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May 2006
Moore’s exit from Braves not a good sign
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The safest bet in professional sports has been that the Braves will finish first over 162 games, but suddenly an air of uncertainty hangs over this sure thing. Key people are leaving for jobs with lousy franchises. Both organizational linchpins are 65, and no succession plan exists. With ownership subject to change any minute, how could it?
Dayton Moore, the man atop the famous farm system, just became Kansas City’s general manager. This comes seven months after Leo Mazzone, the most celebrated pitching coach ever, bolted for Baltimore. Yes, there are mitigating circumstances galore — Mazzone doubled his salary to work for his longtime pal; Moore is a Kansas native — but the cold reality is that the men chiefly responsible for pitching and player development, the twin staples these past 15 years, are gone.
“He’ll be missed,” manager Bobby Cox said of Moore. “He’s just super. Everything runs smooth when he’s around.”
Nothing lasts forever: We on the periphery keep saying as much, and somehow the Braves keep finishing first and making us look silly. While the end of the run of consecutive division titles might not be at hand — the Mets have come back to the pack — the signals suggest they’re much closer to the end than the beginning.
Cox and John Schuerholz, the best in their business, are under contract only through next season. Nobody seriously believes that any manner of new owner would sweep either man aside, but it’s unclear how much longer these two will choose to stay employed.
Would Mazzone, who reveres Cox, have left for any amount of money had this manager been 10 years younger? Would Moore, who apparently had nosed ahead of Frank Wren in the in-house Schuerholz succession sweepstakes, have been open to offers if Time Warner wasn’t itself accepting bids?
Said Moore: “I know a lot’s been speculated, but this had nothing to do with the ownership change or how long John Schuerholz is going to be the GM.”
Maybe it didn’t. But when two fixtures of a franchise in conspicuous flux reach what is for many retirement age, those around them have to wonder what’s what. And nobody knows, not even the men themselves.
When someone suggested he and Schuerholz can’t go on forever, Cox scrunched up his face. “Why can’t we?” But all he’d say about his vocational plan was, “I honestly don’t know. … I’m good through next year.”
And the GM’s exit strategy? “I’d like to go out feet-first,” Schuerholz said. Then, seriously: “I keep having to remind myself that I’m 65 and I should be slowing down and should be growing weary. But I’m not, and I’m not.”
Schuerholz insisted Moore didn’t seek an assurance that he’d be the next general manager here if he stayed. “It’s dangerous to make those kind of promises,” Schuerholz said. It’s doubly dangerous when a team isn’t sure who (or what) will be paying the freight.
“The team’s being sold,” said Jeff Francoeur, who was drafted by Moore and has become a close friend. “Anything can happen. You hear that people are looking at us as an investment. … You’d hate to think what’s happening in Florida would happen to us.”
The good news: It won’t. The Marlins are a struggling team housed in a football stadium in an iffy market. The Braves are proven winners in a spiffy ballpark in a city that has proven it will support them. Even so, the question of ownership only deepens the intrigue. For 15 years, the Braves have worked under clear and inspired leadership. Beyond the horizon, who knows?
Sounding as if he were preparing the PowerPoint presentation for the Braves’ next executive retreat, Schuerholz shrugged off the loss of Moore and projected “a seamless transition from today’s Braves to tomorrow’s Braves.” Over the past 15 years, Schuerholz has seldom been wrong — OK, there was Albie Lopez — but he’s wrong about this.
Those seams? They’re showing.
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Cuban the ultimate Maverick
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
No question, these are the most interesting NBA playoffs in years. For instance: You’ve had LeBron James continuing his habit of maturing and impressing every moment. You’ve had the Clippers forgetting that they are the Clippers.
Now you have this wonderful track meet between the Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks that will last until the final seconds of Game 7. Plus, Pat Riley and Shaq are trying to relive their old glory with the Miami Heat, and the Detroit Pistons are trying to show that their greatness isn’t just a figment of their imaginations.
Here’s another reason these playoffs are so riveting: Mark Cuban. You don’t know what the owner of the Mavericks will do next. Go nose-to-nose with a referee after a bad call. Order lobster for all those watching the next Dallas home game. Arrive at midcourt in a space ship.
Although Cuban’s nemesis, commissioner David Stern, won’t admit it, Cuban’s unpredictability is good for the sport. No, great. Just as long as he doesn’t land that space ship on somebody’s head.
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For what it’s worth …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
… and then some: Let’s see, if we Americans are to continue to follow our sporting games, we must get better acquainted with the pronunciation of some puzzling names. The Cubs started a pitcher Sunday named Jae Kuk Ryu (pronounced “You”); the LPGA tournament was won by Hee-Won Han; there are six Kims playing the LPGA Tour, and another coming along, Song-Hee Kim, who won the Underwood Futures Championship, all of which makes the PGA Tour’s Aaron Oberholser sound rather commonplace… . And whatever became of Keith Clearwater?
• These golfers who turn 50 and move from the PGA Tour into the Champions Tour usually break out in a rash of winning, as did Craig Stadler, Peter Jacobson and just the other day, Jay Haas in the Senior PGA Championship. Wonder if a handicap system shouldn’t be a way to even the playing field for the first couple of years?
• Divorce is breaking out among golf professionals, and among the upper level. It was a shocker when Greg Norman announced that he and Laura are breaking up, joining an all-star lineup of Fred Couples, Seve Ballesteros, Colin Montgomerie and on the LPGA side, Annika Sorenstam. You’d have thought that the worst part of it would have been behind them. The Normans’ two children are 23 and 20 years old.
• It ain’t Notre Dame, but I guess you’d say that George O’Leary has completed the comeback from the biographical glitch that cost him the job in South Bend. A 10-year contract at Central Florida is pretty good assurance that he has finally righted his craft.
• Oops! Apologies to Charismatic, who came within 30 yards of completing the Triple Crown in ‘99, then was sold to breeding interests in Japan. He has not been reduced to drayage, as I suggested the other day, but is still busy in the breeding shed, according to Cot Campbell, a man who should know. Dogwood Stable raced Preakness winner Summer Squall, who sired Charismatic.
• In the rating system of Blackie Sherrod, the retired Dallas columnist, he saw only one old Southwest Conference player better than Doak Walker. He was a linebacker: Tommy Nobis, a Texas Longhorn before he became a Falcon.
• A San Francisco company put up a $100,000 check for the ball that became Barry Bonds’ 715th home run. A man standing in line at a beer counter had it roll off a ledge into his unsuspecting hands. He had 24 hours to claim his prize, last I read.
• The golfing pastor from Cullman, Ala., Bob Kurtz, has another feather to put in his halo. Starting at 5:21 in the morning, he played 168 holes by 7:38 at night, and he wasn’t just hacking away. He played one stretch of 18 holes in 63. Lest you forget, Kurtz was once a sportscaster on WCNN before turning to the ministry at St. John’s Church in Cullman.
• Jack Nicklaus has spread his course designing wings to Croatia, the 28th country for him. It was a deal made at the highest level, signed with the prime minister.
• Some off-the-wall airline statistics: The wingspan of the Boeing 747 is wider than the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk was long; American Airlines said it saved $40,000 a year by putting one less olive in salads, and think how much Delta has saved by no longer serving courtesy drinks in first class. In fact, no first class, all business elite up front.
• Shoeless Joe Jackson’s last house has been moved from the mill village in which he grew up to a site next to the new ball park, home of the Greenville minor league team. It will be converted into a baseball museum.
• Wait a minute, what’s this? The NCAA has approved four more postseason bowl games, which makes 32, if I’m not missing something. Four more that will only have to blush when they refer to themselves as “bowl teams.” Where in heaven’s name are they going to find eight more teams without taking some that only break even?
• Keith Jackson retiring again. How many retirements do you get?
Selah.
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The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Three-day weekends make the Tuesday Countdown feels like a Monday Countdown, even though I worked on Monday, which come to think of it felt like a Sunday. OK. Let’s get to it. I’m due back on Neptune by dinner.
9: I’m not a racist - liars, cheaters and jerks come in all colors. I don’t care who passes Babe Ruth in home runs - Ruth and I aren’t related and, besides, I hate the Yankees. I’m not jealous of Barry Bonds - I’ve covered great athletes or all colors and nationalities from all sports for 25 years. There. That should cover it for anybody who felt I stepped over the line by calling Bonds’ 715th home run an embarrassment for baseball.
8: Also this: I merely tried to make the point that Bonds’ juiced, late-career home run totals, which carried him to historical levels, was one of baseball’s five most embarrassing moments ever. I didn’t rank the five. Actually, I listed them chronologically: The “Black Sox” scandal; Pete Rose’s ban for gambling; collective bargaining problems forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series; Congressional drug trials; Bonds.
7: If any good came out of this, it was that ESPN gave up air time like a stripper sells a table dance with “Bonds on Bonds,” only to have the mini-series go splat.
6: Please. No more parallels between Danica Patrick and Anna Kournikova. Patrick is not a fraud. I’m not saying she’s going to win the Indy Racing League title one day. But to finish eighth in a field of 33 cars in the Indianapolis 500 this early in her career makes her legitimate. Kournikova played tennis between Maxim spreads and risked breaking a nail. Patrick just drove a race car 500 miles — and risked her life doing so.
5: Edmonton will play either Buffalo or Carolina for the Stanley Cup. Either way, do you want to be Gary Bettman right about now?
4: Look, I’m a hockey guy. But the winner of Phoenix-Dallas against the winner of Miami-Detroit is going to do a lot more for the NBA then Oilers-Sabres or Oilers-Hurricanes will do for puck central.
3: Former Falcon Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, who died Saturday after a long battle with a brain tumor, battled some demons in his 11-year career. But he was as tough as they come - yet at times also was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. Len Pasquarelli, my comrade and former co-worker, wrote a nice tribute on ESPN.com
2: Some people can’t figure out why a tough disciplinarian like Nick Saban is still sticking by Williams. Isn’t it obvious? He can play football. It’s the old SEC training of sticking by convicts who can block and tackle.
1: Joe Theismann just called Ricky Williams a “disgrace to the game.” It’s not that I don’t agree with Theismann. I just never wanted to be on the same side of an issue as him.
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Can this bullpen be saved?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Glenn Hubbard had his hands in mud. It’s part of his job description. Before every game, he grabs a jar of mud — not just any backyard mud but the official stuff from Delran, N.J., where it no doubt comes from someone’s backyard — and rubs up a bag of slick, new baseballs for the bullpen.
“I tried to add some pine tar to the mud once,” the Braves’ coach said, in a tone that would suggest this was excerpted from BALCO testimony. “But it didn’t really work.”
Given the Braves’ malfunctioning bullpen this season, a mixture with super glue might be a better option. Anything to prevent the ball from leaving a reliever’s hand would be progress.
Monday was a rare day for the Braves. They lost to Los Angeles, 12-5. But they made it through a game without a blown save. Celebrate, Atlanta.
Reliever Chad Paronto was punched for a three-run homer in the eighth. But by then John Thompson already had secured a blown start (seven runs in 1 1/3 innings, helped by three walks in front of him and three errors behind him).
With two-thirds of the season to go, the Braves are 27-24, and relatively close to first place. It’s this season’s little miracle. Not often can a team start the day with the National League’s 12th worst bullpen (4.61 ERA) and baseball’s 25th worst save percentage (.520), but still sit north of the Marlins. Or Richmond.
Those two trends can’t co-exist. The players know it. The manager knows it. Certainly, the franchise architect who tried to swing a deal for a closer in the winter, only to be forced to remodel a bullpen on a foundation made of Chris Reitsma, knows it.
We just passed Memorial Day. It’s too early for John Schuerholz to start chugging Red Bull and speed dialing other general managers until 3 a.m. But some things can’t be ignored. When a bullpen has devolved into a closer-by-committee, it doesn’t mean you have three or four really good closers. It means you have none.
“The situation with the bullpen now, even as early as it is, we’re far enough into the season where the body of evidence is there,” said Schuerholz.
Schuerholz doesn’t divulge a whole lot. For him, this was the equivalent of yelling, “My head’s on fire.”
He is looking for help. He is doing so even though Hubbard was willing to take one for the team Monday: “I must be mudding the balls wrong.”
Schuerholz still hopes a closer will emerge from within the franchise, but said: “I would be less than honest if I said we haven’t talked to people [about potential trades], because we have. Calls have been made.”
Problem: There aren’t a lot of good closers in baseball. More teams have none than one, let alone two. This isn’t like swinging a trade for a utility infielder.
“The hardest positions to fill are the positions that are essential to winning — starting pitchers, closers, shortstops and middle-of-the-lineup productive players,” Schuerholz said. “The universe of options is smaller.”
The Braves also are in the midst of being sold from Time Warner to Liberty Media, a situation that often leads to a frozen budget and a handcuffed GM. But Schuerholz said: “I have not had one conversation about that.”
The bullpen has blown 12 of 25 save opportunities. Sometimes the term “save opportunity” can be misleading. A save can be “blown” in the sixth inning. But in the Braves case, there is nothing misleading about what they’ve blown. Reitsma (four blown saves) isn’t the bullpen’s only stick of dynamite; he’s merely the biggest.
Only five teams had a worse save percentage than Atlanta’s entering Monday. Three had the worst three records in baseball: Kansas City (.333 save percentage, 11-37), Florida (.333, 15-33) and Pittsburgh (.500, 16-34). Another was Washington (.500, 21-30). Only Texas had a worse save percentage (.440) than the Braves and a winning record (26-24).
Monday was a departure. Lance Cormier, Oscar Villarreal and Macay McBride allowed only two runs in 6 2/3 innings of relief work, allowing the Braves an abbreviated comeback from 7-0. Then Paronto played the role of Wile E. Coyote in the ninth.
Some things are inevitable. Like — barring help — losing.
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Bonds’ 715 embarrasses baseball
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Barry Bonds was in Milwaukee recently and the commissioner of baseball wouldn’t make the 10-minute drive from his house to watch him. So it follows that Bud Selig wasn’t in when Bonds moved past Babe Ruth on the home run list.
Nor were any of Ruth’s children. Nor any high-level officials. Nor anybody whose presence screamed, “I’m important, so I’m here.”
Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run Sunday. But every overblown ESPN news break-in couldn’t drown out the sad reality of the moment. It was as awkward as it was historical. Some wanted to watch. Most wanted to cover their eyes.
This wasn’t a player punctuating greatness. This was the most vilified sports star we’ve ever seen affirming his place among the five darkest moments in baseball history.
Count them. Like plagues:
- Eight members of the Chicago White Sox are banned for conspiring to throw the 1919 World Series.
- Pete Rose, the game’s greatest hitter, agrees to a lifetime ban for betting — on baseball.
- Baseball cancels the 1994 World Series, not because of natural disaster but rather mutant labor negotiators.
- Congress holds steroid hearings. Among the Murderers Row giving testimony: Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco — who ironically turns out to be baseball’s shining light.
Bonds passes the great Ruth and closes in on the great Hank Aaron. But he’s the poster child of the steroid era, and his baggage and personality have led him to become the sport’s greatest pox instead of ambassador.
This is a sport that embraces its heroes and statistical achievements. Numbers are dipped in gold. 56. 61. .400. 714. 755.
Now here comes a man who puts up incredible numbers and few outside of San Francisco want to celebrate. Selig said weeks ago he wouldn’t show up for 715. Hold the pomp, shelve the circumstance. Selig would close his eyes and pretend it didn’t happen. There’s an old country-western tune that applies here: “If the phone don’t ring, you know it’s me.”
The NFL had a vested interest in helping reshape Ray Lewis’ image after his Atlanta murder trial. The NBA needed Kobe Bryant to be a smiling pitchman again after rape charges were dropped.
Baseball isn’t moving to resuscitate Bonds. His image couldn’t be saved by “House.” He is impossible to like. A fan catches a home run ball. Bonds refuses a request to sign the ball but asks the fan to sign a release so he could use his likeness on his TV show. This is the sport’s ambassador?
Frogs, locusts, diseased cattle.
Gambling, strikes, steroids.
It’s all relative.
Embarrassment: The “Black” Sox scandal is still debated 87 years later. It has kept “Shoeless” Joe Jackson out of the Hall of Fame. Rose was never accused of throwing a game. He just gutted its integrity by betting and lying about it. The all-time hits leader was thrown out and isn’t in the Hall.
Embarrassment: Fans have learned to hate two words: collective bargaining. But nothing in the long, inglorious history of labor woes equals the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. Owners and players couldn’t figure out how to divide millions.
Embarrassment: Steroids have tainted this entire era of players. Bonds just happens to be the leader in the pharmacy. For baseball to strip him or any player of their statistics is nonsensical. What of the steroid-using pitchers Bonds homered off of? Do two druggies cancel each other out? How to determine which homers were drug-aided and which weren’t? It’s a futile exercise. But we know what steroids have done to the record book. Not players. Steroids.
Bonds says he doesn’t care what people say or think. If that were true, he wouldn’t be trying to reshape his image on TV. ESPN was only too happy to sell itself out, giving Bonds a time slot and a blank script for a weekly 30-minute soliloquy called, “Bonds on Bonds.”
