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Thursday, April 27, 2006
Different test for Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
You know me. I’m the guy who insists the Braves will be fine when everybody else is saying they’re finished. I said it in 2004 when they were under .500 on the Fourth of July, said it again last year when they trailed Washington by 5 1/2 games on July 3.
You’ll notice I’m not saying it now.
Yes, it’s ridiculously early. Yes, the Braves are beginning to get healthy and have already played almost 20 percent of their road games for the season. No, the Braves are never very good in April. I know all that. But I’m starting to believe these Mets are really good.
The chief reason the Braves have been able to execute their customary chase-downs is that, over the last dozen years, they haven’t fallen way behind a truly solid team operating at peak capacity. There’s a difference in trailing the 2001 Phillies, who were too young, or the 2005 Nationals, who weren’t all that skilled, or even the 2004 Marlins, who were coming off a World Series title but weren’t quite the same club, and in ceding ground to the 2006 Mets.
The Mets have a better lineup than the Braves, a better closer and a better top of the rotation. Not insignificantly, the Mets are no longer managed by the grating Bobby Valentine. Meanwhile, there’s growing suspicion the Braves aren’t quite the Braves.
Jorge Sosa, who couldn’t lose last summer, can’t win this spring. Jeff Francoeur, who lit the fuse that burned into a 14th consecutive division title, isn’t hitting his weight, let alone his stride. Chipper Jones can’t find a position he can play without hurting himself. Tim Hudson displays only sporadic traces of being a real No. 1 starter.
And let’s not forget the bullpen, which already has blown five saves. (No National League team has blown more.) Even so, one reliever — Oscar Villarreal — carries more victories than the entire rotation. This being baseball, pitching remains the greatest concern. In seasons past, we took it on faith that Leo Mazzone would get the most from his staff; we can’t yet assume the same of Roger McDowell.
I know, I know. You don’t win 14 division titles without weathering turbulence en route, and over time the Braves have proved themselves expert problem-solvers. But someday some team will set a snare from which even the Braves can’t extricate themselves. The 2005 Marlins might have been such a team had they not devoted their energies to hating Jack McKeon and his smelly cigars. The 2006 Mets might well be such a team.
For years, the Mets have been Charlie Brown — “This time I’m really going to kick that ball!” — to the Braves’ snickering Lucy. They’d assemble a roster with no thought for defense or cohesion and then collapse when things didn’t go their way. These Mets, as built by the savvy Omar Minaya, seem more grounded. No team with Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine and Carlos Delgado and Billy Wagner is apt to lack self-assurance. No team with this many proud and accomplished pros is going to cede the NL East to the Braves on history alone.
This is a big weekend for the Braves, sure, but it’s bigger for the visitors. Counting the 1999 NLCS, the Mets have lost 54 of 74 games at Turner Field. If they’re indeed stout enough to end the great Braves’ run, this is where the proving must start.
For their part, the Braves simply need to get going. It’s not as if they’ve played their way out of anything or even into unfamiliar territory. Over the past 15 seasons, they’ve been in this same spot — five games behind after 21 played — twice before. They were in 2001, which stands as the last season they advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs, and they were in 1995, which ended with them winning the World Series.
You know me. I’ve seen way too much to dismiss the Braves’ chances. Were they 10 games back with 10 to play, I’d still think they could win. That said, I wouldn’t advise falling 10 games behind these Mets.
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Bonds tops The Babe - then what?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Even by the bizarre standards of baseball — a sport that has, as we know, seen one World Series canceled and another thrown — a moment of staggering strangeness is at hand. Within the next fortnight, give or take, Barry Bonds will catch and pass Babe Ruth. Such milestones are, or at least should be, the essence of sports. But how do you celebrate a man generally considered to be a cheat?
What does baseball do? Ignore it? Damn the achievement with the faintest of praise? Does Bud Selig make it a point to be on hand for the historic homer(s)? And if he doesn’t, isn’t a point of an altogether different sort being made?
Baseball fell all over itself to trumpet Mark McGwire in 1998, and in the cold light of hindsight that epic home run chase seems a sham. The shadow of steroids has changed baseball forever, and even with MLB’s new testing and toughened talk there’s no blueprint on how to handle what McGwire did and what Bonds is about to do. Do you throw out their statistics on the strength of hearsay accounts? Is suspicion enough to override deeds done on the field of play?
And Bonds’ pursuit of Ruth could be only the unappealing appetizer. What if he zeroes in on Hank Aaron’s 755? What does baseball do then? What do we as observers do?
A guess: We’ll never know. A guess: Bonds will catch Ruth but not Aaron. A guess: Bonds will have a 30-homer season and will retire at its end, citing physical deterioration as the reason. And finally we’ll be able to cheer the man, if only for sparing us the agony of seeing him become the sport’s home run king.
Bonds is a bad guy, but sometimes even bad guys do the right thing. He knows full well that an assault on 755 would ratchet up scrutiny past the point where even he could stand the strain. Roger Maris’ hair fell out in September 1961. Barry Bonds, as we know, has no hair left to lose.
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