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Saturday, July 14, 2007
Hang loose, LaRoche, payback’s coming soon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Adam LaRoche came back to Atlanta this weekend, and little had changed but the uniform he wore. It said “Pittsburgh” across the chest. He came within a week of becoming a local homesteader before the Braves traded him to the Pirates for a bullpen pitcher last winter. Mike Gonzalez worked 17 innings before breaking down. LaRoche hadn’t endeared himself to Pirates fans until just lately, when his batting average improved from the gutter to .241 and his home run total to 13, three in the last three days before the All-Star Game.
Adam drew quite a crowd of inquiring reporters at Turner Field before the first game of the series Friday, and some were made aware of a side of him unknown to us while he was in charge of first base here. We knew him as soft-spoken, smooth fielder, sweet swinger, and of 32-home-run power. What we didn’t know was the prankster in him. Let me tell you about it.
Late in June, the Pirates played the Marlins in a day game in Florida while the Braves flew in from Washington for a series. Their uniforms and other trappings had already arrived and were hung in their assigned lockers at the Marlins’ ball park. Before the Pirates checked out, LaRoche fetched some scissors and cut the crotch out of every pair of underpants in the Braves lockers, and left a note behind that said, “Let it all hang out, fellas.”
He may as well have left his calling card.
“Any reprisal yet?” he was asked.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m guess I’m sitting on a ticking bomb.”
“A reprisal, oh, yes,” Bill Acree, the Braves’ travel and equipment chief, said. “He may not have it yet, but the bill is in the mail.”
The LaRoche-for-Gonzalez deal set off quite a commotion in some quarters here. Carefully incubated in the farm system, and after hitting a solid .285, punctuated by 32 home runs and 90 runs batted in, the Braves had finally filled a gap at first base, where oftimes they had resorted to the ancient Julio Franco.
“My wife and I were just a week before closing a deal for a new house,” LaRoche said. He got the news when somebody called him on his cellphone. “I’d heard rumors, but nothing more. That’s the way it is. It’s all part of the game.”
He got a full whammy of the other side of it in his first stretch in Pittsburgh. He couldn’t hit his weight, and the home runs weren’t coming. He is known for his defensive lapses, and that followed him. Sometimes it appears his mind is in another time zone, as in a game last season when he fielded Nick Johnson’s sacrifice and casually loped toward first base, only to be beaten to the bag by the Nationals first baseman, who is no sprinter.
Trading the farm-bred first baseman, the first security the Braves had known at the bag since Andres Galarraga, for a one-inning pitcher aroused cynics from various latitudes. And the situation hasn’t improved. The Braves reached into free agency and signed Craig Wilson, let loose by the Pirates. Last heard from, he was having a struggle in Triple-A. He was to be the buffer until Scott Thorman got a grip on his game, but Thorman nearly swings all the air out of the ball park. The Braves point to Brent Lillibridge, a shortstop throw-in on the LaRoche deal, as a prize catch. Probable successor to Edgar Renteria? Hardly, not since Yunel Escobar got off the boat.
“You got to learn to roll with the punches in this game,” LaRoche said.
Growing up in a baseball family, he should be acclimated to it. His pitching father, Dave LaRoche, moved six times in his 14-year career. There aren’t many Chipper Joneses who play out a career with the same team in the major leagues in this era. Both Joneses, Chipper and Andruw, are unique in that respect, but Andruw’s name flows freely in the rumor stream now because (1) he’s in the last year of his Braves contract, and (2) his agent is the diabolical Scott Boras. LaRoche never had such leverage, except with scissors in hand.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Time for Pollack to drop football
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Sometimes, they can’t see the end. Sometimes, the gifts that had carried them erode and descend to mere mortal levels. Or injuries suddenly interrupt the natural order or things. But great athletes — sometimes they can’t see it.
They don’t look at the tape. Or the stopwatch. Or the X-rays.
The invincibility gene tells them: “They doubted you before. Show them it’s not over.”
David Pollack will not play football this year. Medical logical says he’ll probably never play again. Pollack doesn’t see that end, but don’t be surprised. It’s residue of the same character traits that enabled him to get as far as he did.
He hated hearing how he was a classic overachiever, even if he was, because it came off as a back-hand at his athletic ability. But he was recruited to Georgia as an ordinary fullback. Mark Richt’s assessment: a good “program player.” Might as well have called him a kicking tee.
Four years later, Pollack left as the most embraced athlete in Athens since Herschel. He was a three-time All-American on defense, not because he looked like or ran like a lab experiment, but because his energy and enthusiasm and sense for the game seemed unparalleled.
“We still show highlights of him in meetings,” Georgia defensive coordinator Willie Martinez said. “When you want to talk to a player about work ethic or technique or anything, it’s easy enough to just pop in a tape and say, ‘Here’s how to do it. Here’s how David Pollack did it.’ “
Sometimes, they can’t see the end.
Sometimes, they’re not looking.
Ten months ago, Pollack suffered a broken neck. If he delivered the mail, resuming his career might not be out of the question. But the play that caused the injury, a tackle on Cleveland running back Reuben Droughns, was nothing extraordinary by NFL or David Pollack standards. Trying to come back against all odds to make that same tackle and others like it makes no sense. This is life we’re talking about.
The Cincinnati Bengals announced Friday that Pollack would not play this season because, not surprisingly, his recovery from January surgery to repair the fractured C6 vertebra, wasn’t satisfactory to play linebacker in the NFL. Pollack acknowledged as much in his statement, but said: “Any final decision on football is still down the road for me.”
Let’s hope he eventually sees the stop sign.
Martinez saw Pollack at the Bulldogs’ spring game and two weeks ago at a fundraiser. “You would have never known anything was wrong with him,” he said. “You couldn’t tell he had surgery on his neck by the way he was carrying himself. He still had the same positive outlook on life.”
The two didn’t speak about the player’s future, but Martinez said: “I would never say never to David Pollack. I’ve seen him overcome the statements and opinions. He knows what he wants and we’ve seen what happens when he puts his mind to something. I’m sure he’ll be smart about things.
“He’s obviously a very driven person. It can’t be easy for a guy like that to walk away, if that’s what it comes to. But he’ll do what’s best for him and his family. He’s a smart guy and a man of faith. That hasn’t changed. That’s the David Pollack I know.”
This isn’t about money. Pollack’s $12.95 million rookie contract had $7.65 million in guarantees. If he wanted to, he could go into coach. Or run for mayor of Athens.
His career was far greater than expected in college. His career may be far shorter than expected in the NFL. But sometimes will and desire and attitude take you only so far. Sometimes you have to get past the ego, past the I’ll-show-you attitude, past the athletic arrogance that helped carry you in the past.
It’s that time for David Pollack. If he doesn’t see it, maybe it’s because he’s not looking.
Permalink | Comments (132) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
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