My wife and I watched the other night. There was tape of Philadelphia fans booing Bonds as he stepped to the plate.
“Why are they booing him?” my wife asked. “There’s steroids in hot dogs and Babe Ruth ate those.”
My wife. Funny girl.
Bonds juiced because he was jealous. Relying on interviews, documents and grand jury testimony in the book, “Game of Shadows,” authors alleged that Bonds decided to turn to muscle drugs after witnessing the attention paid to the McGwire-Sosa home run chase in 1998.
Follow the growth. Bonds averaged 31.8 home runs from 1986 to 1999. He averaged 51.6 from 2000 to 2004, including 73 in 2001. He hit one home run every 16 at-bats in his first 14 seasons. He hit one every eight at-bats in his next five.
I know. Good hot dogs.
History views Ruth as a home run hitter. Bonds will be viewed as something far less. A lab creation.
There goes No. 715. Cover your eyes now.
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Praise for Aaron, not Bonds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Well, what’s all this fuss about Barry Bonds breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record, which he may or may not have done by this time? First place, Ruth doesn’t hold the home run record. Once Bonds has hit his 715th he’ll still be 40 home runs shy of the record, and that record is real. Unenhanced by any substance stronger than a 12-ounce steak and a buttered baked potato. I guess. I really don’t remember what Henry Aaron’s favorite foods were, and are.
You hear old-time baseball dudes talk about sweet swings, they speak of Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Joe DiMaggio, you rarely ever heard them serenade the Aaron swing. Tell you this, you never saw a more controlled swing. It was as sweet as you could have wanted. He wasn’t swinging for the fences, Henry was swinging for base hits. It was as pure a swing as you’ll ever see, wrist-powered, and his trademark home run was not a rocket shot, he hit line drives.
Team press guides weren’t what they are today. You could carry them in your hip pocket. But, believe or not, the season after Aaron broke Ruth’s record, it was never mentioned in the Braves’ 1975 press guide, which was something awful, to begin with. He breaks the record in an Atlanta uniform, he is traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, and as far as the press guide editor was concerned, he may as well have been extradited to Siberia.
He hit his first home run in 1953 off Vic Raschi in St. Louis. No. 755 was hit off a journeyman named Dick Drago, a California Angel. For years in between, the eye was on Willie Mays as the likely new home run king. Mays got attention. He was exciting. When he ran his cap always seemed to fall off. Aaron, taking note, once said, “Maybe I should wear a larger cap.”
Whether he is or is not the greatest player of them all won’t be decided here. Babe Ruth was more than a home run slugger, he was first a pitcher who won 93 games, three more in the World Series, and for the longest time held the record for most consecutive scoreless innings in the Series. He had two careers, and was a star at both, and it’s pretty tough to top that.
Aaron was a mild man as a player, never flamboyant. When he talked, he made sentences and chose his words carefully. And when he was amused, he had a catchy little throaty chuckle. He had, as well as I can remember, only one spat with a sports writer, and that was a case of mistaken identity. The guy who actually wrote the distasteful reference got away with it.
As Mays’ career took the downward path, suddenly here came Aaron. Forty-seven home runs in 1971, his most productive season with the long ball; 34 the next season, then 40 in 1973, and he was poised to strike. You’ll notice that his home runs were hit at a rather even pace, ranging from 24 to 47 in the meat seasons of his production. Never any outlandish surge of numbers, and at the end of his career, he weighed about the same as when he broke in.
I can’t say that anywhere east of San Francisco are the hearts beating furiously until Bonds hit his 715th. Ho hum. With Aaron, he couldn’t take a shower without finding someone in it with him. News types were everywhere. The quiet man had exploded into a world personality. And as Pat Conroy wrote, “Even Pravda took note.”
Henry is now quietly successful, sitting behind the desk at his BMW place in Union City. He can be himself again, and I’ll have to confess that I’ve joined in with the 755 choir, singing his anthem. I don’t see 40 more home runs in Bonds’ bat, at least that’s the way I’ve diagrammed it.
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College football all figured out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It’s Memorial Day weekend, and we’re all thinking … college football? Sure we are.
We are, after all, in the South, and the glossy preseason magazines, which used to arrive in July, are already dotting the newsstands. So really, what better time than Memorial Day to skip past summer and decide what will happen come the fall? What better time for our annual long-range look at the One True Sport?
• We start with Georgia Tech, which will start and end the regular season in fine style. The Jackets will beat Notre Dame on Sept. 2 and will beat Georgia — finally! — in Athens on Nov. 25. Being its schizo self, Tech will still manage to lose three games, including one it shouldn’t — Virginia and Maryland, which bracket the Jackets’ trip to Blacksburg, look particularly scary — and will finish second to Miami in the winnable Coastal Division.
• After a one-year cessation of BCS-inspired angst, full-throated howls will return when unbeaten West Virginia, scourge of the defoliated Big East, finishes unbeaten but is passed over for the Fiesta Bowl in lieu of once-beaten Auburn.
• Auburn will essentially win the SEC West on Sept. 16 when it beats LSU in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Auburn’s loss will come against Georgia, which will dress up an ordinary (by Mark Richt’s lofty standards) season by winning in the epic series distinguished by its utter disdain for home-field advantage.
• Notre Dame will lose three regular-season games, one more than last season, and one or two Irish fans will wonder if extending Charlie Weis’ contract through 2015 might have been a stretch. (In 2015, Weis will be coaching guys who aren’t yet in junior high.)
• Ohio State will win the national championship. Auburn will put up a Fiesta fight but lose by a field goal. Crestfallen West Virginia will lose its no-consolation bowl game to Texas, which will be dealt out of the Fiesta picture by an early loss to the Buckeyes in Austin but will still beat Oklahoma and take the Big 12 title.
• Matthew Stafford won’t start against Western Kentucky on Sept. 2. After Georgia loses to South Carolina the next week, Stafford will be promoted to No. 1. He’ll beat Tennessee and Auburn but will lose to Florida and Tech. The Bulldogs will finish behind the Gators in the SEC East.
• Even so, Florida will enter its bowl game with four losses — two to Auburn (the second in the SEC championship game), one to Florida State and one to LSU. And the burning question — Is Urban Meyer the next Spurrier or the next Zooker? — will flame ever hotter.
• Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson will win the Heisman. Auburn’s Kenny Irons will finish third. Notre Dame’s Brady Quinn will finish fifth.
• For all the mileage the ACC got from its draft-day success, the expanded league will struggle to generate a single top 10 team. Clemson and Virginia Tech lost their quarterbacks. Miami fired half its coaching staff. Florida State is in clear decline.
• That said, the ACC championship game will be the one the ACC hopes to get every season — FSU against Miami. For no real reason, FSU will win.
• For the second year in a row, Miami and LSU will meet in the bowl formerly known as the Peach — it’s now just the Chick-fil-A, and really, what signifies Atlanta more than a chicken sandwich? — and the Hurricanes will well recall the Tigers’ two fake kicks at the end of last season’s 40-3 wipeout. LSU will again win the game but will lose the 10-minute fight that ignites at the coin toss.
• As a freshman, Reggie Ball was knocked out of the Georgia game in the first half. As a sophomore, he infamously lost track of downs. As a junior, he threw a killing interception in the Red Zone. As a senior, he’ll throw a fade that Calvin Johnson snatches for the winning touchdown with 10 seconds to play. That detailed enough for you?
Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
Duke women show lack of sensitivity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
I wasn’t in the room. I don’t know what happened any more than you do, any more than the Duke women’s lacrosse team does. But unless they’re in possession of some secret video tape, the Duke women shouldn’t proclaim it’s going to write, “Innocent!” on its wristbands for an NCAA tournament game any more than I should write a story about rape allegations with a headline that screams, “Guilty!”
I wasn’t there. You weren’t there. They weren’t there.
If you missed it, the Duke women’s lacrosse players stretched the bounds of free speech past the stupidity dividing line. They said they would wear sweatbands with the word, “innocent,” on their arms and legs for Friday night’s national semifinal against Northwestern. It would be a show of support for the men’s lacrosse team, specifically the three players who have been indicted for rape.
Somebody must have been scorched by the backdraft. When the players walked out for warm-ups at Boston University, players had motivational words, “No excuses, no regrets,” written on the bands. But several wrote the numbers 6, 13 and 45 on bands around their lower legs, obvious references to David Evans (6), Collin Finnerty (13) and Reade Seligmann (45), who have been indicted for rape.
“The damage already has been done,” said Kathy Redmond, anticipating the women’s team might back off its threat. “They made a knee-jerk decisions that probably caused more reaction than they thought. These are stupid, spoiled little girls. It smacks of high school. Maybe one day when they’ll read about one of their friends who was raped. Then they’ll rethink this.”
Maybe you’ve heard of Redmond. She wasn’t in the room either. But she’s closer to an expert on this case than the rest of us. She founded the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes in 1997. She became high profile in 1995 after alleging former Nebraska defensive lineman Christian Peter raped her. The case never went to trial and a subsequent civil lawsuit against Peter and the school was settled out of court.
Redmond also is a lacrosse player. She competed at Nebraska. She still plays today. She understands the culture of lacrosse athletes, and believes the public stance of the women’s team stems primarily from a we’re-all-in-this together mentality.
“More than any other sport, there’s this mentality with women lacrosse players of, ‘We’re as tough as the men,’” Redmond said. “It’s almost like a competition. It’s like they try to carry themselves with a masculine edge. They want to be looked at as being just as good as the men, yet they still look to the men for validation. It’s a very weird dynamic that you don’t see in women’s basketball or any other sport. It all goes back to the elitist class issue in this case. It’s like, ‘We all come from the same place.’ Lacrosse is still very much a niche sport, and there are cliques involved.”
Redmond believes that if it were Duke basketball players who were being accused of rape, “The women’s basketball team wouldn’t think of taking this public stance.”
Neither Duke nor the NCAA objected to the threatened wristbands. Kerri Fagan, the NCAA’s associate director of championships, said Friday there is no bylaw that prohibits the message. She actually put it in the same category as players wearing a number as a way to honor a deceased teammate. “It’s an institutional decisional,” Fagan said.
That institution, Duke, even allowed women’s coach Kerstin Kimel to invite fired men’s coach Mike Pressler to address the team this week.
“I’m surprised [the women players] didn’t fear any reprisals from Duke,” Redmond said. “It tells me that the school is still taking this less seriously than it should.”
She was not surprised by the NCAA’s stance, saying: “The NCAA is a nice figurehead organization that collects a lot of money. But they’re basically worthless. They could do a lot about the culture and violence that exists in college athletics. But they’re making a lot of money, so they don’t.”
A 27-year-old African American stripper says she was raped by three white lacrosse players from one of the nation’s most prestigious universities. That’s going to incite emotions on several levels.
But for college athletes to take their opinion of rape allegations onto the field of an NCAA championship event crosses a line. This isn’t an on-campus war protest. It’s rape. And I would imagine that if the women believed something illegal had occurred at that men’s lacrosse party, nobody would write, “Guilty!” on their jersey.
Permalink | Comments (71) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Diaw one of Hawks’ greatest blunders ever
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
A year ago, Boris Diaw wasn’t deemed good enough to play in 16 games for one of the worst teams in NBA history. The same Boris Diaw scored 34 points and hit the winning basket in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals Wednesday. For all the teeth-gnashing spawned by the Hawks’ drafts over the years, their mishandling of Diaw stands as the greatest mistake since they re-upped Jon Koncak in the summer of 1989.
A confession: Based on his two seasons as a Hawk, I didn’t think Diaw could play. (Or, more precisely, I didn’t think he cared to play.) Billy Knight obviously saw something more, having drafted Diaw with the 21st pick in 2003 when Josh Howard was available. Somehow that vision wasn’t transmitted to Knight’s coaches.
Because Diaw’s two seasons here involved two head coaches — Terry Stotts in 2003-04 and Mike Woodson in 2004-05 — it’s not fair to lay the entire blame at the foot of one man. But it’s instructive that Diaw played in 10 more games and logged an average of seven more minutes as a rookie under Stotts than as a second-year man under Woodson. Diaw worked fewer minutes for a team that finished 13-69 than Tony Delk, whose career is nearly over. Think about that.
Think about an organization that claims its focus is on player development failing to develop the guy who would go to Phoenix in the Joe Johnson sign-and-trade and turn into the NBA’s Most Improved Player. Knight contends that it’s wrong to make too much of this seeming transcendence, saying the Suns’ free-flowing style can’t be compared to any other team’s. “Boris is in a good situation,” Knight said. And then: “You think having Steve Nash makes a difference?”
Which brings us, rather neatly, to larger issues: If the Suns could get the most out of one of the Hawks’ many young swingmen by playing full-tilt basketball, shouldn’t the Hawks consider doing likewise? If you’re thinking outside the box and building a roster of swingmen, do you want the stodgy Woodson — whose mentors are old-schoolers Bobby Knight and Larry Brown — as your coach? Finally, if a point guard like Nash makes so much difference, why don’t the Hawks have a point guard?
Even his detractors would concede that Knight has assembled more talent than the Hawks have had this century, but assembling talent is only half the battle. (The lesser half, actually.) To succeed, the assembly must conform to a design. Why import a rookie head coach to guide a developing team? Why not hire someone older and more patient? Why keep giving heavy minutes to Al Harrington, who won’t be part of the Hawks’ future, as opposed to Marvin Williams, who’s expected to be a cornerstone? Why not give Diaw every chance to fail?
The Hawks saw Diaw more as a point guard; the Suns, who as we know have a point guard, deploy him down low to stunning effect. When Diaw was drafted, he was touted as being able to play any position. Shouldn’t the Hawks have tried him at every position? Shouldn’t Knight have suggested that Woodson lose not with journeymen like Delk and Tom Gugliotta but with the young guys Knight has gone to such lengths to find?
Everyone makes a mistake in the draft. It’s far more alarming to have drafted a bona fide player and to see him blossom only after he’s gone. “At one point there was a label on [Diaw] that he was a soft, non-competitive player,” Phoenix coach Mike D’Antoni told reporters Wednesday night. “He’s just the opposite. … He’s one of the most competitive guys we have, just an intelligent basketball player who knows how to play.”
Presumably Diaw knew how to play all along, but the Hawks couldn’t decide what to do with him. More than the 125 losses this franchise has suffered the last two years, the Diaw fizzle stands as evidence the Hawks don’t even know what they have, let alone where they’re going.
Permalink | Comments (138) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
My point? Take Williams
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Hawks got lucky in the lottery. They wound up with the fifth pick, which means most of the swingmen (Adam Morrison and Tyrus Thomas) and the power forwards (Andrea Bargnani and LaMarcus Aldridge) should be gone by the time the Hawks choose. Which means…
They could, if they wanted, pick Marcus Williams, the point guard they lack.
They could. They probably won’t.
The early guess: They’ll take Randy Foye of Villanova, who is, miracle of miracles, not a swingman. Neither, alas, is he a true point guard. He was a combo guard in college. (Remember, Nova started FOUR guards last season.)
The good news: Foye’s a really tough player and a really good guy. (No character issues here.) If the player of the year voting had been done at the end of March, as opposed to the beginning, Foye might well have given Morrison and J.J. Redick a run. The bad news: Skilled as he is, Foye isn’t exactly what the Hawks need. He doesn’t distribute as much as he finishes.
Understand: I like Foye a lot. I just like Williams more. (And yes, I’ve seen both in person.) But this discussion could well be rendered moot by Billy Knight, who could decide to be stubborn and take Rudy Gay. Who is, I’m sorry to report, a swingman.
Permalink | Comments (88) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
SEC crime wave subsides — slightly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Two days after Georgia’s final football game last season, a player was arrested for drunk driving, stealing a car and speaking Pinocchio in his statement to police — your basic triple crown for an SEC football player.
For a school and a conference giving lip service to purification, it wasn’t the way to start an off-season. In Birmingham, the commissioner of the SEC slapped his forehead and asked obvious question.
“You just say, ‘Why?’” Mike Slive said Wednesday. “But I think we’ve all stepped up. We decided just asking why isn’t good enough anymore.”
It’s only late May. Still plenty of time for bar fights and borderline recruits submitting suddenly mutant SAT scores inflated to Mensa levels. But there is a relative calm these days. At least by SEC standards.
Mark Richt and Georgia have acted swiftly to suspend four players — and the fact there have been only four actually is good news. Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer has kicked off one player and suspended another. An Alabama player was arrested for possessing a stolen hand gun. Six Mississippi State players were involved in a bar fight.
But this docket is nothing like a year ago, when Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina exhausted the supply of public defenders and the conference from top to bottom looked like an episode of “Cops.”
“I would say things have been much less chaotic,” said Slive.
If this trend holds up, some credit should go to the conference’s partnership a year ago with the “Mentors in Violence Prevention” (MVP) program, which educates athletes in character development and conflict resolution. Over 2,600 athletes and coaches were exposed to 90-minute programs between September and April.
But here’s another key: Somebody finally woke up.
