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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
McCann no longer a background piece
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Only one guy gets to be the franchise Golden Boy. It makes it easier for the masses to identify one guy to build up and tear down during slow news days. I’m sure there’s an upside to being the Golden Boy, but it’s probably not signing two boxes of hats when you’re trying to inflate a .255 batting average.
That was Jeff Francoeur holding the Sharpie on Tuesday.
That was Brian McCann, happily blending into the background. That’s not easy to do when you lead your team, and the National League, in batting.
“I think everybody is screaming about the wrong guy right now,” Braves hitting coach Terry Pendleton said Tuesday.
McCann entered Tuesday hitting .352. He hit .442 over his past 16 games. I know what you’re thinking: Yet another batting race comes down to McCann and Albert Pujols.
“Right now I’m just trying to ride this out as long as I can,” McCann said. “I never thought I could get off to a hot start like this.”
McCann was not in the lineup against Florida on Tuesday night because the Marlins started a left-hander, Dontrelle Willis. Maybe it’s just me, but shouldn’t a guy on a .442 tear be a lineup staple, regardless if the pitcher throws left, right or spits the ball to the plate?
Pendleton said it best. Somewhere along the way, the Braves’ lead story got buried.
Last year, it was McCann who stepped in as starting catcher after injuries to Johnny Estrada and Eddie Perez. Three days after being recalled from Class AA Mississippi in June, he caught John Smoltz’s first complete game in six years and hit his first major league home run. This winter, the Braves had no second thoughts about dealing Estrada.
This year has been a nice reality check for the 22-year-old. It was about a month ago when it finally sunk in that this was neither a dream nor a career aberration.
“You start thinking to yourself, ‘You’re a big leaguer.’ You’ve got to start thinking like one and know that you belong at this level,” McCann said. “Realizing that has led to my best month ever.”
That, and his personal hitting coach. McCann is the product of a baseball family. His father, Howie, runs a baseball academy in Alpharetta. When Brian slumps, he phones his father. One of those calls came in April.
“He said, ‘Dad, I don’t feel good. Check the TiVo for me,’” Howie McCann said Tuesday. “So I started looking at his at-bats. Our relationship is such that I don’t help him unless he asks. I guess that’s why we still get along.”
The father stayed up until 3 a.m. He looked at games from last year and this spring and discovered a minor flaw. McCann said his front leg and hands weren’t moving in concert. He went back to the park the next day and, “I felt like a different person.”
If this keeps up, the father might have to offer the son an endorsement deal.
“He’s hitting like he’s in high school again,” Howie McCann said.
We can’t know how McCann would react to adversity if he operated under the same daily microscope that Francoeur does. We only know how he easily brushes off whatever attention he gets now. He handles the pitching staff and has significantly improved his defense. The term “sophomore slump” has not entered the McCann equation.
“The big thing,” McCann said, “is not being prepared. Baseball is about adjustments. In the second year, you have to be prepared to make adjustments.”
He’s 22.
McCann jokes that his lack of attention “comes with being the catcher.” It’s the unglamorous position, the face behind the mask, all that. But he’s not bothered by the lack of attention. Actually, he embraces it.
“I like being in the background,” he said. “Jeff’s got to answer a ton of questions. When he was struggling early on, everybody was like, ‘This guy’s terrible.’”
It’s not easy being gold.
McCann continues to fly under the radar. When the National League all-star voting comes out, he likely will be buried deep down the polls. But if he keeps this up, he should make the team as an add-on. Sometimes, we just scream about the wrong guy.
Permalink | Comments (37) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Gripes about Augusta National misplaced
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It is curious how possessive the public has become about Augusta National, the golf club, and the Masters, its tournament. It is the resulting mixture in part of envy and social resentment. If there were no Masters Tournament, it would barely be noticed, for there are several private male-only golf clubs in the USA, all sailing along calmly and unintruded. The Masters throws open the gates and invites the world in, thus giving those able to acquire badges, and equally as many who don’t, the feeling that they have a voice in the forum.
