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Friday, February 29, 2008
The joys of spring training
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
This was spring training, home delivered. Braves and Dodgers being televised, even before the first charley horse. Joe Torre in a Dodger uniform. (Had he taken the wrong plane? Was he dressed for a costume party?) Bobby Cox hadn’t been kicked out of a game yet, but why waste it on spring training. Besides, he hadn’t been feeling well lately. Larry Bowa in the Dodgers’ coaching box, giving you a live version of a “grizzled veteran.”
Thirty days from now, this would all be lost in the fog of time. Take no plunge in stock on what you see these spring days. It’s just the beauty of it all, families rolling in the grass on the bank above the outfield, mom, pop and their toddlers. Only when Chipper Jones or one of their other old favorites came to bat or make a play do they take notice of the game. A rookie strokes a line drive or makes a circus catch, they wonder who he is. By April he’d be down in Richmond or down in Mississippi. (Or a year from now, out in Gwinnett.)
Spring is a big faker. It teases the rookie with just enough of a taste of glory to give him false hope. Two years ago the bright hope of spring was … have you forgotten? Of course. It was James Jurries, a first baseman from Tulane. Jurries hit .413 and led the Braves driving in runs. You can’t find his name in the book now. Where have have you gone, James Jurries?
The infield is under remodeling. First base has been stabilized. Last spring there was only hope there, that Scott Thorman was ready. He wasn’t. Mark Teixiera is now open for business. Edgar Renteria is gone, and the Braves speak bravely of their future at shortstop, in the person of Yunel Escobar. Renteria was a tough one to give up, but baseball people have a way of logicalizing, and in this case they’ll cite numbers.
There was none better on the play up the middle than Renteria. On the other hand, he was next to the worst on plays to his right, going in “the hole.” Yes, he hit home runs and had a .332 average, tied for third best in the league. But Escobar is more athletic, has speed, steals bases, covers ground and can make that play in “the hole.” Managers always speak brightly of burgeoning youth, and Cox is no exception.
“We’ll miss Renteria,” he’ll say, and he means it, but he speaks of Escobar as a coming star, and the front office likes the bump it gets in salary save. Plus, it also likes the lively arm and strikeout pitcher it got in return, Jair Jurrjens, a Curacoan who is ready if he can be squeezed into the rotation. There, you see, is always the possibility that Mike Hampton’s arm will never be the same again. Hold your breath.
With Brian McCann, who needs another catcher? The restoration of Javier Lopez is in the works. (He’s one of two Javier Lopezes in the majors. The other is a Red Sox pitcher.) Once a player who had it all, Lopez disappeared into the wasteland at Baltimore. The fat contract the Orioles gave him developed into a bulging body. He lost it. He never had a bat in the major leagues last season, and coming home to the Braves like the prodigal son in the Bible, he got a new chance, worked his body into prime condition, and the new-old Javier has re-emerged. Stand by for the next act, of Javier Lopez as a backup catcher.
Well, it has been fun down there. I know by the radio, where Jones and Francouer and Glavine has been spilling out the secrets of their lives in (wow!) revealing interviews. My day will come in a couple of weeks, by which time the glow will have dimmed on some of the early bloomers, and there will be a more recognizable shape to the roster of twenty-five. For the time, there is pleasure in taking it in from afar.
And, by the way, does it look to you as if Francoeur has grown four inches and bulked up like Grecian god? Oh, no, no, none of that, just the admirable development of a growing boy with a great future out there. He plays Tiger Woods at his game; why doesn’t he bring Tiger to the ball park and give him a taste of his game?
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Smoltz going his own way in spring
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — Given the property is owned by a corporation devoted to fantasy, it followed Friday that John Smoltz was allowed to stand on a mound generally reserved for minor-leaguers and pitch in his own private Idaho.
“Strike!” yelled the umpire, Bobby Cox. (He was in the bag.)
This 23rd spring training will be like no other for Smoltz, assuming you can find him. He won’t pitch in an actual game for at least two weeks, maybe three. Until then, games will pretty much take place in his cranium.
It’s sort of like a self-imposed exile. The right-hander has tried to approach spring like a veteran pitcher is supposed to: just work on pitches and situations, forget about winning. But drive and ego invariably take over. “When you get the bases loaded and give up some runs, you just revert back to wanting to get guys out,” he said.
He said he considered “a shock collar.” Instead, he decided the solution was just avoiding going into the real stadium, except maybe to stretch. If this were football, he’d be the kicker.
His spring “debut” came on a practice field. He pitched two simulated innings against, well, five simulated major leaguers:
Gregor Blanco, Javier Guzman, Diory Hernandez, Brent Lillibridge and Brayan Pena. No Chipper Jones or Mark Teixeira, for as Cox said, smiling, “We want him to look good.”
It’s believed Smoltz allowed a run in the first inning. But there was some debate as to whether Teixeira would’ve caught two drives down the right-field line. It was sort of like debating who would win a fight between Superman and the Green Lantern.
“I thought when the crowd got into it, John really turned it up,” general manager Frank Wren said. He then left the field with his pet rabbit, Harvey.
It was one of the more bizarre scenes you’ll find in a pro camp. There was even a five-minute break between the first and second innings, just to give the imaginary home team a chance to hit. (Lasted five minutes. They stranded a base runner.)
The “crowd” included the Braves’ general manager, manager, pitching coach, hitting coach, bullpen coach, bullpen catcher, minor-league manager, a videographer (ordered by Smoltz) and some media members.
No anthem singer.
“I thought about singing it, actually,” Smoltz said later. “Me and Mac [Brian McCann], do a duet.”
Yes, well, there is a limit to even Disney fantasy. Then again, the Braves have learned not to say no to Smoltz. The team’s management and medical staff originally thought he was loony when he said he wanted to leave the bullpen and go back to starting. It turned out he knew his arm and the rest of his body better than anybody else.
So if Smoltz told Cox and pitching coach Roger McDowell he wanted cardboard cutouts on the base- paths and organ music to be pumped in during his warm-up tosses, they weren’t going to debate him. Fact is, Smoltz’s plan gave them extra time to evaluate some other potential starters — Chuck James, Jair Jurrjens, even Mike Hampton.
There’s also this: For as much as Smoltz is known as an all-out power pitcher, he is approaching 41. He needs to learn how to pitch like an old man because, relatively speaking, he is an old man.
“Every time I do something like this, people have said, ‘Oh, he’s reinventing the wheel. He’s got the stuff — just throw it.’ But they have no idea what I go through, both from a physical standpoint and learning what to do when the stuff’s just not there,” he said.
“It took me a year and a half to learn how to throw my slider outside. It took me another year and a half to master the other side [of the plate]. People think you learn a pitch and you master it in two months, but it just doesn’t work that way.”
He tends to start seasons slow, and then warms with the weather. His hope is that more early-season curveballs — of which he threw several Friday — will change that. His hope is that three or four imaginary games against an imaginary team can alter his reality.
“Despite what some people might think, I have a plan,” he said.
We’ve learned. Just go with it.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
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