Georgia hardly is pristine. Four suspensions are four floors south of pristine. But the thumb-twirling and soft-on-crime attitude that permeated the football program in the past seems to have diminished. In each case, Georgia or Richt has handed down punishment within 48 hours of learning of an arrest. And the punishment wasn’t running steps.
“I do feel like we’ve been more proactive in dealing with things,” athletic director Damon Evans said.
“Mark understands the magnitude of things when football players put the university in the spotlight. When things have happened, he and the administration have stepped up and moved quickly.”
Similarly, Fulmer, whose team’s lack of discipline no doubt contributed to Tennessee’s unraveling last season, has snapped out of it. Job security could have something to do with that. But three weeks ago, Fulmer reportedly blasted his team immediately after two were arrested (one for making “inappropriate” comments to a mother and daughter).
Are SEC coaches actually taking things more seriously now?
“I don’t have actual data in front of me, but my sense is that’s the case,” Slive said. “We’re educating the athletes now [with the MVP program]. But there is an accountability, and holding a student-athlete accountable for their behavior is a lesson.”
Didn’t take long at Georgia. Dannell Ellerbe was suspended after his DUI, driving a teammate’s car into a tree and giving police false information. He’ll miss three games. Antonio Sims, who had a DUI last November and multiple school violations, was suspended from school, effectively wiping out his season.
Two offensive linemen will sit for the first two games: Ian Smith (public intoxication) and Daniel Inman (for “violating team policy,” and it’s never good when left undefined.)
At this time a year ago, Georgia had five arrests. Not a big difference. But one included Darrius Swain, who was jailed for 22 days. So far, only one recruit has failed to qualify. Last year, several failed to make it past admissions, including Jamar Chaney, because of a suspicious SAT score.
Another recruit, Tavares Kearney, was charged with using his camera phone to take a picture of the answer key for a summer school test. He denied it, claimed the picture was taken accidentally and twisted a teacher’s wrist to get the phone back.
At one point, the Bulldogs had 12 arrests in a span of 14 months. Tennessee and South Carolina also had double-digit arrests in a similar time frame.
Why did the SEC partner with the “MVP” program? Because it needed it.
It’s the summer. Evans admitted, “I feel more comfortable during the season when players don’t have as much free time on their hands.”
Imagine. When the season starts, that’s when he feels at ease.
Permalink | Comments (38) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
A Bush-league request
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Well, it didn’t hurt to ask. So Reggie Bush did, even though it was ridiculous to think that the NFL would give into his request to change its entire numbering system for running backs.
You know, just for him.
The thing is, stranger things have happened in sports (designated hitters, Dennis Rodman, the expansion of frequently barren Bobby Dodd Stadium). That’s why you couldn’t take it for granted that the NFL’s competition would do the right thing and tell Bush to get lost or something.
According to Falcons general manager Rich McKay, co-chairman of the committee, nobody on his committee wanted to grant Bush’s request to wear his college number (5) in the pros.
Good. Under NFL rules, running backs must wear numbers between 20-49. And, yes, receivers were allowed last season to wear numbers in the teens, but teams were running out of 80s due to the slew of receivers and tight ends on rosters.
For somebody to expect the NFL to change a rule, just because a hotshot rookie in waiting wants you to do so …
That’s just Bush.
Permalink | Comments (44) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Color me impressed with marksmanship
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
As I stood in jeans of blue and T-shirt of I-surrender-white, Greg deVries’ truck pulled into the parking lot, much like a helicopter would descend into the rice patties.
Out came the army fatigues. The gloves. The boots. Heavy artillery. Topographical charts. Wind projections. Kill estimates. Cyanide tablets. Plutonium bubblegum. Jack Bauer bobblehead doll.
“I didn’t bring anything in camouflage,” I said.
“You’re dead,” said another.
I love this coming together. The Thrashers arranged for a friendly little paintball outing Tuesday. Four players, two media members and assorted office staff and warmongers. It wasn’t the first time I had been in the same place as professional athletes in a non-work-type setting. It was just the first time everybody had weapons.
Before we go any further, you should know that the Thrashers did not bring any of their goalies. We weren’t close enough to a MAS*H unit.
Then again, I don’t know what they were worried about. The way I viewed this competition, even if I freely navigated through the Thrashers’ defense, I’d shoot and miss the goalie because, like, nothing ever hits the Thrashers’ goalie. (Thank you. Try the veal.)
When deVries, a relatively mild-mannered defenseman, finally finished dressing and adjusting his assault weapons, I asked him if he had ever seen “Rambo.”
“All of them,” he said.
Big deal. I watched Jack Bauer kill like 179 people in the first 22 minutes Monday night. Also, my son gave me some sage advice after learning I was going to paintball for the first time in my life.
“Wear a cup,” he said. “I mean, nobody really aims down there. But you never know.”
I did not wear a cup. But I chose not to share that with deVries, Slava Kozlov, Jaroslav Modry or Eric Boulton because sometimes, dude, they really do aim down there. Mike Stapleton, a former Thrasher and noted bag of rocks, once shot a puck at me in practice. Fortunately, I was on the other side of the Plexiglas, which is what it hit, which was where all of Mike Stapleton’s shots hit.
The guys who ran the paintball place spent a lot of time explaining the rules, the scoring system and ways to avoid accidental maiming.
I seemed to be the only one bothered that they never actually said how to shoot the gun. Or was this one of those practical jokes, where I got the clown gun that just shot out a little “Bang” flag?
We had one practice round. Got hit after seven seconds. The good news was, I was the only one who didn’t have to reload.
Then AJC writer John Manasso and I chose up sides. I took deVries. Duh. He took Kozlov, probably because he served in the Soviet Red Army (and probably not realizing that he only made the oatmeal).
Game 1: Modry (Manasso’s team) hit me inside of a minute. (Power play specialist.)
Game 2: Boulton (Manasso’s team) popped me in the neck after a few minutes. He flanked wide right. Never saw him. Who knew a fourth-liner could be so stealth?
This wasn’t going well. I felt like Donald Rumsfeld, only without the air-conditioned suite and the room service and the stack of John Wayne movies.
Game 3: Dead! Did you see that? I nailed … Manasso?
“Somebody got me,” he said later.
“That was me,” I gloated.
“I haven’t killed anybody yet,” he said.
Rookie.
Modry and Boulton each got me twice. But, led by deVries and my ingenious attack plans, we destroyed the opposition.
“You did very well — better than Manasso,” Boulton said later.
“He was the first guy I killed,” I said.
“Yeah, well, that was the case with him every game,” Boulton said.
Boulton also wore full camo.
“These are my hunting clothes, but it works for paintballing,” he said. “But when I go hunting, the poor little deer don’t fire back.” (I teed it up, but I resisted.)
I have a little red welt on my inner thigh. It appears to be growing Saturn-like bluish rings as I’m typing. My only regret is that coach Bob Hartley wasn’t here to tell me what I did wrong — and general manager Don Waddell wasn’t here to guarantee a win and a playoff spot.
Also, there were no owners. This would have been a good way for Steve Belkin to work out some of his aggressions against the other Atlanta Spirit owners. But when I sent him an e-mail with an invitation to team up with me, he declined.
“I have more compassion and understand[ing] than aggression for my other partners,” he wrote back.
The dude probably would’ve just sent his attorney, anyway. And he would’ve worn a cup.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
Any sympathy for Charismatic?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Atlanta’s consciousness of thoroughbred racing has never been so compassionately expressed ever before Barbaro. Barbaro, winner of the Kentucky Derby and about 100 yards into the second step of his pursuit of the Triple Crown at Pimlico, broke down and millions of Americans broke out in a compassionate response.
Tough stuff. If he had been a claimer, he would have been put away on the scene, but Barbaro was unbeaten and an odds-on favorite to bring home the most elusive trophy in horse racing. This was a matter of millions of dollars. Nothing was to be spared to save him for a career in the breeding shed. Which reminds me of a similar story, of a horse even further into his Triple Crown pursuit, but whose name has been blotted out in the keening and mourning for Barbaro.
Charismatic had won the Kentucky Derby at odds of 31-to-1 and followed that up winning the Preakness, though he didn’t go off the favorite there. The public still wasn’t convinced. He was about 50 yards from completing the classic sweep in the Belmont when he broke down, a bone in his left foreleg snapped.
“No, more like 30 yards,” his trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, said Tuesday.
Two longhots swept by him at the wire, Lemon Drop Kid and Vision and Verse, but even wounded, Charismatic completed the journey and finished third. Jockey Chris Antley leaped from the saddle, kneeled by his wounded mount and cradled the leg in his little hands. The leg was splinted at the spot and Charismatic was vanned to the barn, where, coincidentally, the same veterinarian who attended Barbaro was on duty, Larry Bramlage by name.
“His injury was not nearly as severe as this one,” Lukas said. “We were able to put his leg together with a lot less surgical procedure. They did a beautiful job. It was a tribute to the doctors.”
As Bramlage said of Charismatic later, “He’s through as a race horse, but he should be fine as a stallion.”
Once healed, Charismatic was retired to Lanes End Farm, where, for a pedestrian $10,000 stud fee, he covered 106 mares his first year. After three years, he was sold to a group in Japan and drifted out of sight and out of mind. His breeding was not classic, though his sire, Summer Squall, had finished second in the Derby and won the Preakness for Cot Campbell and Dogwood Stable. Neither would you consider Barbaro’s bloodlines classic, though his sire, Dynaformer, now ranks fifth on the general sire list this year.
Charismatic kind of got into the Kentucky Derby through the kitchen door. Just two months earlier he had finished second in a claiming race at Santa Anita, and second again in an allowance race. “He hadn’t shown me much in the spring, so when we brought him east, there wasn’t much left but the Lexington Stakes,” Lukas said.
The Lexington is a Grade 2, run at Keeneland, last possible entre to the Derby. Charismatic won by two lengths with Jerry Bailey up, and after the race, Lukas said, “Jerry told me, ‘If I wasn’t already committed to the Arabs, I’d ride him in the Derby.’ ”
That’s when Lukas turned to Chris Antley, who was trying to make a comeback after a long bout with drugs and making weight. Antley had a chance to be a national hero after so devotedly attending Charismatic, but Lukas again:
“They made such a warm, fuzzy story about Chris and how he had teamed with Charismatic. I’ll bet he never spent more than 10 minutes with him. He would show up in the paddock for the race, then disappear. I’d never seen him again until the next race. He was already back on the stuff.”
Antley, who grew up in Elloree, SC, would later die under mysterious circumstances involving drugs in California, a real tragedy in death.
Charismatic would have only moderate success as a stallion in Japan, and lately has been reduced to hauling pleasure riders about. A Kentuckian named Michael Blowen, devoted to caring for aging stallions, is trying to bring him back to this country. Surely to avoid the fate of Ferdinand, the 1986 Derby winner who wound up in the meat market.
But strange that Charismatic’s wounded state never aroused such compassion as Barbaro’s. The break in a foreleg would have little effect in breeding, whereas Barbaro’s rear leg must bear all that weight in mounting a mare, thus critical in performing as a productive sire. Charismatic was voted Horse of the Year. Barbaro may have been on his way, but that’s out of his reach now. Just to stay alive and produce healthy offspring is the best his connections can hope for.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Other
The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: OK. I’ll say it: It’s a horse.
9: Hey, I love animals. Really. I have a dog, a fish tank and two Australian finiches. Some of my best friends are animals. Relatives, too. It was awful what happened to Barbaro. But can we all please stop acting like a Supreme Court justice is on life support.
8: And, by the way: Notwithstanding the closeness Barbaro’s owners may feel toward their “pet,” their biggest concern is lost “stud” fees.
7: Speaking of which: Do all of those single eligible mares get their money back?
6: So what are the odds the Hawks actually win the draft lottery tonight, given that there’s no franchise player available?
5: Seriously, one website lists the top 5 players as LaMarcus Aldridge (Texas), Tyrus Thomas (LSU), Adam Morrison (Gonzaga), Andrea Bargnani (Italy), Brandon Roy (Washington). Does anybody scream, “Gotta have him?”
4: OK. Who in the “24” pool had Jack Bauer ending another really bad day on a slow boat to China?
3: For what it’s worst: No, I don’t think the Hawks will trade for Allen Iverson. As much as I think it would jumpstart the team, my guess is that the three years and $60 million remaining on his contract will be too much for all the owners to swallow - and there would have to be a consensus among the owners for such a deal to go through.
2: Dan Kolb last season with the Braves: 3-8, 5.93 ERA, seven blown saves in 18 opportunities.
1: Chris Reitsma’s projected full season, based on statistics: 3-7, 6.75 ERA, 11 blown saves in 36 opportunities.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Close chapter on Reitsma
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Chris Reitsma is a nice guy, but he’s not a closer. Because he’s a nice guy – and, to be frank, because there isn’t an obvious fallback – the Braves keep asking him to get the last three outs. They need to stop asking.
Nothing undoes a team’s psyche like a shaky closer. Even having lousy starting pitching doesn’t carry quite the same weight: If it’s down 5-0 after two innings, a team still feels it has a chance to recover. It’s different when a closer fails. A game that was supposed to have been won suddenly isn’t. A night that was supposed to end with handshakes dissolves into a puddle of coulda/shoulda.
Reitsma has had one good month as a Braves’ closer — July 2005. He has blown half his save chances since. The Braves went to Arizona having won nine of 11, and a large reason why was that Reitsma had been handed only one save situation in those 11 games. (To his credit, Reitsma did work a tidy 1-2-3 ninth to earn a save Monday night.) But a team cannot run forever on bottom-of-the-ninth drama. Over the long haul, a team with any aspirations of playing in October has to have a closer it can trust.
The Braves, sad to say, do not. Last season, Bobby Cox demoted Reitsma for Kyle Farnsworth, who’s no great shakes as a closer himself, and it’s past time for Reitsma to be reassigned again. The weekend was the clincher. Twice Cox summoned Reitsma in Arizona with a ninth-inning lead, and twice the manager was forced to have someone warming in the bullpen behind his nominal closer. When that happens, a team knows it no longer has a closer.
Reitsma’s numbers are bad for any pitcher but beyond the pale for the most important component of a staff — 33 baserunners in 19 2/3 innings, only 10 strikeouts against 26 hits. Put simply, he doesn’t have closer stuff. When men reach against him — and lots of men do — he can’t extricate himself with big heat. He’s a change-up guy. So is Trevor Hoffman, but there’s a difference: Hoffman’s change has worked for more than a decade. Reitsma’s worked for a month.
It’s worth noting that Dan Kolb lost his job after blowing three saves in 13 chances last season. Reitsma has blown three in 10 and has a worse ERA than Kolb did when the unloved import was demoted 52 1/2 weeks ago. For what it’s worth, the Braves like the affable Reitsma much more than they did Kolb, who was seen as distant and difficult. “He’s the best,” Cox has said, speaking of Reitsma as a human being. As a closer, alas, he’s among the worst.
If not Reitsma, who? Well, the Braves’ mishandling of Joey Devine has removed him as an option, so that leaves only two choices – Ken Ray, who’s right-handed, and Macay McBride, who isn’t. They have two career saves between them (both by McBride), but never having done a job seems a better option than relying on someone who has proven he can’t do it.
The Braves aren’t in position to waste any more leads. They’re chasing two pretty good teams. If Ray, who went five seasons between big-league stints, or McBride, who wasn’t groomed as a closer and had two saves in five minor league seasons, can’t do it, then John Schuerholz has to trade for somebody who might. The longer the Braves go without addressing the issue, the farther they’ll have to climb when finally they do.
There are only two ways of dealing with a shaky closer: Either he stops being shaky or he stops getting the chance to close. The Braves keep giving Reitsma chances, hoping against hope. Time now to bow to cold reality. Time now to admit he’s an eighth-inning pitcher who has no business trying to work the ninth. It’s time now, while the Mets and Phillies are still in sight.
Permalink | Comments (93) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Iverson to Hawks: Just do it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
There is a gremlin sitting on the Hawks’ shoulder, saying what all gremlins say: “Do it.”
The Hawks are off the radar on the Atlanta sports scene. They are off the board annually in playoff races by December. They have a chance to get one of the NBA’s premier players.
“Do it. Come on. You know you want to. What else are you going to do? Draft some guy from Italy?”
Allen Iverson scores points. He sells tickets. Those are two things that put him ahead of almost everybody else. Isn’t that enough to overlook the other junk stuffed in the luggage compartment?
The Hawks just won 26 games, and that was after improvement. Is it worth a risk to become, like, relevant?
“Do it, do it, do it!”
Another off-season and another rebuilding project awaits. Is it time to throw the dice yet?
They have thought about it. They have talked about it. Dude, don’t be naïve — of course they have talked about it. When you run a franchise and finish last and have to dive into the cesspool of more postseason analysis, you talk about everything. You certainly talk about Allen Iverson.
I have had several conversations with myself about Allen Iverson. I have told myself to shut up. I have tried to talk myself out of it. I can’t. Gremlins.
Iverson will be 31 next month. He was still the NBA’s second-leading scorer this season at 33 points per game. That ranked just behind Kobe Bryant and just ahead of LeBron James, neither of whom are available.