So, when Hootie Johnson retired as chairman and Billy Payne became his successor, instead of a smooth transition without roiling the waters, Martha Burk, female membership and a laundry list of matters totally unrelated to golf dominated news accounts. Surely Johnson’s reign should be marked by a good deal more this hassle over female membership.
What about the rise of Tiger Woods? What about the emotional exits of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer? What about the $25 million that Augusta National has funneled into charities? What about the extended presence the “handmade” pimiento cheese sandwiches - and how do you make sandwiches if not by hand? And more pertinent to the game itself, was it not the hand of Hootie that brought the golf course into the 21st Century, critical as many of us were at times?
No matter how long he shall live, Hootie Johnson’s name will never be able to escape its marriage to Martha Burk, whipped into a frenzy by the thirsting media. It may come across as puzzling that national publications have been softer on the club that some in the geographical area.
“Only Cliff Roberts had as much impact (as Johnson),” it was written in the publication, Golf World.
“Outgoing Augusta chair Hootie Johnson did more than battle Martha Burk,” said a headline in Sports Illustrated, which further added: “The ultimate irony is that while Johnson has been decried for having a 1950s’ view of the sexes” (he, a man with four daughters) “he shaped one of golf’s most important issues of the 21st Century - and single-handedly ensured that Augusta National remains a superb tournament venue, not a museum piece.”
Sorry I didn’t write it first.
On the Billy Payne side of it, the critics were stumped to come up with something vitriolic. “Billy Payne’s a good fit as chairman at Augusta National GC, for a lot of reasons,” Tim Rosaforte, former president of the Golf Writers Association, wrote in Golf World. “He’s ‘New South’ … it’s a tough position, but Billy’s got the game to handle it.”
Hootie Johnson has played a heavy hand in matters other than Augusta National. He has been a state legislator, a forerunner in racial issues, a king-maker as a banker, a South Carolinian with a distinguished record in other fields. Most of which would have gone unrecognized had he not been set up as a public target at Augusta National. Whatever he has tackled (no play on words), he has taken on with intensity. When his career as a running back hit a wall as a South Carolina Gamecock, he then said, “I’ll try to become the best blocking back I can be.” He still, though, has no sweet memories of his coach, Rex Enright, one of USC’s more popular coaches.
If this strikes you as strange, that I should be checking in on the subject at this late time, there is a reason. As soon as the change of command took place, I was off on a golfing mission to Ireland and only recently returned. I didn’t want to miss out on my turn at bat. Or, more fittingly, on the tee.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: This is no statement on what the Falcons’ offense is or might be. But I’m getting a little tired of Jim Mora talking about how he and Greg Knapp improved the team’s ranking from 29th to whatever. Why? (Next.)
9: Sure, the Falcons ranked 29th in 2003, the season before Mora got here. You might recall that Michael Vick was injured that season. It was Doug Johnson running the offense for most of the year. Mora needs some new talking points.
8: Does Larry Brown get a paycheck every week or do teams just leave the cash on the nightstand?
7: Billy Knight says he knows more about basketball than the rest of us do. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that. But how much dumber would I have to be to win fewer than 39 games in two seasons?
6: If Knight had consulted with the Hawks’ public relations people and asked, “OK, what shouldn’t I say this off-season,” they would have written up the same list of comments he told our Mark Bradley the other day. Thinking he knows what he’s doing is one thing. Articulating it in such a way that it doesn’t make you look like a pompous, arrogant goof is another.
5: I can’t believe Meredith actually slept with Dr. McDreamy again. It’s so over between us. But about Shepherd’s estranged wife …
4: I’m assuming Dany Heatley will handle this off-season better than he handled the last one. But fair or unfair, he’s already among a handful of Ottawa players being blamed for the Senators’ early playoff exit.
3: I know. At least he got there.
2: First Duke’s lacrosse team is suspended for rape allegations, now Northwestern’s women’s soccer team is suspended for alleged hazing. Duke lacrosse. Northwestern women’s soccer. Whatever happened to the good ol’ days of SEC football teams dominating the blotter?
1: ESPN talking heads are now actually complaining that they’re tired of the Barry Bonds hype and home run watch and can’t wait for it to end. Um. Excuse me. But who created this?
Permalink | Comments (26) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
