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Saturday, June 9, 2007
Signs of life after a dismal stretch
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
On the first pitch of the night, Tim Hudson fired a fastball on a rail toward Alfonso Soriano’s ear (Soriano’s rotating shoulder intercepting the delivery).
Now, we can’t be certain if this is what John Smoltz meant when he said of Hudson before the game, “I guarantee you he will approach this game like it’s special.” But when a team has been outscored 22-7 in four straight losses, and its fan base is having acid flashbacks to last year’s 6-21 June, and Soriano is the same guy who clubbed three home runs the night before — hey, we’re not talking Oliver Stone here.
Hudson denied he was trying to dent Soriano’s cranium. Not surprisingly, Soriano’s cranium had a different viewpoint.
Regardless, do you feel a little better about things now? The Braves showed a pulse Saturday. So let’s put the panic on hold.
They won a game.
They trail the New York Mets by 3 1/2 games.
They have 99 games to play. This isn’t have-to-make-a-trade time.
The starting pitching? It’s still not good. On the same day the Braves announced their No. 1 starter, Smoltz, would not start tonight because of a sore shoulder, their No. 2 starter, Hudson was punched for four runs in the first inning and left in the third after taking a liner off the shin. But they dumped the Cubs 9-5 at Turner Field, and all is well for one day.
The Mets’ magic number is 98.
Feel better now?
The Braves started the season 7-1. They haven’t quite maintained that pace. But anybody who expected as much, particularly with the injuries this team has absorbed, was delusional.
If you need a thought to wrap yourself around, consider this: Almost everything conceivable has gone wrong for the Braves in the last two months and still they are only 3 1/2 games behind the division-leading Mets — who, by the way, are 8-10 since starting 28-14.
What the Braves are experiencing now are the realities of a young team. Also, a thin team.
Unlike clubs with fatter payrolls, the Braves generally don’t have bench players who can start or should start or maybe ever will start. They have bench players who are merely cheap. Think of Bill Gates being out with laryngitis, and Fred from the mailroom now running the meeting.
It’s logical to assume that when you lose a projected starting pitcher (Mike Hampton) and a solid reliever (Mike Gonzalez) for the season, your best player (Chipper Jones) sits for an extended period and the player who should be picking up the slack (Andruw Jones) instead nosedives, there are going to be problems.
“It is, and this is not a whine, when the difference between a moderately ranged payroll and a healthier-ranged payroll come into play,” Braves general manager John Schuerholz said. “It’s the depth of the team and the quality of the [backups]. It’s not excuse making. It is what it is.”
Except that, it is what it is in only early June. It’s not July. It’s not August. It’s not a lead in the ninth with plastic explosives coming in from the bullpen.
Maybe the embers from where Chris Reitsma used to sit and last season’s 6-21 June have shortened the transition to panic in some corners of the fan base.
“It’s terribly frustrating and awfully disappointing and sometimes even maddening,” Schuerholz said. “But it’s not panic.”
This is not a dying team. Hudson struggled, but the bullpen behind him was strong. Willie Harris, Edgar Renteria and Andruw Jones, the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 hitters, were a combined 7 for 13 with seven RBIs. Jones made a diving catch in the seventh.
Hudson? At least he sent a message. If he wasn’t trying to plant one in Soriano’s ear, he certainly wanted him to hear the ball whiz by.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Soriano said. “It caught me by surprise.”
Soriano flied out in the second inning. When he jogged past the mound, he said something to Hudson, drawing the expected reaction. Soriano did not divulge what he said, commenting only, “I was very mad.”
Consider that a step forward from an opponent’s laughter. And still 99 games left.
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First-rate class joins Atlanta Sports Hall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It was like rifling through the pages of an old scrapbook, though in this case, the clippings came to life and they had voice. The Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame was into its third class, “third class” only numerically. There was no question about the first, Henry Aaron, three Bobbys (Jones, Dodd and Cox), Tommy Nobis and Dominique Wilkins, but this group moved a little nearer the present, and so the hall at Emory Conference Center was aflow with memories.
This all began with one man, a Realtor named Larry Winter, obviously a man of sentiment, and has developed support with each passing year. It’s a work of heart, for Winter is quiet of nature and in pursuit of no personal acclaim. First, the roll call of this class: Tommy Barnes, Gayle Barron, Lou Hudson, Ernie Johnson Sr., Dale Murphy and Jeff Van Note. What they did and why they were chosen is easily identified by each name. Only Tommy Barnes, best of Atlanta’s amateur golfers for years, was unable to make the scene, and for Lou Hudson, “SuperLou” in his days as a dominating Hawk, it was an ordeal.
Historically, Barnes registers as one of the three men who played Bobby Jones’ last round of golf with him, and later on was one of those who saved the grand old East Lake Club from extinction, until Tom Cousins could move in and create a new community around it. Ironically, it was Barnes who broke Jones’ East Lake course record with a round of 62, 11 strokes less than his age 73 at the time.
The two more moistening moments developed when it came Hudson’s and Johnson’s turn on the podium. “SuperLou” took the time to speak to “stroke awareness,” with strong conviction. He was stricken a few years ago and could speak from experience.
“Watch your blood pressure, watch your cholesterol, check your family history,” he said.
He was determined to leave his wheelchair and walk to the podium. “I was going to walk up to this stage, and I did,” he said, with justifiable pride. To see a great athlete stricken by some crippling ailment is heart-rending. Here is a man of admirable determination, unwilling to compromise with his cruel adversary. “I’ll be back in the fall, and I shall play golf,” he pledged. Oh, that he makes it.
It was a teary moment, as was one of a more sentimental nature involving the Johnsons. Ernie Jr. spoke of admiration for his dad, when Ernie Sr. broadcast Braves games. ” ‘Wow! That’s my dad,’ I’d say when I heard him,” and introducing his family, he came around to Ernie Sr. “Wow,” he said, “here’s my dad.”
When he first met his wife-to-be, Ernie Sr. said, “Lois asked me what I did. I told her I played baseball. She said, ‘But what do you do for a living?’ That’s it, I play baseball. When she saw my first paycheck, she said, ‘You call this a living?’ “
It was not an evening short in mutual admiration. Phil Niekro was Murphy’s presenter — as was Wilkins for Hudson, and Nobis for Van Note, three incumbents standing up for their comrades — and spoke of a time not many of us recalled, when Murphy was his catcher. Niekro’s knuckleball, Murphy said, “was a pitch that couldn’t be caught. I had five passed balls in one game. Then they tried me at first base, where I led the team in errors. Then they finally found a place they could hide me in center field.”
When seriousness took over, Niekro said, “If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as Dale Murphy, the finest person I ever knew in baseball.”
Now, how did Lou Hudson of Greensboro, N.C., wind up at the University of Minnesota? “Bones McKinney,” Lou said. “He coached at Wake Forest, and that was before integration. He couldn’t recruit me, so he called John Kundla in Minneapolis. They’d played together in the NBA, Kundla called the coach at Minnesota, and that’s how I got there.”
From Greensboro to Minnesota to Atlanta, where 17,940 points later he’s still revered. That’s a service the Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame provides, memories that should not be allowed to fade away.
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