He averaged 7.4 assists. Say what you want about Iverson hogging the ball, particularly for a point guard. But those 7.4 assists ranked ahead of any Hawks player.
So. A backcourt with Allen Iverson and Joe Johnson. Reminds me of an old question back in the Jurassic: “Do the Hawks play tonight?”
This isn’t a new rumor. It’s an old rumor with new juice. Word first drifted out of Philadelphia early in the season that Iverson wanted out. The Hawks were mentioned as a possible destination because the Hawks always are mentioned as a possible destination. It’s the residue of having salary cap room. And agents.
Iverson-to-Atlanta (or anywhere) was resuscitated when the Sixers went 8-16 down the stretch and missed the playoffs. Iverson and his partner in baggage, Chris Webber, planned to sit out the year’s home finale. They didn’t arrive until just before tip-off. They weren’t on the bench for fan appreciation night. Oops.
General manager Billy King didn’t take it well. He fined both and, in a profanity-laced tirade, said: “We didn’t make the playoffs. I’ve got a lot of [bleep!] work to do, and this is some [bleep!] that’s a distraction to me. Am I [bleep!] off? You’re [bleep!] right I am.”
Got it.
King did not state: “A.I. is gone.”
Neither did he state: “A.I.’s my man.”
A.I. stands for, “Available immediately.”
I know. For every pro, there’s a con. Maybe even an ex-con. But let’s put the entourage aside for now.
There’s that practice thing. Iverson doesn’t like it. There’s that money thing. It’s a long, expensive risk. Iverson has three seasons left on his contract totaling $60.328 million. If it didn’t work out, it would be a mistake of Koncakian proportions.
Iverson could negatively impact the Hawks’ younger players. He is not known as the nurturing sort. He is not first on the list of guys you think of who would say, “Please coach, let me be the one to show Josh Smith how to win.”
But Hawks coach Mike Woodson would know what he’s getting into. He was an assistant in Philly. There’s always that chance, too, that a change of scenery would give Iverson new perspective.
Hey. There’s a chance, OK?
Billy Knight started this project by cleaning out big contracts. The net result: 39 wins, 125 losses and holes. How much better can they realistically expect to be next season without a bold move?
Iverson would give the Hawks a presence. A toughness. A guy who actually wants the ball when the game’s on the line.
He has flaws. Big ones. But stars without flaws generally aren’t available, so we debate risk-reward. Iverson scores points and sells tickets, and the guy on my shoulder won’t shut up.
Permalink | Comments (156) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Jeff Schultz
Knight doesn’t get point
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Billy Knight has whiffed on each of his first picks in the three drafts he has overseen as the Hawks’ general manager. (To recap: He took Boris Diaw over Josh Howard in 2003, Josh Childress over Luol Deng in 2004, Marvin Williams over Chris Paul last summer.) The Hawks approach Tuesday’s lottery with the fourth-best chance of landing the No. 1 pick and, while it would be nice to see this franchise win something for a change, it might be better if it didn’t prevail in this collision of pingpong balls.
Regardless of what Knight said last week, the Hawks need a point guard above all else. The higher they draft, the less chance there is of them picking one. Why? Because no point guard in this draft class comes highly rated, and Knight insists he’s still in the collecting-the-best-talent-regardless-of-position mode. He needs to realize that the Hawks will never become a team, as opposed to a collection of talent, without filling the key positions.
They have, as the world knows, enough swingmen to staff a division. They have no center, but there’s no center in this draft. (Anyone who saw Glen Davis outscore LaMarcus Aldridge 26-4 in the Georgia Dome knows the Texan is a glorified power forward.)
There are, yet again, plenty of swing types to be had, but none — not Tyrus Thomas, not Adam Morrison, not Rudy Gay — would mark a significant upgrade on what the Hawks have. Speculation holds that the player Knight likes most is the 6-foot-11 Italian Andrea Bargnani, but history records that the last time this GM took a European it took the Phoenix Suns to turn Diaw into a player.
And Knight, for all his professed equanimity, cannot afford to draft another Marvin Williams, someone who’ll have little effect on the won-loss record. The Hawks need someone who can start right away and enhance those already in place. That means a point guard, and it’s hard to imagine Knight drafting one with his first pick. If that’s the case, then he needs to trade down and do it then. Knight missed on Paul and Deron Williams last time. He cannot afford to miss on Marcus Williams now.
Knight was in Philadelphia for the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament, meaning he saw Williams at his best. Without his skill and strength and guidance, massively favored Connecticut would have lost both games. It was odd to watch, the gifted Huskies relying so heavily on one man, but that’s how it played out. Williams had 41 points and 13 assists (against five turnovers) in the two games, and in the latter he chased Kentucky’s Rajon Rondo, who could get drafted in Round 1, off the floor.
If Knight knows as much basketball as he says he does — and, to be honest, as I once believed he did — then he had to see in Marcus Williams the sort of player who could pull the Hawks’ many tangents together. That said, I have a bad feeling about this.
I have the feeling that the Hawks are going to wind up with the No. 3 or 4 pick and take Bargnani and then try something silly like trading for Allen Iverson — that’s this week’s rumor, you should know — and making him their nominal point guard. But we just learned with Joe Johnson that calling a guy a point guard doesn’t make him one, and anyone who turns to a coach-killer like Iverson as, ahem, an answer doesn’t really understand the question.
At some juncture the Hawks are going to have to find a for-real point guard and put him to work. Knight has a choice: That juncture can come while he’s still employed or after he has been canned for not finding one. The draft, even in a down year like this one, is where a GM earns his money. With the exception of Steve Belkin, the Hawks’ many owners have backed Knight in everything he has done. It’s time for Blunt Billy to justify that love.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
McDowell a quiet counselor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
At first glance, the pitching situation of the Braves was in a garbled state. Early on this season, no starter had a victory. One relief pitcher had four. To fill one void on the staff, one pitcher who a year ago was working for a midwestern team named North Shore, was rescued from oblivion. To fill another, they brought in a former pharmaceutical salesman from Australia who delivers the ball sidearm. They were running a constant rehab shuttle between Turner Field and the farm club at Rome.
Last season, when the Braves had a gap to fill, John Schuerholz only had to pick up the phone and call Richmond or Pearl, Miss. Mike Hampton was down for the season. Horacio Ramirez would soon follow. John Thomson missed several starts. Dan Kolb, the $4-million closer they had acquired in a trade with Milwaukee, was having a $4 season. But those Schuerholz phone calls were making hay, with Kyle Davies, Blaine Boyer and Macay McBride in particular. A couple of longshots came through, Jorge Sosa and John Foster, who between them won 17 games.
All the while, though, nobody pointed a finger at the pitching coach. Leo Mazzone rocked on in the Braves dugout. He had been with Bobby Cox through all those 14 halcyon seasons after learning at the feet of the professorial Johnny Sain. He had a radio show. He did commercials. He had his own little empire. Leo was untouchable.
So, when he jumped ship to go to Baltimore, there was no little hand-wringing. Ye gods, what would the Braves do without the Mazzone magic? What would Bobby Cox do without his trusted Tonto at his side?
This was the scene that Roger McDowell walked into. Roger Alan McDowell, to be exact, 45 years old, out of Cincinnati, but now paying his taxes in Palm Springs, Calif. How could he ever replace the irreplaceable Mazzone, and Camp Leo, and all those trademarks Leo left behind?
Camp McDowell came off quietly, no furor. The new pitching coach maintained an even keel. Still does, though he came here with the reputation of a clubhouse jokester as a player. He has patiently subdued that side of his nature. He has gone about whatever he does quietly, apparently determined to detract attention. On this particular afternoon, he had secluded himself for about two hours, setting up his program for the day.
Frankly, I don’t know what it takes to make a good pitching coach. “Smoltz and Maddux and Glavine, good pitchers,” Mazzone would say.
Of that crew, only Smoltz remained, and an unsettled bullpen, without — perish the thought — a real hotshot closer. When the Braves got off to a staggering start, sort of a tradition here, nobody brought charges against McDowell. There was only one hinting story that, well, maybe they were missing Mazzone. Only time it happened. McDowell has gone about his duty like a trooper, and this was no fellow who had trained for such work.
“I’d been out of the game for two years, enjoying life with the family in Palm Springs,” he said. Then one day a friend from the Dodgers put him to work in the publicity department, a part-time job. That led to an offer to get back on the field, as a pitching coach, though he’d never really had that in mind.
“I was started off at Ogden, then in mid-season they needed a coach at Jacksonville,” he said. “From a low-A minor league to triple-A in the same season. I was really making progress, and I had to learn fast.”
He began a study of other pitching coaches, Dave Duncan, Mel Stottlemyre, and yes, Leo Mazzone. “I watched them all. In spring training, I’d dress after workouts and go out and watch how they did it. I’ve made the same mistakes I’ve seen them make, so I know how it is. I wasn’t sure I was going to be good at it, but I’m enjoying it now.”
This is his first coaching run in the big leagues after 12 years as a player, the highlight of which was winning a game in relief when the Mets beat the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series. Twelve years, mainly coming out of the bullpen with 159 saves, starting only twice. No more tomfoolery, the funny man stuff is for somebody else now. He is the quiet counselor, as seen in the background of a news picture the other day, in deep conversation with McBride as they walked off the field following the game in which the pitcher had been slow to cover first. A different kind of life from the man who once appeared in the television show, “America’s Funniest People.” Now among America’s most serious.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Glads, Force less obscure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
“We have fun,” coach Jeff Pyle said. “We’re more like a college team.”
Embrace them. They’re about all you’ve got.
The Gwinnett Gladiators are in the ECHL finals.
The Georgia Force is in the Arena Football League playoffs.
If this keeps up, they might lose their residency.
We have no NBA playoff team. It’s debatable whether we even have a regular-season one. We have no NHL playoff team. Haven’t since 1980. From mid-April to October, Philips Arena, home of the Hawks and Thrashers, is available for weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and pre-draft-lottery ritualistic sacrifices.
The Falcons missed the playoffs. The last time we saw a post-season, it was October and the Braves lost again. The next time we see a post-season, it will be October. Maybe.
This is Atlanta. When it comes to the playoffs, we’re not New York or Detroit or Philly or Denver or even Tampa.
We wish we were Cleveland.
But we do have the Gladiators and the Force.
One is in a sport’s minor league. The other is in the minor league of sports.
Double-A hockey. Double-amphetamine football.
Climb aboard. There’s plenty of room on the bandwagons.
“Oh sure — I think we’ve got about 5,000 open seats,” said Pyle, whose team probably will face Alaska — yes, that one — in the ECHL’s Kelly Cup finals next week.
Cam Ward, the Gladiators’ captain and a 16-year, 10-team, five-league veteran, said: “We know our 5,000 die-hards who’ve been here with us for years won’t take offense if they have to share the bathrooms and concession lines.”
One team is a transplant. The other is fledgling. The Gladiators moved to Gwinnett three years ago from Mobile, where the attentions of most were turned to Tuscaloosa and Auburn. Gwinnett reached the conference finals two years ago and the conference semis last season.
The Force was born in 2002 in Gwinnett (relatively, the local arena of champions). It was purchased by Arthur Blank and moved to Philips last year, reached the championship game (Arena Bowl), but fell back to 8-8 this year. The playoff opener is Sunday at New York.
Like most Arena League players, Georgia’s Derek Lee plays 63 positions, tapes ankles and delivers food to people in the club seats (both of them). He understands the Force doesn’t rank high on the sports radar in the city, but said: “A lot of people are just now getting hip to arena football. It’s better than last year. Pretty much by now, most people have heard of us. Even if they haven’t seen us, they’ve heard of us.”
Plus, the Arena League’s name makes sense. Not so with the ECHL. It’s an acronym for East Coast Hockey League, but the league tried to re-brand itself after absorbing West Coast teams (like Alaska). They didn’t want all of those ECHL hats and T-shirts to go to waste. So the “E” stands for nothing.
Otherwise, marketing isn’t an issue. The Gladiators had a “Runaway Bride” Bobblehead Night. (Shirley Lasseter, the Duluth mayor, even did the ceremonial puck drop with a blanket draped over her head.)
That was a close second to the Las Vegas Wranglers’ “Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night.” The first 1,000 fans received orange vests that carried the words, “Don’t Shoot, I’m Human.”
The Gladiators are into this playoff-bonding thing. Instead of growing beards, the players got mohawks. Pyle excluded himself because of a receding hairline. “I’d have to do a nohawk,” he said.
Gwinnett-Alaska doesn’t ring of tradition, and it would destroy the team’s travel budget. The commercial flights could amount to $30,000, which exceeds the cost of a regular-season’s worth of bus rides.
But that’s not the players’ concern. A title is a title, no matter the league or level. Cam Brown won a championship with H.C. Olomouc in the Czech Republic — and you thought the Glads were obscure — but he has never won a title in North America.
“That covers almost 1,000 games,” he said. “I’ve been on some pretty bad teams.”
Now he’s on a good team that has been lost in the crowd. But this being the playoffs, the crowd has thinned.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
Mets can hear footsteps
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
In case you haven’t noticed, the supposedly big and bad Mets still are shivering at the thought of tomahawks in the National League East. It’s just that the Mets are doing so in the strangest of ways this time. Now they are falling from ahead while the Braves are surging from behind, and you know what?
Until proved otherwise, the Braves will win the division.
Well, they should. It certainly didn’t hurt the Braves’ chances of reaching the postseason for a 15th consecutive time after they pounded the Florida Marlins 9-1 on Thursday at Turner Field for a ninth victory in their past 11 games. During that same stretch, the Mets have become the Mets again. In this case, that means what was a nine-game lead for a slightly overrated bunch from Queens has tumbled to a cozy 3 1/2 games and counting.
This is more about what the Braves are doing than what the Mets aren’t. The Braves are hitting in the clutch, for instance. That includes Jeff Francoeur, who continued to rip his way out of his early sophomore blues with a game-winning grand slam Saturday and a couple of blasts Thursday. In fact, no team has scored more this month than the Braves.
The bullpen implosions also have dwindled, and after an ugly beginning, the pitching is moving back toward the prettiness of its past. Even Jorge Sosa won a start after dropping his previous five decisions before the pitiful Marlins came to town. Plus, despite the loss of pitcher Kyle Davies for a while, the Braves are getting healthier, with a couple of relievers slated to return along with a starter.
If you add all of that to the Mets finally playing folks their own size (the Yankees and the Phillies after dropping two of three in St. Louis), various themes involving panicking, choking and the Mets are about to surface on the back pages of the New York tabloids.
“Believe it. They [Mets players] are always peeking at the standings in the papers, and they see us coming,” said veteran Brian Jordan, in his second tour of helping the Braves make others in the division wonder if the baseball gods will keep this franchise rolling into October forever. “Things are starting to turn around for us. We’re starting to look like the Braves should look. We’re doing A,B,C baseball. Getting the guy over. Getting the guy in. That’s been the turning point to where we are now.”
Yes and no. All things actually became possible again for the Braves when John Smoltz correctly mentioned 12 days ago that the most important game of the season in division was back then, when the Mets already were crowned kings of the world by the zealots of the New York media with a nine-game lead. Courtesy of Smoltz’s pitching and hitting that afternoon at Shea Stadium, the Braves roared to a 13-3 victory to keep the Mets’ lead from rising to an insurmountable 10 games.
“Insurmountable” is the correct word, by the way, which Smoltz suggested at the time and which he re-emphasized on Thursday by his locker. “Personally, if I was on [the Mets] and I was playing that third game [against the Braves 12 days ago] with a chance to get to 10 games in New York, I would want to bury them,” he said. “It’s true for any team, whether it’s the great ones of the past, or even right now with the Pistons. With the Pistons, it was like, ‘Oh, they’re the world champions,’ and then the Cavaliers came back like they did to take a 3-2 lead in the series.
“You want to bury that thought of that other team possibly coming back as quickly as you can, and everybody knows that teams have had a chance to put us away each year, and they didn’t. Then we’ve somehow won the division because of it.”
They’ll only do so this time if they discover ways to prosper on the road sooner than later. They’ve taken just nine of their first 23 games away from home, and they’ll spend the next 10 days in Arizona, San Diego and Chicago. “So us at 3 1/2 games doesn’t guarantee anything,” said Smoltz, easing into a smile and adding, “But if you’re on the other side, you can’t help but think about the last 14 seasons, thinking that they still got a chance, as long as the numbers reflect that.”
The numbers do. So does that sound of the Mets crashing back to earth.
Permalink | Comments (66) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Frenchy-haters, ‘fess up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Let’s try an audience-participation exercise. All of you who were saying Jeff Francoeur was (a.) way overrated and (b.) needed to be sent to the minors, raise your hand.
(Remember, this is cyberspace, and unless you’re an exhibitionist who feels the need to beam your every move across the Internet, we won’t see you.)
I myself have been wrong about many, many things — and will, I’m sure, be wrong about many, many more — but over the years I’ve tried to own up to my whiffs in the annual year-ending Accountability Scoreboard. For a change, I’d like for some of you faceless Net-posters do the same. (Even if I can’t actually SEE you do it.)
