 2005 06:57 PM | Link to this
The gods may be punishing us but we still have a great shot at finishing in the top 10 for the 4th straight year. I will agree that we should have fallen but not to 11th. maybe 7-8th—UCLA is weak and Penn St will lose this weekend along with Notre Dame. We get our shot at Bama or LSU in the dome. GO DAWGS !
By Doug
November 1, 2005 07:01 PM | Link to this
I’m glad someone else spoke up to call shenanigans on the Bulldogs’ precipitous drop out of the top 10. To use the example of one of the teams you mention as now ranked above the Dawgs, Notre Dame lost to an unranked Michigan State squad (with their starting quarterback) and only dropped 6 spots, then lost to Southern Cal (also with their starting quarterback) and didn’t drop at all.
But there’s not much we can do about it now other than get well during the bye week, build our confidence back up, and come out swinging. Beat Auburn, take care of the rest of the schedule, and elbow our way back into the SEC title game, and we’ll regain a top-10 ranking soon enough.
By geechee
November 1, 2005 07:54 PM | Link to this
Wow Iago, going to bat for the Dogs. I don’t even think I’ve seen one comment among Dog faithful even questioning the 11 spot.
Stilettos, flip flops, barefoot, it does not matter we the faithful will always defend the Athens girl.
Compared to Maddog’s personality, the Braves will never see interesting again.
That’s my take, nice column by the way……….ciao
By geechee
November 1, 2005 08:38 PM | Link to this
I forgot to add for about the seventh time now or rather ask. I have gone back and tried to find the column but, the AJC makes you guess at the date. Did that conversation between you and Walsh take place just as you wrote it? Did the guy actually say he was late for Mensa, “but you wouldn’t know anything about that”? It got me rolling on the floor but I have always wondered ever since whether that part was real or magniloquence.
By Francisco
November 1, 2005 08:48 PM | Link to this
And what about the bullspend..? fire with that.. Furcal’s departure may be necessary to bring men can do this role…. we have betemit at (ss). We shouldn’t resign him..
By Francisco
November 1, 2005 09:00 PM | Link to this
forget ‘bout Furcal,this money is necessary for the team, we can fill his spot with other players inside the farm system…WE REALLY NEED BACKUP PITCHERS!!
By Michael
November 2, 2005 12:12 AM | Link to this
Georgia lost more recently than those other teams above them. I can deal with undefeated UCLA being up there and even Notre Dame. Yes they have two losses but one of those was by a foot to USC. It’s still a loss but in this day of record-whoring I can deal with that. LSU and Penn State are there for obvious reasons: “didn’t they win the national title a few years ago?” and “didn’t Joe Paterno win the national title 2 decades ago?”
It’s reasons like this the BCS needs to be given a burial at sea (flushed down the toilet).
By Joe Roman
November 2, 2005 06:39 AM | Link to this
If sports fans were a bit more honest with themselves, they’d embrace the BCS “system”. Without it, there would be one less thing to whine about, and isn’t whining really what many sports fans truly love? I mean far more than the games. There may be ‘no crying in baseball’, but whining dominates all sports.
By kudzu
November 2, 2005 07:50 AM | Link to this
NO WAY do we overpay for Furcal…don’t buy into this “he’s worth more now, plenty of suitors, agents nonsense”, etc. The Braves need pitching plain and simple.
Please, as much as I really like Furcal, he’s expendable.
By Joe
November 2, 2005 09:44 AM | Link to this
The Falcons
The worst team in the NFL, except for all the others. Their recievers stink, their front 5 are too small, and their QB can’t complete half his passes, but they keep winning.
Quit your whining.
By Eric
November 2, 2005 10:12 AM | Link to this
Hey Desert, Are you as sure that you’ll get to Atlanta as you were that you’d beat Florida? I think Auburn will do to you what Alabama did to Florida. Bama will beat LSU. Then Auburn will beat Bama and embarrass the Gators in the Dome. War Eagle!
By Randall
November 2, 2005 11:13 AM | Link to this
I’m a loyal Dawg, but face it, we were overrated. We barely beat South Carolina and Arkansas (the same team that USC hung 70 points on - 28 of which was before the fans even got settled in good) and didn’t look all that great in beating Miss. St. The only real impressive win was Boise State. Considering what has happened with Tennessee, that win really isn’t all that special.
By Greg from Marietta
November 2, 2005 11:50 AM | Link to this
Baseball and the Braves You were 100% correct on the loss of Leo Mazzone. He’ll be missed, but he is not indispensable. That brings me to Rafael Furcal. It’s true he’s a great shortstop with a cannon for an arm and he is also a pretty good leadoff man. However he, like Mazzone, is not indispensable either. The Braves would be better off putting the money used to resign him in looking for pitching and/or hitting help. After all this is a business and not a game, I think most fans forget that.
