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Saturday, August 4, 2007
Long live the king: Henry Louis Aaron
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The world hasn’t stopped spinning, but it sure feels like it. After 33 years as the sole owner of 755 home runs, Hank Aaron, the people’s choice, is sharing the most glorious number in sports with Barry Bonds, few of the people’s choice.
Let’s pause for a moment of prayer. Maybe when we open our eyes, this will all go away. Maybe we’ll discover this was only a mirage. Maybe this was created by the baseball demons. Maybe they want us to believe Bonds really wasn’t juiced during the past decade or so while he sprinted to within another blast of becoming the all-time home run king.
To the chagrin of those who love truth, justice and royalty not being attained by athletes through artificially inflated means, Bonds will wear the crown by himself when he slams No. 756.
Well, officially.
Unofficially, the king isn’t dead. Long live the king, and his name is Henry Louis Aaron, the classy icon who used only adrenaline to slay Babe Ruth’s previously magical “714” in 1974 at old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Aaron kept ignoring the hate mail and the death threats that were as prevalent during his Ruth chase as the fastballs and the change-ups. His walk with dignity - no matter what - gained even the bigots’ respect. Then Aaron spent his final two seasons ripping enough home runs to make “755” baseball’s new magical number, supposedly for the ages.
So you know what that means? We must be in the final days, because Bonds is threatening to reach the upper 700s in homers and beyond. He is 43, with a slew of aches and pains, but he says retirement isn’t in his immediate vocabulary. He could leave the San Francisco Giants for the American League, where he could become a designated hitter. A relatively healthy Bonds as a DH could reach the lower 800s, but sports psychologist Harry Edwards had it exactly right when he mentioned in May that “755” and its original owner always will remain the standard bearers.
All Bonds will do is become the record-holder. Nothing more, not since he is closer to chilly and indifferent than warm and cuddly. Worse, he is forever tainted in the minds of many as the poster child for baseball’s steroids era.
Aaron prefers not to discuss Bonds’ ongoing milestones beyond a prepared statement, and the standard bearer didn’t return messages Saturday night. Still, Aaron told me several months ago that, even though he isn’t “bosom buddies” with Bonds, he isn’t convinced baseball’s gigantic cloud of suspicion involving steroids should hang over the gigantic head of Bonds. If you believe leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO investigation, it’s a gigantic head of Bonds that has kept expanding over the years from performance-enhancing drugs - especially since he spent his early years in Pittsburgh as a sleek line-drive hitter with normal dimensions.
“Listen, I’d be wrong as heck to sit back here and point a finger and say whether or not my record or anybody else’s would be tainted by somebody,” Aaron told me back then. “It’s kind of up to Barry to do his own thing, and he hasn’t admitted to anything. If he did something wrong, then he’s the one who is going to have to pay for it. So, really, to be honest, I’m out of it.”
Actually, Aaron is still in it, but in a wonderful way. Whenever those among the public hear Bonds’ name, either positively or negatively, they usually hear Aaron’s name soon afterward. Not only that, when Aaron’s name does surface during conversations involving Bonds, Aaron’s name often is surrounded by implied hugs and kisses. In fact, Bonds once told me with a smile at his locker at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, “I’m helping to keep Hank’s name out there.”
That’s nice of Bonds, but Aaron really doesn’t need his help. For 23 Hall of Fame seasons without the hint of scandal, the eternal king of home-run kings helped himself, thank you.
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Dogs look for primary ballcarrier
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — Last year’s question — who’s the quarterback? — has been answered. This year’s question has become almost an annual stumper. Once again, Georgia doesn’t know who’ll be the primary ballcarrier. Once again, Georgia doesn’t even know if it’ll have a primary ballcarrier.
It has been a strange passage, this metamorphosis from Tailback U to Tailback Who? The school that gave the world Herschel Walker and Tim Worley and Rodney Hampton and Garrison Hearst has become the school where no back sticks out. Only once since 1992 — and only once under Mark Richt — have the Bulldogs produced a 1,000-yard back. Perhaps not coincidentally, that year was Georgia’s best of the past quarter-century.
Being his placid self, Richt doesn’t see the lack of a 1,000-yard back as a problem. “The good thing about Musa [Smith, who gained 1,324 yards in the breakthrough 2002 season] was that we had consistency there,” Richt said Saturday, speaking at Georgia’s media convocation. “But we didn’t have as many guys ready to play there. Musa was head and tails above everybody else. Until somebody separates himself from the pack, we’ll probably be [tailback] by committee.”
The latest committee includes Kregg Lumpkin and Thomas Brown, both of whom have been starters, and the redshirt freshman Knowshon Moreno, of whom much is expected. Much was similarly expected of Lumpkin in 2004, when he was coming off a heartening freshman year, and then he hurt his knee on the first day of summer practice. He missed all of that season and wasn’t really right in 2005, but there were long moments last autumn when Lumpkin, who’s known as Lump, was clearly first among equals.
Not coincidentally, one of those moments came Nov. 11 at Auburn, when Lumpkin carried 21 times for 105 yards in the emphatic victory over the nation’s No. 5 team. That was pretty much the ideal, Lumpkin said, a big back getting the ball again and again “to pound and pound. I got goose bumps.”
It was, however, more an aberration than standard procedure. Only once before — in the Capital One Bowl against Purdue on Jan. 1, 2004 — had Lumpkin carried more than 20 times in a game. Contrast this with Tashard Choice, whom Lumpkin knows from high school camps: Choice averaged 21.2 for Georgia Tech last season.
“That’d be the running back’s dream,” Lumpkin said. “A lot of running backs would like to be in his position.”
Yes, Lumpkin is among those. The tailback-by-committee approach, he admitted, bothers him “a little bit. But it’s not all about you.” And he doesn’t envision the status quo changing anytime soon. “It’s hard to say, today being the first day of practice, but I imagine we’ll open up the offense for all three backs.”
There’s some merit in Richt’s rotation — fresh legs tend to move faster — and it’s true that Georgia averaged more yards rushing in 2004 and 2005 than in Musa Smith’s banner season. “If we had 180 yards but no one over 100,” Richt said, “I’d be more excited than if one guy rushed for 101 but that was all we got.”
Still, there’s much to be said for continuity, and there have been times when Georgia seemed to change backs just when Lump was beginning to pump and thump and develop those goose bumps. Another stat, a fairly telling one: The Bulldogs under Richt are 23-2 when they generate a 100-yard rusher.
In the grand scheme, it isn’t as essential to find a tailback as a quarterback. (And Matthew Stafford has assumed that position rather nicely, thanks.) But it’d be a shame if Georgia looks up five years hence and realizes it left another resource untapped. Lest we forget, Terrell Davis never had a 1,000-yard season as a Bulldog under Ray Goff. As a Denver Bronco, Davis had four.
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