Back in April I wrote about Francoeur’s frustrations over his slow start and the booing he heard at Turner Field, and I was astonished at the amount of vitriol directed toward Francoeur in the comments on ajc.com. (And not much, I should tell you, surprises me anymore.) I wonder how many people would have said such things to Francoeur’s face. I likewise wonder how many people will admit posting such sentiments today.
Understand: I’m not trying to be a scold or to say, “I told you so.” I’m just wondering how many of you are willing to admit you jumped the gun, if only to yourselves. Confession, I’ve always found, is good for the soul.
Permalink | Comments (81) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Adams correct about ‘Cocktail Party’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Michael Adams has it right. (Yes, Michael Adams.) No self-respecting institution of higher learning should be part of a signature event billed, even unofficially, as The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. There was a time when colleges winked at alcohol and its effects, but that was before binge drinking became a societal concern, before colleges finally admitted they bear some responsibility for the actions of their students (and alumni).
The trouble with trying to proscribe TV networks from referring to Georgia-Florida as The World’s Largest You-Know-What is that, at this late date, it’s impossible to put the genie (to say nothing of the whiskey) back in the bottle. Even if TV goes along, Georgia-Florida will forever be known for alcoholic intake as much as for anything that happens in Alltel Stadium. Adams has it right, but he’s 40 or 50 years too late.
Greg McGarity graduated from Georgia in 1976 and has worked in both athletics departments. (Today he’s the senior associate AD for internal affairs at Florida.) Having seen Georgia-Florida from both sides, there was a time when he saw the annual game as scary. “Before [Jacksonville] became an NFL city, it was a matter of concern among game management,” he says. “You had an antiquated stadium … amateurs running a big-time event… . At that time, there was always the feeling it could get kind of ugly, and a couple of times it did with the field-rushing [in 1984 and 1985].
“But since then it’s taken a 180-degree turn, and the events of the last two years [one Florida student died in 2004, another in 2005] happened off-site. They happened downtown, where you get people who don’t usually go to the game. There’s always that element that comes in because they know there’s a party atmosphere.”
And how could anyone not know? When a game is advertised as The World’s Largest Et Cetera, we shouldn’t be surprised when those gathered bear little resemblance to the attendees at a quilting bee. And there is, as we know, the unmistakable belief that a college football game at any venue carries with it the license to guzzle.
That’s the mindset that Georgia and Florida and schools everywhere are trying to override — Adams speaks of changing the culture — but can any school alter something so ingrained? Says McGarity: “I know Georgia has changed its on-campus tailgating policy, and our on-campus enforcement has gotten stricter about the open-container law. Really, all we’re asking is that you conduct yourself in a proper manner. … As I get older, it’s important to me that I can go to a game and know I won’t be injured or cursed at or have a drink spilled on [me].”
Largely because of the death of the two students, Florida AD Jeremy Foley wrote to SEC commissioner Mike Slive in January making the request that Adams has made public — have the TV networks knock off that Cocktail Party jazz. But how much has Adams’ school contributed to the notion that what happens in Jax stays in Jax?
Since 2000, UGA has scheduled its fall break for the Thursday and Friday before Georgia-Florida. (Florida offers students no such pregame holiday.) When the game was moved to the respective campuses in 1994 and 1995 due to stadium renovation, Georgia fans were clearly the more disappointed. This is their annual autumn getaway — to play golf at St. Simon’s, to bark along The Landing, perhaps to sip an outdoor (or indoor) cocktail.
Says McGarity: “The Florida people are more likely to go in and out [the day of the game]. But there’s a special feeling to [the trip] on the Georgia side.”
Adams, who has gotten much wrong, has this one right. If he’s serious about curbing on-campus drinking, he cannot in good conscience turn a blind eye to the excesses inherent in the Georgia fan’s favorite road trip. But the networks will be the easy sell. Trying to convince Joe/Jane Bulldog that Jacksonville, Fla., isn’t simply The World’s Largest Watering Hole will be more difficult by far.
Permalink | Comments (37) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Nice try taking on the Cocktail Party mindset
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Nice try. It was an admirable try, in fact, when Georgia president Michael Adams told the AJC this week that he wished to rid the earth (especially the portion that encompasses Athens and Gainesville) of That Term surrounding the yearly Georgia-Florida football game in Jacksonville.
The thing is, the electronic media is going to do what it is going to do. Which means that if it has a chance to boost its ratings a bit, you’ll likely hear something like, oh, let’s see … “Welcome to the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” come October 28.
Not only that, the Georgia-Florida game already has been established in the minds of many as the time when fans of both schools are allowed to make fools of themselves by getting as drunk and disgusting as possible before, during and after the game. Seeking to ban the use of That Term won’t change that any time soon.
It’s a start, though.
It’s better than nothing.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
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
For Knapp, no excuses
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch - Says here that Greg Knapp is outta here as Falcons offensive coordinator if Michael Vick continues to look clumsy when using his arm instead of his legs. To which Falcons coach Jim Mora responded on Monday after the conclusion of his team’s first minicamp by pointing upward to stress that nothing is clearer in Mora’s mind than the fact that Knapp knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Like the sky’s blue. Not one of us can say that the sky’s not blue,” said Mora, still pointing after giving other “facts” that he says that nobody who knows the difference between a nimbostratus cloud and blitzing linebacker “can argue.”
This was the calmer Mora speaking, by the way. The slightly irritated one surfaced a few minutes earlier during his passionate defense of Knapp, who came with Mora to the Falcons from the San Francisco 49ers before the 2004 season. With voice rising, Mora said, “The guy is one of the finest offensive coordinators in the league. The fact is - there’s an undisputable fact that no one can dispute - that we went from 29th to 12th (out of 32 teams in total offense). We went from 29th or 30th on third downs to second. We led the league in rushing for two consecutive years.”
Mora paused to unclench his teeth, before adding, “I’m flabbergasted when people question Greg Knapp. Go look at the numbers, and you tell me a team that has done that and has had that much (dramatic) improvement, then maybe you can argue with me. Until then, nobody has a basis for their argument.”
Mora paused again, before easing into a smile and saying, “Well, unless they just want to throw (junk) up in the air and see what sticks.”
This sticks: What Mora is neglecting to mention is that in 2003, when the Falcons offense was ranked 29th, Vick played in just five games. He missed most of the season with a broken right fibula. It’s a wonder how much an offense can improve when Doug Johnson is not your quarterback.
This also sticks: 73.1. That was Vick’s passer rating last season, which ranked 25th out of the league’s 34 qualifying quarterbacks. Not only that, his passer rating has spiraled toward oblivion each season since he reached a career high of 81.6 during his last full season under Dan Reeves in 2002 and the Green Bay miracle.
This sticks, too: The various excuses for Vick’s inability to throw himself to the next level have dwindled to zero.
For starters, since Mike Johnson was the only coach dismissed by Falcons officials during the offseason, they essentially blamed all of Vick’s struggles on the quarterbacks coach. Johnson’s replacement, Bill Musgrave, already has been anointed as savior of the universe around here, or at least of No. 7. In fact, with the veteran Musgrave around, Knapp said he’ll have more time to focus on the big picture of running the offense instead of functioning as he did with Johnson as offensive coordinator and co-quarterbacks coach.
Said Knapp, who, like Mora, feels as if the guilotine isn’t swinging above the head of the offensive coordinator, “Like any business, the more people around you that understand what’s going on, it helps to make that business stronger. I feel like (Musgrave) will make us stronger as a unit, because I’m not feeling as obligated to be in there.”
So any chance of Falcons officials playing the blame game again with the quarterbacks coach is definitely punted away. In addition, nobody can say that Vick is struggling out of discomfort with the new offense anymore. Well, they could, but among others involved with their versions of the West Coast offense, Steve Young already had won the NFL’s most valuable player award by his third full year, Donovan McNabb was making his second trip to the NFC championship game, and Brett Favre had become Brett Favre.
One more thing: Vick spent much of last season with various aches and pains, but mostly there was his knee sprain that required a brace. He said it was the reason he chose to spend an usually high amount of time (for him) in the pocket last season. He said he is completely healthy now, which means he is his old self.
Which also means the pressure just increased even more on Knapp to make Vick go back to the future of his last season with Reeves, if nothing else.
Permalink | Comments (60) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Falcons’ upgrades are obvious
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch — At 32, Lawyer Milloy wasn’t looking for a fixer-upper. Lawyer Milloy was looking for a home that was pretty much fixed. In his free-agent rounds, he visited three teams — Seattle, which won the NFC title last season; Cincinnati, which won the AFC North, and Atlanta, which won nothing of consequence. Milloy’s presence in this minicamp tells us he believes the Falcons are primed to rectify that posthaste.
“I’m at the point in my career where I don’t have the time or the energy to wait for a team to rebuild,” he said Sunday, speaking after the morning session of minicamp. Having won one Super Bowl, he wants another. He believes the Falcons can get him there. More to the point, the Falcons believe Milloy can help get them there.
He’s a safety who hits hard and tackles expertly. The Falcons’ safeties of 2005 — Keion Carpenter and Bryan Scott — were chief culprits in this defense’s abrupt descent to being the NFL’s seventh-worst against the run. “I’ve never heard such negative talk about what they experienced last year at this position,” Milloy said. Then, pointedly: “But that’s not me.”
And the way of the new Falcons — the Blank-McKay-Mora Falcons — isn’t to wallow in self-pity but to solve problems at full gallop. The Falcons hated their safeties, so they found two new ones. (Chris Crocker is the other.) The Falcons needed a pass rusher to offset Patrick Kerney, so they traded for Pro Bowler John Abraham. This organization got so much done in one inspired offseason that the disappointment of last year has given way to hope born of the realization that this franchise no longer considers 8-8 an achievement.
“It’s a credit to their dedication to get this team more balanced,” Milloy said. “They were really aggressive. They were able to make the necessary transactions. That tells me they want to be champions now, to win now.”
Milloy is an impressive guy. Four times a Pro Bowler, he was the defensive captain on New England’s first championship team. A year later, he refused to restructure his contract and was cut, a move wildly unpopular in the Patriots’ locker room. He signed with Buffalo, where he spent the last three seasons, and the Patriots got over their disappointment and won the next two Super Bowls. So yes, Milloy knows better than most that, while players do the heavy lifting, the grand design for winning titles is set by the front office. Or not.
“If you build something special, and it’s for real, it will last for a while,” he said. “I think this organization can win now and win in the future.”
Maybe the Falcons weren’t quite as good as they seemed two seasons ago, when they played for the NFC title, but there’s growing evidence they weren’t as flimsy as they looked at the end of last season. Gifted players still dot this roster — Vick, Dunn, Crumpler, Kerney, Brooking, Coleman, Hall — and this offseason has yielded three (and perhaps four, depending on the rookie Jimmy Williams) more. Were there deficiencies? Sure. Have most of the areas of need — wide receiver is still an issue — been addressed? Absolutely.
“Some people have a knack for that,” Milloy said. “They had problems and they corrected it. In this league you don’t sugarcoat things. If you have problems as a player and you can’t correct them, you don’t last long. People want to read and hear about success.”
If the weekend’s work didn’t exactly suggest the Falcons are bound for Super Bowl XLI — “You don’t peak in minicamp,” said Milloy, who has been around long enough to know — the conspicuous personnel upgrades were impossible to ignore. The Falcons didn’t take 8-8 lying down. They roused themselves and got better.
“I’ve seen nothing since I got here to deter my attitude,” Lawyer Milloy said. “It’s all set up to win.”
Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Sosa is dreadful again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
This may shock you, but there was a concern about the Braves this season that had nothing to do with bullpen flotsam or former rookie phenoms suddenly realizing, “Hey, it’s Tuesday. Aren’t I supposed to be in Richmond?”
The concern was Jorge Sosa — and whether he would turn back into Jorge Sosa.
See, it’s important to remember that this isn’t a guy who was expected to go 13-3 last year. It’s a guy who was acquired for Nick Green.
The Braves won Saturday. Somehow. They dumped Washington 8-5 with a five-run ninth inning, including a walk-off grand slam by Jeff Francoeur. (It wasn’t Tuesday in Richmond).
Most important, the Braves won despite another dreadful performance by Señor Erratica. Sosa is not nearly the pitcher he was a year ago. Unfortunately, he is nearly the pitcher he was for three seasons in Tampa Bay, when he went 11-26.
“It’s just a matter of him executing some pitches better,” Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell said. “It just seems like a couple of times each game that he misses location, and he pays for it. Fortunately, it’s very few pitches.”
The Braves are trying to put a positive spin on this. But when you go 13-3 one season and 0-5 the next, it’s not because of a couple of bad pitches here and there. It’s more like only a couple of good pitches.
Sosa was 10-3 as a starter last season. He had a 2.55 ERA. But his numbers have ballooned. A Nationals team that entered Saturday hitting an anemic .255 tagged Sosa for five runs, nine hits and two homers in 5 2/3 innings.
Sosa isn’t 0-6 only because his teammates pulled him out of the lake. But this, they can’t cover: Sosa’s ERA is 6.52. Opponents are batting .331 — that is, when they’re not falling down laughing.
The Braves never had any delusions that they were trading for a pitcher who would win 13 games. In his three seasons with Tampa Bay, his bounced from 5.53 to 4.62 and back to 5.53. He was traded for a utility infielder. (There is a little-known baseball bylaw that reads, “Pitchers with 13-3 potential are never to be traded for Nick Green.”)
Sosa was expected to be a bullpen body — nothing more, possibly less. But he was solid from the outset, and when injuries hit starters Mike Hampton and John Thomson, Sosa was summoned.
He wasn’t a disaster. In fact, he went 10-3 with a 2.62 ERA as a starter. He was 4-0 in September. His 13-3 record accounted for the top winning percentage (.813) in the National League. The Braves went 15-4 in his 19 starts.
Sosa cashed in. The Braves avoided arbitration by giving him a one-year, $2.2 million contract — more than tripling his $700,000 salary from 2005. They were assuming 2005 wasn’t an aberration.
Oops.
Sosa did not appear to report to spring training in great shape (although it’s not something he has admitted to). It didn’t help that he played for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. He made only two relief appearances, further slowing his conditioning. When he returned to the Braves, he pretty much stunk. He went 0-2 with a 7.71 ERA in 14 innings.
Then the season began and things actually got worse.
Saturday, the Braves gave Sosa a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Even after the Nationals came back to tie it with runs in the third and fourth (on a Matt LeCroy homer) the Braves retook the lead on Todd Pratt’s blast in the fifth.
But Sosa couldn’t stand the success. He had two outs in the sixth, then allowed a double to the No. 8 hitter (Royce Clayton), an RBI single to the pitcher (Mike O’Connor’s first major league hit) and a two-run homer by Alfonso Soriano on an 0-2 pitch.
Bobby Cox quickly made his way from the dugout to pull Sosa — before his teammates had a chance to get to him.
“It was supposed to be a fastball in the dirt, but he threw it up here,” said Cox, holding his hand chest-high.
Last season, the pitch might have been lower. But Sosa appears to be drawing from his wrong old self.
Permalink | Comments (39) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Reitsma will be just fine
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
That mighty sigh of relief you heard Friday night from the direction of 755 Hank Aaron Drive was created by the choppers and the chanters after John Smoltz, the Hall of Fame starter, also performed his former role of John Smoltz, the Hall of Fame closer. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, that means he threw every inning of the Braves’ 6-2 victory over the absolutely wretched Nationals.
Three up, three down for the visitors from Washington in the top of a ninth inning that lasted about as long as it took for the first burst of fireworks at Turner Field to brighten the dark sky in the aftermath.
Translated: No Chris Reitsma, no meltdown, no reason to wonder if Smoltz can pitch every game the rest of the season in this dual role for the Braves.
Not to worry if you’re among those choppers and chanters, though. Sometimes, I get these hunches. For instance: You might have to choose between filling your gas tank and paying the mortgage this summer, and Reitsma will be just fine as the Braves’ closer. Presumably the latter will happen in this century. Well, that and before the New York Mets (or the Philadelphia Phillies, for that matter) get such a ridiculous lead in the National League East by then that it won’t matter.
Thus the question: Exactly when during this century will Reitsma make the transformation from great to brutal to great again after he consistently takes the mound during the clutch?
Don’t know. This is what we do know about Reitsma in the midst of his horrific struggles that have produced a 7.43 ERA, opponents ripping his pitches for a .351 batting average and seven blown saves in his past 13 opportunities.
We know that he’s no Dan Kolb, and that is pretty good. For one, Reitsma doesn’t have to sink (literally, since Kolb is a sinkerball pitcher) or swim with a single pitch. His wonderful change-up and decent curveball get even better during his appearances, courtesy of the flames around his fastball. For another, when it comes to Reitsma as the anti-Kolb, he actually is giving himself a chance these days to recover from his woes sooner than later. That’s because Reitsma is doing something that Kolb foolishly refused to do last year during his first and only season with the Braves.
Reitsma is hugging the greatness that is Smoltz in the Braves’ clubhouse instead of ignoring it.