By Stanley
November 2, 2005 01:06 PM | Link to this
If you look at the last few years, Georgia has never played up to their potential with any team except the very weak ones. The players only play up to the level that they think they need to in order to win (by a very bare margin), except for the teams that they play that are not true Division 1A established teams. The only way Georgia will ever have a National Championship Team is if they luck into it. There is no reason for them to have lost that game against the Gators. They go to Jacksonville each year to party, and nothing else. I thought that the current coach would stop that but is very evident that he has not and now I don’t think he has the ability to stop the partying before the Ga-Fl game. How else do you explain loosing 14 of the last 16 years to Fl teams that only half of them should have beaten the Dogs. IT IS THE COACHES, THEY DON’T REQUIRE THE DEDICATION AND BEST PERFORMANCES FROM THE PLAYERS. In Saturday’s game the Defense didn’t even show up until the end of the first quarter…..If they had been in the game rather than still HUNG OVER from partying, Florida could not have even scored at all…………So Now I challange all the Georgia Athletic Association to face the problems and resolve them, or be content to never have any hopes of a national championship season.. and very few SEC Championships, they will also almost have to be given that one, and with Spurrier at SC, I don’t think that will happen anytime soon unless it is this year, because Spurrier will have SC in the mix for the SEC title next year….
By RUDY's BACK!!!
November 2, 2005 01:28 PM | Link to this
The PUPPIES and the SEC are grossly overrated!I hope N.D. gets the Sugar Bowl so they can put the final smackdown on the SEC. GO IRISH!!!
By Reality Bites
November 2, 2005 03:17 PM | Link to this
“The Dogs suddenly find themselves behind LSU (6-1), UCLA (8-0), Notre Dame (5-2) and Penn State (8-1).”
Hmmmm. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that all four of those teams would beat the pants off the pups. The ruse is over, Dawg fans. Your team was painfully overrated and the loss to Florida gave the voters the excuse they needed to drop them down to the second tier where they belong.
By Frank
November 2, 2005 07:02 PM | Link to this
Georgia fans should look at there schedule and they will find they do not play anyone in the top 15. Auburn has played LSU and will have to play Georgia and Ala.If Georgia went undefeated this year they would have been where Auburn was last year, left out.
By geechee
November 2, 2005 10:56 PM | Link to this
“Auburn will beat Bama and embarrass the Gators in the Dome. War Eagle!”
They don’t take two SEC teams in the Peach Bowl. One has to be ACC.
By geechee
November 2, 2005 11:14 PM | Link to this
“IT IS THE COACHES, THEY DON’T REQUIRE THE DEDICATION AND BEST PERFORMANCES FROM THE PLAYERS. In Saturday’s game the Defense didn’t even show up until the end of the first quarter…..If they had been in the game rather than still HUNG OVER from partying, Florida could not have even scored at all…………So Now I challange all the Georgia Athletic Association to face the problems and resolve them, or be content to never have any hopes of a national championship season.. and very few SEC Championships, they will also almost have to be given that one, and with Spurrier at SC, I don’t think that will happen anytime soon unless it is this year, because Spurrier will have SC in the mix for the SEC title next year….”
Stanley, my friend, You are tripping out. Hung over from the party? You are no Dog fan. There is a reason for losing to UF. We got beat. We were told by the experts not to expect much out of Athens this season, 8-3 at best but now you feel they suck because they won’t go undefeated.
Spurrier is over his head at SC, he’s a great coach and he’ll attract players but not like he would at UF and the state is too small to provide him what he needs on a regular basis. Holtz figured that out after a lot of big talk. Spurrier will give it a go for a couple of years. If he doesn’t think he can hit it on a regular basis, he’ll retire or fire Meyer.
By Dawgbeater
November 4, 2005 10:14 AM | Link to this
Geechee- Very salient point and probably the most rational comment I have heard from the other side of the border…The real thing that saved the Gators was their defense the second half, as they didnt accomplish much after jumping out ahead and hanging on(except for the fumble)… Now that some of the rhetoric and posturing has subsided, what do you expect from the Auburn game this year?I really haven’t followed the war eagle tigers enough to comment-better go research some and then let’s get some good dialogue on this blog about advantages for each team while the dawgs are riding horses and off this week…
By Jeff
November 4, 2005 03:41 PM | Link to this
UGA has been overrated all season and has not beaten ONE truly good football team. How many of their wins are against teams ranked TODAY? What is the overall record of the teams they have beaten? (I am betting it is BELOW .500) After Auburn takes care of the puppies next week, maybe some of these “delusions of greatness” will finally subside.