“I talk to John almost every day, if not every day,” said Reitsma, nodding across the way toward Smoltz’s locker that hasn’t moved forever. It might as well have been located on the other side of Mars when Kolb was around, because his pride wouldn’t allow him to walk the four or five giant steps in that direction. Kolb needed to make that trip often after arriving from Milwaukee as Smoltz’s designated successor as closer and failing miserably from the start. Instead of huddling with the highly approachable Smoltz — who, among other things, is either 1a or 1b as the smartest player in the game and became just the sixth pitcher ever to post three consecutive 40-save seasons — Kolb said he preferred to struggle alone.
Whatever. Before long, Kolb lost his closer’s job to Reitsma and then to Kyle Farnsworth, and then he was back in Milwaukee.
Reitsma doesn’t plan to go anywhere but back to prominence as a closer — you know, when he isn’t seeking advice from Smoltz about everything.
“Whenever you have the opportunity to work with somebody who has that kind of a track record, you want to pick his brain,” Reitsma said. “It’s foolish not to take advantage of that situation, and John and I already are good buddies, so things sort of just come up whenever we’re eating dinner or whatever it might be.”
Said Smoltz, “It’s just a matter of him getting those weapons of his in the right sequence. Chris’ deal is going to come down to the mental adjustment of how do I become successful in a negative environment? That’s really what he deals with more than anything else, because right away — before he’s taken the role — people are saying, ‘Oh, man. The bullpen is horrible.’”
Unfortunately, those people have been correct so far. Now it’s time for Reitsma to prove them wrong. Smoltz says he will, and whatever Smoltz says is fine with me.
Permalink | Comments (38) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Hawks’ Knight doesn’t care what you think
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
You, being shallow and impatient, are going to read this and scoff. And Billy Knight, being cool in a way you’ll never be, is going to laugh at your skepticism. See, Knight doesn’t think you know enough to second-guess him.
“I hear people on sports shows,” he says, “and I think that person has as much business talking about basketball as I do running the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”
You’d think a general manager whose team just doubled its win total and still finished with a better record than only two other NBA teams might be a tad less sure of himself. Sorry. Knight doesn’t do circumspection. He doesn’t care what you think of him or his Hawks. He thinks he’s doing a terrific job. And you? You’re simply too myopic to see it.
“You have to give players time to mature. It’s the microwave age, but the world does not work instantly. If I could say one thing, it’s this: Everyone needs to relax.”
As relaxation therapy, try listening to the GM without throwing the paper at the wall in disgust. Here’s Knight’s take on Mike Woodson, the coach he hired two summers ago: “He’s better than I thought he was… . I go to all the practices and all the games, and I know more about it than anybody else knows. That might sound like an egotistical statement, but I think I know more than anybody else.”
On Chris Paul, the newly minted rookie of the year bypassed by the Hawks in the draft: “Chris Paul is a good player. He deserves to be rookie of the year - I voted for him. But we’re very happy with Marvin Williams. We think he’s going to be a heck of a player.”
On Boris Diaw, whom Knight drafted in 2003 and traded to Phoenix last summer, whereupon he developed into the NBA’s most improved player: “Boris Diaw is in a good situation… . Boris is a very versatile player. He’s able to play [power forward] for them; whether or not he’d have been able to play it for us is a different story.”
Here’s Knight on the upcoming draft, in which the watching world expects the Hawks to draft a point guard: “Guys are running around saying, ‘Point guard, point guard.’ But what if I don’t agree with that? … I find [such talk] a little humorous and entertaining.”
For the record, Knight won’t rule out drafting yet another swingman. “I always take talent… . I like good basketball players, and there are a lot of 6-foot-8 players in the draft. And 6-8 is the ideal size.” Might the day arrive when the Hawks draft for a specific need? “There could come a time like that, but I’m not at that time.”
Knight claims his goal is to be “the most laid-back guy in the world,” and he’s on track. Who else could be this sanguine while presiding over a team that has gone 39-125 over two seasons and hasn’t, in three drafts under Knight, picked a player who received even one third-place vote for rookie of the year?
“I’m happy with where we are today,” he says. “We have a long way to go.” Does he expect the Hawks to make the playoffs next season? “I don’t say that. I say we should make improvement.”
Does he believe his constituency supports such a measured approach? “Based on what I hear when I move about town, when I go to the movies or the grocery or when I take my daughter to the mall or when I’m getting gas, I think people can see we’re making improvement… . We’re in the second year of our process.”
But what if down-the-road results don’t support such serenity? What if his supportive ownership gets as antsy as Sudden Steve Belkin? What it time runs out? “If it does, it does. I know this business. I’ve been around the world and made it back. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
And you out there? What if you’re not willing to endorse such a glacial pace? What if you have issues with every player Knight has drafted? Then you, being borderline hysterical, need to let matters play out.
“I never judge a guy after one year,” Knight says. “It’s too early to tell. You’ll see the difference in three years, as opposed to standing on your mountain on passing judgment.”
You out there - take a deep breath. You’ll have your chance to vent. The NBA draft is only 47 days away.
Permalink | Comments (93) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
The playoffs we’ll never know
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
We’ll never know what would have happened, but speculating is fun (and irresistible). The Thrashers missed the playoffs by two points. What if they’d gotten in?
The easy answer is to say that they’d have lost in Round 1 because form held in the East: All the higher seeds won their first-round series. But wait a minute. The No. 1 seed, Ottawa, trails Buffalo 3-0 in Round 2, and the Thrashers would have played the Senators in Round 1 had they made it. And the Senators seemed vulnerable because their No. 1 goalie, the famous Dominik Hasek, hadn’t — and still hasn’t — logged a minute since the Olympics. Could the Thrashers, who score in bunches, have seized on Hasek’s absence?
Maybe. But there’s no guarantee the Thrashers would have had Kari Lehtonen in Round 1, either. He hurt his ankle with 12 days to go in the regular season, and his absence was rudely felt in that crushing 6-4 loss in Washington on the season’s penultimate night. (The Thrashers used two goalies that night and still couldn’t hold a 4-3 lead in the third period.) Without a healthy Lehtonen, the Thrashers couldn’t have beaten a better team in a best-of-seven.
And it’s worth noting that Buffalo, the team that’s about to eliminate Ottawa, is the kind of club the Thrashers aren’t. The Thrashers waste a lot of offensive chances because they know they’ll get more. The Sabres bear down on every chance because they know they aren’t hugely talented. (They scored seven goals in Game 1 against Ottawa on only 23 shots.) The Thrashers were talented enough to put themselves on the cusp of the postseason, but I’m not sure they’re tough-minded enough to have lasted long in the crucible of playoff fire.
But wait another minute. This is hockey, and in playoff hockey nobody knows anything. Out West, all four of the higher seeds lost in Round 1, and the best-looking team at the moment is Anaheim, which benched its starting goalie — Jean-Sebastien Giguere, hero of the 2003 playoffs — in the Calgary series and has found another clutch performer in backup Ilya Bryzgalov.
Hockey being the quirkiest of sports, one bounce can change a series. Alas, we’ll never know if that bounce would have gone for or against the Thrashers.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Will third season be the charm for McKay, Mora?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
When the Falcons assembled for a mini-camp two years ago, it was against a backdrop of uncertainty. Michael Vick had been injured. The prior season unraveled. The owner got angry. The coach got fired.
Then Rich McKay and Jim Mora turned a mess into a team that reached the NFC title game, and suddenly everybody had the answers.
When they assemble for a mini-camp this weekend in Flowery Branch, the Falcons again will report against a backdrop of uncertainty. Raise expectations in year one, only to decompose in year two — that’s what happens.
When there is little track record for success, nobody gets the benefit of the doubt. Just the doubt.
Are the right players being picked? Are the right players being coached the wrong way? Greg Knapp — was he actually recommended by Steve Young? Whose bright idea was Ed Donatell, anyway? And shouldn’t Arthur Blank be more worried about fixing one franchise (Falcons) than putting his stamp on another (Braves)?
One good season fades. One bad season leaves an odor. Welcome to the third mini-camp.
Keith Brooking has been a Falcon for eight seasons. (I’m assuming that will be taken into consideration in the afterlife.) He says what he is suppose to say — that what other people think doesn’t matter. But he admits what other people think also isn’t a secret.
“Some people come up to me, and I know they’re pulling for us, but they’ll say, ‘We’ve got to have a better year. We’re gonna do it this year, aren’t we?’” the linebacker said Wednesday. “There’s a little doubt in their comments, as opposed to last year after going to the NFC championship game and being one game from the Super Bowl. It’s a totally different vibe.”
One good year. One bad year. Arthur Blank didn’t provide generations of Blanks with financial security by going .500.
Year three will break the tie, clarify analysis and possibly determine futures. Did we say, welcome to the third mini-camp?
When he was with Tampa Bay, Rich McKay was known more for his organizational skills than he was for choosing players. It’s why he and personnel chief Tim Ruskell made such a strong pairing. But after one year in Atlanta, Ruskell went to Seattle as general manager — and the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl.
McKay has worked hard this off-season to fix the Falcons’ defense. He traded for end John Abraham, signed safety Lawyer Milloy and drafted cornerback Jimmy Williams. But little has been done to help an offensive line that got Michael Vick buried last season. Not to suggest that defensive improvement wasn’t needed — but where does protecting the franchise’s most important player rank?
Mora could be one of the bright young coaches in the game. Or he could be a one-year wonder. Blank recently gave him a “contract extension,” but logic dictates that was more for appearances than supreme confidence. In reality, all Blank did was guarantee two option years on Mora’s deal. That’s comforting when it comes to mortgage payments, but Mora also knows he can’t miss the playoffs two straight seasons.
In year one, Mora provided the fire the team needed. It was apparent in that first day of mini-camp. In year two, the problem wasn’t fire. It was backdraft. Neither Mora nor the team, whose youth was magnified by injuries, handled adversity well. This mini-camp will set the tone for training camp, which will set the tone for the season, which will define Mora’s growth as a head coach.
Blank has not been an easy man to co-exist with this off-season. He is demanding when he wins, so you can imagine what he’s like when he loses six of eight down the stretch. It would not have been surprising if significant changes were made in Mora’s staff. Instead, there was only the firing of quarterbacks coach Mike Johnson.
Much has been made of Johnson’s replacement, Bill Musgrave. But the reality is that Musgrave is only the fourth most important coach relating to the offense — after Mora, Knapp (play-calling) and line coach Alex Gibbs (blocking schemes). Knapp’s offense has been erratic, and last season he managed the unthinkable — turning Vick into a boring quarterback. He and defensive coordinator Ed Donatell — who can’t point to personnel deficiencies this season — both have a third season to prove themselves.
Brooking said he “likes the doubters. I like people not believing in us.”
Whatever works. But it’s only natural that one good year and one bad isn’t going to comfort the masses. The odor tends to linger.
Permalink | Comments (105) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Clueless in Augusta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Hootie. Billy. Who cares? If the members of Augusta National decide someday to replace Billy Payne with Homer Simpson as their chairman, so be it.
Then again, this notoriously cliquish group likely has a rule against bringing cartoon characters with strangely shaped heads into their ranks. Plus, they probably aren’t big on having any movie on the premises that isn’t entitled “Gone with the Wind.”
If such also is the case, well, so be it. The same applies to if they wish to declare that all of the sand traps during the Masters must have a purplish tint. You know, to make sure that the new chartreuse balls stand out.
And, if Augusta National members prefer to spend the night of the champion’s dinner dancing on top of coffee tables with lamp shades over their heads, we should just nod and move on with the rest of our lives.
See a pattern here? Augusta National is a private club, and whether the outside world likes it or not, its members have the right to look as clueless as they wish.
Permalink | Comments (62) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Jackets cash in on visit by Irish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Folks do all sorts of crazy things when that blue and gold monster of a college football program is coming to town. Surely you know that whether Notre Dame has fangs or not during a given stretch, just the thought of a leprechaun doing a jig near goalposts is enough to produce an epidemic of cheering or cringing.
Such is especially true when Notre Dame plays in the vicinity of the Red River or south of the Mason-Dixon line. All you need to know is that the Fighting Irish once were showered at Georgia Tech with a lovely mixture of whiskey bottles and smelly fish.
And guess what? Notre Dame is slated for its first return to the Flats in 26 years this fall to open the season. Courtesy of actions at the ticket office by Tech honchos, the game already is larger than large.
For now, consider this: Not coincidentally, those in charge of such things at the University of Texas stirred up their already wired faithful even more for The Notre Dame Game in 1996. They made that the afternoon in which they dedicated what was Memorial Stadium to former Longhorns coach Darrell Royal.
We’re talking Darrell Royal, as in Texas’ Knute Rockne.
Elsewhere, three of the past four times Notre Dame visited Tennessee it was either a record crowd at Neyland Stadium or No. 2 on the list. Notre Dame’s only trip to Clemson, in 1977, produced the largest gathering ever in Death Valley at the time when Gamecocks weren’t involved. That same year, Notre Dame played Ole Miss in Jackson, drawing the largest crowd to witness a sporting event in Mississippi when the Crimson Tide wasn’t involved.
Earlier this decade, The Notre Dame Game set attendance highs for the legendary stadiums at Nebraska and Texas A&M. Not only that, Florida State has faced more than a few dynamic foes at home through the decades. Still, nothing stuffed the Seminoles’ place more at the time than The Notre Dame Game four years ago.
So if you’re among those Tech honchos, searching for only your sixth sellout since the ridiculous expansion of Bobby Dodd Stadium to 55,000 seats in 2002, I guess this makes sense: You continue a craze that has become rampant in sports called variable pricing, and you make The Notre Dame Game cost $12 more than any other home game on the Yellow Jackets’ schedule. That’s $50 compared to $38 for Miami, Virginia, Maryland and Duke and $28 for Samford and Troy. In fact, the only way you can see The Notre Dame Game is to purchase a Tech season ticket or hope that individual seats remain later this summer. If so, you would have to pay that $50 for The Notre Dame Game and buy tickets to two other games.
You’d think The Notre Dame Game was The Georgia Game or something. No, bigger. Thus a problem for a Tech program trying to end its seven-victory-a-season blahs under coach Chan Gailey.
Let’s just say The Georgia Game always brings out the wildest of feelings for Tech people at the end of the season. Now, with much help from Notre Dame just being Notre Dame, and with the national mania already surrounding Charlie Weis in his second season as the Irish’s miracle worker, and with these jacked-up tickets at Tech to create even more hype for The Notre Dame Game, the Jackets could lose even if they win. Translated: Tech players could become an emotional mess for the rest of the season no matter what.
“Well, I don’t think the prices of the games, for instance, ever filter down to the student-athletes or the coaches,” said Dan Radakovich, Tech’s recently named athletics director. “They’re going to go out there and play as hard against Notre Dame as they would against anybody else on the schedule. So I think that, really, what it boils down to is that some of the administrative and event-specific things will go on associated with the game. Notre Dame, if we charged $1 for everybody to get in, our student-athletes still would go out with the same enthusiasm and commitment to win as if we charged $50.”
That’s true. When tickets everywhere were closer to $1 than $50, Ole Miss had enough of that “enthusiasm and commitment” to shock Notre Dame that day in Jackson to give the Irish their only loss along the way to a national championship.
It’s just that Notre Dame whipped the previously undefeated Longhorns that day in front of their Rockne, and Texas lost six of its last 11 games.
Permalink | Comments (137) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
(Yes, it’s still an AJC.com exclusive!)
10: The subject of whether racism is to blame for people slamming Barry Bonds during his home run chase has come up again. So let me just go on the record right now. I’d hate him even if he were white.
9: Let’s see. Drugs have artificially inflated his home run numbers and probably his longevity. He has been an openly hostile, rude and dishonest person to almost everybody around him since Arizona State days. He has never shown himself to be a team leader or a winner. Now he is trying to reshape his image on a weekly series on ESPN in which he largely has artistic control. That should do it.
8: A woman will get admitted to Augusta National — before Barry Bonds.
7: Kobe Bryant — now there’s a leader. (Kidding.)
6: People, enough with the e-mail “enlightening” me that Augusta National is a private club. I mean, duh. What makes the club’s exclusionary policies different is that the club hosts the Masters. No other private club hosts such a high profile sports event. (Here come another 100 e-mails.)
5: Oh look — Chris Paul won rookie of the year! Wonder where Marvin Williams finished? Was it higher than where Billy Knight finished in the running for top NBA executive?
4: A rumor re-circulated last week that North Carolina State was talking to Bobby Cremins about its then-vacant coaching vacancy. So I phoned Cremins. “No,” Cremins said. “I’m not going to tell you I wouldn’t talk to them if they called. But the biggest problem I would have is playing Georgia Tech.” (N.C. State hired Sidney Lowe two days after that conversation.)
3: For what it’s worth, Cremins would not close the door to ever coaching again “if the situation was right.”
2: Randy Moss’s agent, Dante DiTrapano, was arrested with enough crack cocaine (73 chunks) and powder cocaine (21 grams) to start his own South American country. So Moss fired him. I will take this as a sign of maturity.
1: David Blaine made it out of the bubble. Any chance Jorge Sosa would try it next?
Permalink | Comments (31) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Why are Braves panicking so soon?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I’m seeing something I never thought I’d see from the Braves. I’m seeing desperation — in May, no less.
I’m seeing the organization that has made its reputation on playing from behind acting as if it can fall no farther behind. Indeed, John Smoltz said there’d have been no coming back had the Braves lost Sunday to drop 10 games behind. Since when did 10 games back after 31 games played become the threshold of elimination? Since when did a 10-game lead become insurmountable where a nine-game bulge apparently is not?
I’m seeing the Braves act as if they’re the team starved for a division title. On Sunday the Mets needed a starting pitcher and did as any right-thinking team would do on the Sunday after the Kentucky Derby — they summoned someone from the minors (the washed-up Jose Lima), hoped for the best and lived with the unsurprising loss. And the Braves?
They started a pitcher who’ll turn 39 next week on three days’ rest. Yeah, they won, and yeah, they’re eight games behind as opposed to the dreaded 10, but this was a case of risk trumping any possible reward. Smoltz has a long history of arm trouble and is on track to log 240 innings, more than in any season since 1997. Will the six innings he worked on May 7 show in August or September? If so, who starts on three days’ rest then?
The Braves, of all teams, should know better. Ten games back isn’t a breaking point: They trailed the Giants by 10 on July 22, 1993 — after 97 games, as opposed to 31 — and famously won the West. And that was the last year when winning a division was essential for postseason participation. There’s now this thing called the wild card. Since the Braves haven’t yet availed themselves of it, maybe they’re unaware it exists. If so, someone should advise them.
The Braves can still catch the Mets, but the desire to catch the Mets shouldn’t fog the bigger picture. You can win the World Series without winning your division. (Every Series winner from 2002 through 2004 did just that.) You cannot, however, win the World Series or even make a serious wild-card run if you kill your staff in the first six weeks. The day before Smoltz pitched on three days rest, the Braves activated Horacio Ramirez, who’d been scheduled to begin a rehab assignment in Class AAA. The night before Ramirez was summoned, Bobby Cox burned nine pitchers — the Mets used seven — in a 14-inning loss.
If the Braves go 77-54 from here on, they’ll finish with 90 wins. Ninety victories would have won the wild card last season. Such a pace (.588 over 131 games) would be easily doable with hale and hearty pitching, but the Braves are acting as if the charge must begin PDQ. Remind me again: Which team won the East by 10 games after being below .500 on July 4, 2004? Which team won the West after being below .500 and 9-1/2 games out of first at the 1991 All-Star break?
From Cox, heretofore the most patient manager I’ve ever known: “If you’re at .500 at the All-Star break, anything can happen.” As good as the Mets are today, there’s no guarantee they’ll look the same after 100 games. They’re already strapped for starting pitchers and Billy Wagner has blown more saves than Chris Reitsma and their schedule is about to toughen. The best way for the Braves to close ground is to stop worrying about the Mets and to let the six-month season take its course.
And that’s the thing: The Braves and Cox have always been experts at pacing themselves. They don’t overreact to a bad week or a bad month. At least they didn’t. Now I’m not so sure. If I’d had to bet on which team would have started a 38-year-old on three days rest on May 7, the Braves would have been my 30th choice.
The Braves used to be the ones reminding those of us on the periphery that a season lasts 162 games. Today they’re the ones who need reminding, they of all people.
Permalink | Comments (105) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Payne must act at Augusta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
A few years ago, Martha Burk asked Augusta National to start admitting women members, and Hootie Johnson reacted with the finesse of an eight-year-old with a pirate hat and a plastic sword, standing guard over his tree house.
Johnson said he wouldn’t change anything “at the point of a bayonet.” Or, to put it another way, “You can have your voting rights when you pry them from my cold dead hands. Until then, go make me a sandwich.”
On Friday, Johnson announce he would retire as chief of Augusta National. (I’m going to assume it’s just coincidence he stepped down the same day as the director of the CIA because, for one thing, Porter Goss may have actually seen the point of a bayonet.)
There is an opening for Hootie at Fernbank, adjacent to the T-Rex exhibit. Whether Augusta National remains stuck in a time warp now is entirely up to Billy Payne.
Payne oversaw the 1996 Olympics. He presided over the greatest global example of people coming together for an event, regardless of race, nationality, religion, politics, economics or gender. Now he presides over one of the world’s most famous backyards with its equally infamous exclusionary policies.
Payne had to bring people together for Atlanta to win the Olympic bid. But he discovered just how divisive an issue this was when he failed to get golf approved as an Olympic sport in ‘96, largely because it was going to be held at Augusta National. If he hasn’t learned the lesson, he’ll prove to be merely a younger dinosaur.
Augusta National is a club and the Masters is a tournament. But the two can’t be separated. To support the tournament is to support the club. The club is private but it hosts the most public of events, with professional golfers on network television. It’s not a tree house.
The club has progressed from a time when Clifford Roberts wouldn’t allow an African American on the premises for any purpose other than caddying or dishwashing. It allows women to play the course. Progress, even if at a comatose snail’s pace.
Augusta is steeped in tradition. Allowing women members would not eat into that tradition at all, any more than allowing blacks did. It would be one more reason to celebrate the club and its tournament.
The issue went from screaming headlines a few years ago to non-existent at this year’s Masters. But the fact the story — somewhat like Burk — went underground shouldn’t fool anybody. It will resurface, because matters involving discrimination always do. Payne knows that. He’s too smart not to.
Unlike Burk and Johnson, Payne knows something about finesse. Burk started out with good intentions in 2002, but by 2003 had veered off course. She was doomed when she started drawing parallels between Augusta National’s policies, and patriotism and women in the military. She teamed with Jesse Jackson, whose aide, Charles Farrell, uttered these forgettable words: “We find it morally offensive at a time when Saddam Hussein is gender-eligible to be a member of Augusta, yet the woman who is an Iraqi POW is not.”
Let’s try to stay on point, shall we?
The NFL would not hold its Super Bowl at a stadium that was operated by a club with exclusionary policies. The difference here is that players like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have a hammer but won’t use it. You just don’t boycott the Masters. It’s too important to your season and your bank account.
It’s news just to get a player to say, “The fairways are too narrow.” When asked before this year’s Masters what he would say if Johnson asked if him about the course, Woods smiled and said, “I want to be invited back.”
“Players walk in eggshells,” at Augusta National, David Toms said.
Payne can affect change. Ten years ago, the Olympics in Atlanta were punctuated by outstanding performances by women athletes: the soccer team, the softball team, gymnasts, swimmers and track stars.
There was a time when the Olympics were for men only. That tradition died in 1900. Wilma Rudolph, Peggy Flemming and Mary Lou Retton haven’t seemed to hurt the Games.
Here we are in 2006.
Now that he has a new office in Augusta, Payne might want to spread that around.
Permalink | Comments (222) | Categories: Golf, Jeff Schultz
Ruth’s 714 dabbed by white-out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Thanks to Barry Bonds’ prolific ways as a slugger through his artificially inflated arms, legs and everything else, George Herman Ruth lives. Thus the question: Upon further review after all of these decades, should some of the Babe’s legacy die?
Well, yes. No question that Ruth used his Louisville Slugger to resuscitate baseball during the 1920s when it nearly expired after the Black Sox Scandal. He turned the game into our national pastime with much help from the magic in his wink and his smile. Even so, watching Bonds along his way to eclipsing “714” on the all-time home run list is worthy of a yawn, and the reasons go beyond the fact that Hank Aaron’s “755” is the real number to chase.
For one, when it comes to somebody reaching “715,” it’s been done. For another, Ruth’s “714” was a significantly flawed record from the start.
Consider this: While Ruth’s standing as baseball’s greatest ambassador is indisputable, his designation as baseball’s greatest player deserves an asterisk faster than you can say “segregation.” He only played against the best competition that wasn’t darker than the ball, and for that reason alone, Bonds’ ability to reach “715” means nothing. Listen to James “Red” Moore (no relation), among the gifted hundreds from the old Negro leagues who lacked the chance to reach the majors to determine whether Ruth was The Sultan of Swat among all or just some.
“He sure enough wasn’t playing against our boys when they were in their prime, and I really don’t believe he would have hit that many home runs with them out there,” said Moore, the smooth first baseman of the Atlanta Black Crackers and other Negro league teams in a career that spanned from 1935 to 1948. He is an Atlanta native who still lives on the northwest side. He has spent six decades as a Sunday school teacher at Springfield Missionary Baptist Church, and he has become a fixture in classrooms to inspire youngsters as a walking and talking history book.
At nearly 90-years-young, Moore’s mind remains as sharp as the line drives that he used to zip into the alleys. He said of those Negro league days that earned him entry this year into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, “On bus rides, we used to talk about Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, all of them guys, wishing we would get a chance to compete against them [in the big leagues].”
So much for dreams. Jackie Robinson didn’t break the color barrier until April 1947, which was a dozen years after Ruth retired with outrageously large career numbers for RBIs, walks, extra-base hits and homers. He also was the undisputed record holder in all of those categories for a single season. Said Moore, chuckling, “No, sir, Babe Ruth wouldn’t have done as well [with integration], because we had a whale of a number of great pitchers, and they went beyond just Satchel Paige.
“Then I believe that if Josh Gibson would have had an opportunity to play during that time — and if he could have started out as a young boy like [Ruth] — no telling how many home runs Josh would have had. He really could pop ‘em. Oooh, I’ve seen him hit some tape-measure shots. If Josh Gibson was in the major leagues, he might have hit 10 hundred home runs.”
The way this steroid generation was going, somebody was threatening to hit that many in a season. Mark McGwire. Sammy Sosa. Jose Canseco. Rafael Palmeiro. They are among those who kept doing the impossible through means other than eating all of their vegetables. Still, they continue to drop farther behind Bond’s shadow. “I just don’t see how [the public] can just pick [Bonds] out and ignore the rest,” said Moore, who confessed to not knowing enough to judge whether Bonds is guilty or innocent.
This is what Moore does know: “If Barry would have come up with the rest of us, then he would have been right there with Buck Leonard, Josh and the rest. [Bonds] could do it all. We know he can hit, but he had that good throwing arm. He could run and always was in good shape.”
What about Ruth when he was off the sauce compared to Bonds when he was off the juice? “Oh, I’d take Barry,” Moore said laughing, before adding, “Just observing Babe, he’d down a beer and take a shot [of booze], and that’s how he trained. He’d still go up there and hit it out for you. I think that anybody who has that many home runs should get some praise.”
Yeah, but how much?
Permalink | Comments (100) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Payne values customs, traditions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Well, it wasn’t the smoothest of tours in office, but after eight years as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, and the Masters Tournament, William W. (Call Me Hootie) Johnson is vacating the position, and his succesor will be Billy Payne, who moves up from the chairmanship of the media committee. If this comes as a surprise, it shouldn’t, considering that Payne was the driving force behind bringing the Olympic Games to Atlanta in 1996, thereby establishing his leadership qualities.
All of this was announced at the members’ closing party Thursday night, at which time the new chairman said he would “maintain the customs and traditions of our club as established by Clifford and Bobby Jones,” which should quell all the controversies, such as women membership and any others, real or imagined. That was the most disruptive issue that arose during Johnson’s eight years in the chair, when he was challenged by Martha Burk. She loudly and actively made her presence felt in 2003, when she staged a rally nearby during the tournament. It was poorly attended, and afterward Ms. Burk went quietly after other targets.
Chairman Johnson also drew some bullets when he suggested to some of the older former champions that, though they were always invited to be guests, should leave their games at home. The tempest subsided as he endured in office, and it was during the past Masters that he said, “Jack Stephens was chairman for seven years. I’m been in the chair eight years, and I think it’s time to move on.” He’ll remain as chairman emeritus, which is the custom established by the club. He was the fifth in the chain of command, following Clifford Roberts, Bill Lane, Hord Hardin and Jack Stephens.
It is, of course, pure coincidence that one former college football star follows another. Johnson was a high school sensation in Greenwood, S.C., who first chose to go to Georgia until he learned that then coach Wally Butts did not allow married players, and he and his sweetheart planned to be wed. He then switched to South Carolina, but unluckily fell in behind one of the greatest runners the Gamecocks ever had, Steve Wadiak. “I then decided to become the best blocking back I could be,” Hootie said, and pretty well succeeded at it. In 1952 he won the Jacobs Blocking Trophy for the Gamecocks.
Payne’s ascension follows in Augusta National’s swing toward the younger set. Johnson is 75, Payne is 58. Just two weeks ago, Will Nicholson, 77, resigned as Chairman of the Competition Committees, and was replaced by Fred Ridley, 53, a former U.S. Amateur champion.
William Porter Payne Jr. has advanced swiftly since he became a member of the club in 1997. He wasn’t even a member of the media committee when he was appointed to be chairman in 2000, succeeding Charlie Yates, a popular fellow who once won the British Amateur. Yates was seriously ill at the time and has since passed on. So, it’s from new member in 1997 to chairman nine years later.
“It’s overwhelming,” he said, ” but I know what’s expected of me and I hope to follow through as I should.”
At Georgia, he was an outstanding end, first on offense, later converted to defense, an All-Southeastern Conference selection — as well as academic — in 1968. “I was switched after coach (Vince) Dooley explained I had overcome my offensive deficiencies, mainly lack of speed. With stars like Bill Stanfill on one side and Jake Scott behind me, I was pretty well backed up.”
Golf came later. He now plays to a 6.8 handicap. His lowest score at Augusta National has been a 71. Hootie Johnson came into the club with an 8 handicap and leaves with a 14, which means that there is wear and tear in the chair. In business, Payne operates an investment properties company with his son, Porter, and serves on the board of three companies, Lincoln National Corporation, Cousins Properties and Anheuser-Busch.
“One thing I’m particularly proud of,” he said, “is that I’m the first lifetime Georgian to be so honored.” Johnson is a native Georgian, born in Augusta, where he lived until he was four, but reared in Greenwood, where his father proceeded to introduce him into the banking world. He was later the man credited with merging NCNB with Bankers Trust, leading to Bank of America, of which he was chairman of the executive committee at one time. By the way, “Hootie” has a brother called “Bubba.”
Johnson leaves with a golf course several yards longer than the one he inherited. Some of his changes were acclaimed, some were declaimed, especially this year when Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer were both quoted as taking a critical view of the changes made on the 4th, 7th and 11th holes. Later, though, Nicklaus disclaimed some of the harsh remarks charged to him in a golf magazine story. Whatever, after the championship, several players spoke rather warmly of the course revisions, including even Rocco Mediate, who had the misfortune to take a horrendous 10 on the par-3 12th hole.
So, William Porter (Billy) Payne mounts the stairs to the second floor of the administration building, and he takes his place in the chairman’s office, with a portrait of Bobby Jones on the wall. Whatever takes place here will be done with careful and gentle consideration of the history and the traditions that come with the post, and from the chair occupied by a man who considers himself the guardian of it all.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Bonds stuck as villain
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Remember how your Little League coach used to yell, “Right man, right spot” to every batter, no matter how scrawny or overmatched? Imagine how it must feel to be Barry Bonds, the greatest baseball player of the last 70 years, and to have always, always been the wrong man in the right spot.
He was one out from the 1992 World Series and, with a chance to send Game 7 to extra innings, couldn’t throw out the plowhorse Sid Bream. He was six outs from the 2002 world championship but made a key error in the Giants’ Game 6 unraveling against Anaheim. And now he’s about to overhaul the beloved Bambino and major league baseball can’t bring itself to speak his name.
Imagine how it must feel to have gotten so much right but seen it all go wrong. If the book “Game Of Shadows” is to be believed, Bonds began using steroids because he was jealous of the acclaim festooned on Mark McGwire for hitting 70 home runs in 1998. So Bonds, it is alleged, made himself bigger and better and shattered McGwire’s record in 2001 and garnered maybe one-tenth of the glory. Imagine how that felt.
In 1998 Sports Illustrated dressed McGwire and Sammy Sosa in togas and laurel wreaths as its co-Sportsmen of the Year. Wrote Gary Smith: “They went to such lengths to conduct the great home run race with dignity and sportsmanship.” Three years later, was Bonds the Sportsman of the Year? No. Two other baseball players were — Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Imagine that.
Barry Bonds could have been the Michael Jordan of his sport, a paragon of excellence and grace. Alas, he got it only half-right. He’s at worst the second-best player in the history of baseball — Ruth, who was also a pitcher, still holds the edge — but he nears the end of his career with the masses and MLB itself just wishing he’d wreck his knee and go away for good.
Bonds’ team played in Milwaukee on Wednesday and Thursday. Bud Selig lives and works in Milwaukee. With Bonds sitting on 712 homers, the commissioner didn’t deign to attend either game. Baseball has already said it will do nothing to commemorate the passing of Ruth — no fireworks for second place, MLB decreed — but surely if it were Ken Griffey Jr. hitting Nos. 714 and 715 the stance would be rather different.
The second-greatest player ever has become the poisonous tree. MLB doesn’t want to salute Bonds because it’s afraid it will have to sanction him depending on the findings of various investigations. This is the same MLB that fell all over itself to embrace McGwire and Sosa despite suspicions — remember Andro? — that not everything about that famous chase was aboveboard. But baseball didn’t want to find anything wrong with McGwire and Sosa, who were seen as nice guys.
Bonds, as we know, has never gone to any lengths to build political capital. The best description still belongs to my late colleague Jeff Denberg, who said, “He plays the game with a sneer.” How many people in any performer’s audience enjoy being sneered at?
Imagine how it must be, being Barry Bonds. Does he wish he’d been nicer to people back when? Is he thinking of retiring before he gets to Hank Aaron’s 755 and thereby sparing his sport and himself a megaton of aggravation? Going on the rampant assumption that he did use steroids, does he consider himself a cheat or just someone who seized a competitive advantage? (Like a pitcher who scuffs the ball, say.)
For those of us on the periphery, the easy course is to harrumph that cheaters never prosper and that Bonds is getting exactly what he deserves. But what about McGwire? Did he get what he deserved? What about Gaylord Perry? Does a spitballer belong in Cooperstown? Why is Bonds the subject of all our scorn?
Imagine how it must be to have done things that should have made him the idol of millions but have instead rendered him a villain. Yes, Barry Bonds brought much of it on himself, but as he approaches the hallowed number 714 surely somebody should utter a sympathetic word.
Somebody? Anybody?
Permalink | Comments (82) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Derby just another day
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Tastes change. Time and distance have their inexorable effect. Things that used to hold — nay, command — my interest now leave me cold. I don’t know if this says something about those things or more about me.
Those things: The Kentucky Derby and the NBA playoffs. I used to love both. Now I care little for either.
The Derby is probably a function of location. I lived for 28 years in Kentucky, where everything stops for the big race. I remember my mom and dad attending Derby parties at the Maysville Country Club. I remember Mom cutting the names of that year’s entries into little strips so we could have our own Derby pool at home. I used to be able to name every Derby winner from 1963 on, but now I can’t tell you who won last year.
For me, the Derby ceased being a big deal when I stopped being a Kentuckian. My waning interest in the NBA playoffs knows no similar line of demarcation. Over time, I’ve simply and gradually stopped enjoying the sport. (And I used to enjoy it immensely, much to the chagrin of my college neighbors who couldn’t understand how someone could get so excited over basketball that wasn’t of the amateur strain.)
I don’t like the way the sport is presented — everything glorifies the individual, as opposed to the team — or played anymore. I haven’t watched a minute of this postseason, choosing to watch the Stanley Cup instead. There was a Sunday in May 1977 when I skipped my college graduation because the Sixers were playing the Rockets in the Eastern Conference finals on TV. I wouldn’t skip a root canal to watch the NBA on TV now.
As for the Derby: I still watch, but it doesn’t really resonate. It’s just another sporting event. I never thought I’d feel this way, but I do.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Kasten deserves more credit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Stan Kasten has just been given the keys to another sports franchise.
I know what you’re thinking: Brick wall, dead ahead, and you want to watch the crash. Because while Kasten was the most powerful sports executive this city ever had or ever will have, I have never met a greater lightning rod for criticism.
It’s the simple math for sports fans and media: Take a loudmouth New York attorney, mix with equal parts Jon Koncak and Pete Babcock, heavily season with playoff flops and Turner Field food prices, then bake until smug to the touch, and you get: “Kiss my butt you obnoxious jerk!”
But you know what? The Washington Nationals are a better franchise today because Stan Kasten is running them. (Oh look, somebody just threw a nice rock through my window.)
“Sure, it’s important to me what people think of me,” Kasten said Wednesday, when he officially became president and minority owner of the Nationals. “But I know what we did in my time in Atlanta. If you take a step back, I think I can be very proud of my résumé there. I never got 100 percent acclaim. But I understand that. I also know that even if you are wildly popular, eight percent of the population still hates you.”
Don’t delude yourself, Stanley. You were never close to a 92-percent approval rating.
But the question is: Why was he so close to 8?
Kasten never got the credit he deserved here. He has long been far more respected outside Atlanta than in it.
He isn’t cuddly. But he is smart. There is a reason the Ted Lerner group became commissioner Bud Selig’s favorite among the bidding owners when Kasten’s group merged with them. There is a reason Kasten is close friends with both NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the NBA’s David Stern.
There is a reason agents alternately hate him and respect him.
Ask yourself this: Would any of the off-court, off-ice goofiness involving Hawks and Thrashers owners have occurred if Kasten was directing traffic?
John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox have received a bulk of the credit for Braves’ success since 1991. Deservedly so. But nobody mentions that it was Kasten who told owner Ted Turner that his plan to sign free agents as relative runway models for TBS stunk. Or that it was Kasten who convinced Schuerholz to come here from Kansas City as general manager, and asked Cox to move downstairs from the GM’s office to the dugout.
The Hawks represent the biggest wart on his tenure. The irony of that: For as emotional and opinionated as Kasten is, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Babcock, “You’re fired.” Big mistake.
No, he didn’t do everything right. He shares the blame for this city’s dearth of championships. He orchestrated a sweetheart deal with plans to turn the Olympic stadium into Turner Field — but then went splat with the team’s original stadium food policies and prices. (Who can forget the moment when even Ted Turner blasted the cost of a hot dog, as Kasten slowly sank into his chair?)
When he retired as president of the Braves, Thrashers and Hawks in November 2003, Kasten said, “I won’t be an agent, sell cigarettes or be a hit man.” We know the first two. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on the third.
Shortly after stepping down, he got a phone call from Lerner, who had missed out on buying the Redskins and wanted to own a sports franchise. The two spoke, but the Nationals weren’t even on the radar. They were still in Montreal.
Kasten told Lerner what he told others: He wanted to run a team again. He has since claimed to being inundated with offers. But the Nationals represented everything he wanted: a chance to build from the ground up, with blueprints for a new stadium in a vibrant and politically charged city. Also, he gets richer. (Kasten wouldn’t provide details but admitted: “It’s a cool thing economically.”)
But this isn’t all sweetness and light. It’s a lousy team with sinking attendance and a general manager, Jim Bowden, who has become at one with breathalyzers.
“We understand we have a lot of work in front of us,” Kasten said. “The franchise won’t be all it can be, at least until we’re in a new stadium. But I wanted this challenge. I didn’t want to take over a successful team. I said two years ago that I wanted to build something. This was the biggest and brightest thing out there.”
And as for the political buzzsaw he is stepping into: “It’s exhilarating. It’s what I want to do. It’s overcoming hurdles. It’s solving problems to get to a solution that works for everyone.”
I’ll translate: It’s fighting and winning.
A few weeks ago, Kasten met with Turner, who asked his former counsel if he was going to buy the Braves. Kasten said no and informed Turner of his plans. Instead, he’s now in the same division as the Braves.
“Hopefully it’ll inject some fun into the rivalry,” Kasten said.
But if you’re wondering about the reception upon his return, think more Tom Glavine than Julio Franco.
Permalink | Comments (27) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Bowl playoff idea eeeevil
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Good to hear that NCAA president Myles Brand still gets it. During a trip to Atlanta this week, he suggested to our Thomas Stinson that moving to a playoff system in Division 1-A football would be straight from Satan.
Things are just heavenly the way they are in big-time college football, especially with the addition of a 12th game during the regular season. Actually, we could do without that 12th game. It’s just another thing to hurt the “student” in student-athlete when it comes to their ability to juggle studying with playing.
Brand did say that NCAA presidents likely will approve another bowl game (the so-called “plus one” bowl) to take place after the other scheduled games in the Bowl Championship Series. He said such a move wouldn’t happen until after the current Fox TV contract runs out after the 2009 season.
Good. Maybe by then, even that sinister proposal designed to get the big boys closer to a playoff system will be exorcised from our consciousness.
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Early thoughts on possible Derby favorites
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Let it be said at the outset, that this is no Kentucky Derby to be shopping around for longshots. That’s taking a rather safety-first run at Run for the Roses No. 132, which will start with a full gate, 20 horses making a wild stampede of it down the stretch the first time around. There have been some pretty soft favorites in recent years, Captain Bodgit, Indian Charlie and Harlan’s Holiday, neither of whom showed up at the finish line early. Last year it was Afleet Alex, but who got there first? A 50-1 shot named Giacomo, who otherwise had an ordinary year.
Not until the post drawings this evening at Fourth Street Live, a place downtown with which I’m not familiar, will we know who starts in what hole. Be that as it may, be assured that the auction price of a horse rarely ever indicates his prospects on Derby Day. One exception was Fusachi Pegasus, bought by a Japanese horse collector for $4 million, the most expensive horse that ever won the Derby. The cheapest winner was Canonero II, who sold for the dog-food price of $1,200, and not only won as one of the field horses, but later set a new track record in the Preakness.
Going into the new and improved Churchill Downs unbeaten is no guarantee of leaving with a blanket of roses around the withers. There are two who will attract a lot of cash at the betting window, Brother Derek and Barbaro, and a third lurking, Lawyer Ron. Brother Derek wiped out all major challengers on the West Coast, one after the other, Stevie Wonderboy, the two-year-old champion, in the San Rafael; Sacred Light in the Santa Catalina; and Point Determined and A.P. Warrior in the Santa Anita Derby. This was a race in which he went off at 2-5, after which jockey Alex Solis said, “This is an elegant horse that does everything so effortlessly.”
Two of his connections have worked through injury, though Solis’ from a spill at Del Mar was temporary. Dan Hendricks trains from a wheelchair, and the owner, Cecil Peacock, is sure to attract a lot of NBC’s attention with its peacock symbol. Hendricks was left paralyzed from a motocross accident two years ago. Brother Derek comes from the family of Alydar, through Benchmark, ranked 17th on the general sire list.
Barbaro goes into the gate a mystery horse. He is unbeaten, we know that, but since winning the Florida Derby on April 1, he has been on holiday. He should be well rested, but maybe he’s too well rested. We know, too, that he is unbeaten, and while this son of Dynaformer won the Florida Derby, he barely beat Sharp Humor by half a horse.
Lawyer Ron runs for the estate of his late owner, James Hines, who drowned in his own swimming pool some time ago. Ron won the Arkansas, the Southwest, the Rebel and the Arkansas Derby, unbeaten in seven races after flunking the grass test as a two-year-old. He follows the action of Smarty Jones and Afleet Alex, both of whom worked the Arkansas circuit, with jockey John McKee, a Derby rookie, aboard. With an impressive lineage behind his name, this is a well- bred horse. But for that matter, they all are, or they wouldn’t be there on the first Saturday in May.
So much for the chalky side, if you persist in searching for a needle in a haystack, you have some tantalizing possibilities. Say you go for the late finisher, Steppenwolfer was running 11th down the backstretch in the Arkansas and came blazing home, past Private Vow, and was charging behind Lawyer Ron. Sharp Humor almost caught Barbaro at the wire in the Florida Derby. Then you have Bob and John, winner of the Wood Memorial, Sinister Minister, who could have walked home in the Blue Grass against an average field, and one that caught my eye with burning stretch runs in a couple of races, Jezil. He never won, but always managed to show up. That’s for those who have money to burn.
In fact, there are a lot of those. Keyed Entry for one, the Atlantan Jack Wolf’s second Derby horse. He won the Hutcheson in Florida, finished second in the Gotham, but hasn’t shown up since. This looks like a Derby too good to miss, but miss it, I must. That means I don’t have to be here to face the music for all this. Too bad you can’t take your choices to the window in bet-free Georgia.
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Tuesday Countdown doesn’t dodge draft
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Marcus Vick told ESPN.com: “I’ll tell you one thing. Without the character issues and the problems I had in my past, I was definitely a first-round guy, from my point of view.” On a related note, if I didn’t get a C in eighth-grade biology, I was definitely going to be a brain surgeon, from my point of view.
9: Actually, it would be worth it for an NFL team to sign The Lesser Vick. One year. Low wage. Low risk. Great athlete. A knucklehead and a punk — but a great athlete.
8: Southern Cal coach Pete Carroll said he’s confident the school will escape NCAA sanctions and added, “To me, it looks like somebody’s out to get [Reggie Bush’s] money, a classic case of people trying to create some kind of opportunity based on another guy’s good fortune.” Well, OK. But what does that have to do with Bush potentially knowing this his parents were living rent free in a house paid by his would-be marketing rep?
7: There are two major reasons the potential for problems at USC is so great: 1) It’s a successful, high-profile college program in a major city that breeds human leeches (I can say that. I’m from L.A.); 2) The lack of an NFL team in the city has elevated the Trojans to a new level in terms of focus and star power. It would be remarkable if something WASN’T going on.
6: Anna Nicole Smith and the Supreme Court intersect in history. Is it too late to convert to Communism?
5: Back to the NFL, because the media was painfully thin in its coverage (aaaaaggggh!): It’s futile grading a team’s draft. But notwithstanding the strong pick of cornerback Jimmy Williams, the Falcons erred by ignoring their offensive line.
4: They have one of the league’s best rushing attacks. But abysmal pass protection last year screamed for help. Wayne Gandy should help but one mid-level veteran doesn’t qualify as a significant upgrade.
3: Before I had a chance to put out the recyclables, my wife told me, “We’re saving the empty water bottles for the orangutans in Borneo.” No, I didn’t ask.
2: Andrew Brunette’s overtime winner for Colorado was his 10th playoff goal since the Thrashers let him leave in free agency. That’s 10 more playoff goals than the Thrashers have scored since he left.
1: The Falcons spent their second draft pick (third round) on a speed running back tailor-made for their offense. If I’m T.J. Duckett, I’m renting my furniture.
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About D.J., father knows best
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Falcons ended their historically silly habit of ignoring impact players from the University of Georgia by snatching D.J. Shockley at the end of this year’s NFL draft. That’s fine and everything, but here’s the deal: Let’s see if they continue to do the right thing by keeping him and grooming him and allowing him the chance to become better than the other guy.
Some guy named Vince Young. Just take it from somebody who thinks that he knows the ultimate potential of Shockley’s arm, legs, mind and guts before we get to somebody who really does.
Did you hear what former NFL scout Russ Lande had to say? Even before teams were on the clock last weekend, he mentioned on his draft site called GMjr.com that Shockley, who spent his only season as a starter for the Bulldogs doing all sort of wonderful things to win 11 of 12 games and an SEC title, will finish as a more dynamic quarterback in the pros than Young, the miracle worker for Texas last season along the way to a national championship.
Whatever Lande discovered about Shockley came through film study, the media and word of mouth. Don Shockley actually lived with the 6-foot-1, 213 pounder. That’s because Don has been D.J’s father for 23 years.
“Me, personally, it’s just like what I told you that day in the stands, right before D.J. started his first game as a starter for Georgia last season against Boise State. Remember what I told you?” said the older Shockley, referring to how he told me back then at Sanford Stadium that the younger Shockley was on the verge of doing what he eventually did, and that is evolve into one of the college game’s premier players. As for the younger Shockley rivaling or surpassing Young as a pro, the older Shockley chuckled, before adding, “As was the case last year, remember what I’m going to tell you now: I think D.J. is going to tear the league up. Vince is a great athlete, but I just believe in D.J.’s skills.”
The older Shockley is biased, of course, but he also is perceptive. (See our chat at Sanford Stadium). In other words, listen closely when he compares and contrasts two quarterbacks who spent their final collegiate seasons as accurate passers, swift runners and prolific winners.
“Everybody talks about Vince’s unorthodox throwing style, and you also have folks who talk about D.J.’s unorthodox throwing style, but they both get the job done,” said the older Shockley. “I’ll tell you the big difference. I see Vince operating now where I thought D.J. was a couple of years ago, where he would take (the ball) down in the pocket and run real quick when things aren’t there. I’ve seen D.J. advance to the point where, last year, he was going through his progressions to the point where he was almost holding the ball too long. I don’t know Vince, because I only see on TV what he’s capable of doing, but I know what my son is capable of doing.”
No question there. The older Shockley has spent the past dozen years as the head football coach at North Clayton High School. That’s where he turned his son into one of the top prep quarterback in the country before D.J. defied common sense by agreeing to put stardom on hold for four years as a backup at Georgia. “We’d rather deal with the future, not the past,” said the older Shockley, who nevertheless told me last year that the younger Shockley had chances during his Bulldog career to transfer and start at North Carolina State, Maryland and North Carolina.
Whatever the case, D.J. will enter the Falcons’ training camp this summer as their fourth quarterback behind Michael Vick, Matt Schaub and Bryan Randall. Odds are that D.J. won’t have the opportunity to rise in a hurry such as Young. After all, Young already is crucial to the Tennessee Titans’ game plan after becoming the third pick overall in the draft and with the Titans trying to ship incumbent Steve McNair to Baltimore. Odds are that, with Vick and maybe Schaub continuing as the favorite sons of the Falcons’ hierarchy for the long run, Shockley will have to do what he eventually will do in small chunks.
That is, the younger Shockley eventually will make folks see that he was better than the other guy. So says the older Shockley, and so says a former NFL scout. And, maybe, so says time.
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