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February 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?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
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
Hank Aaron: Tiger Woods’ domination unprecedented
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
It takes greatness to put greatness into perspective. So as the PGA Tour becomes even more of a showcase for You Know Who with everybody else sitting a few monster tee shots behind, who better to describe the extraordinary ways of Tiger Woods than Hank Aaron?
At 74, and enjoying his 33rd year in retirement as baseball’s magic owner of 755 home runs, Aaron has made golf his sport of choice these days. “Well, I’m just a Saturday and Sunday golfer, and I’m not crazy enough to bet somebody any money,” said Aaron, laughing on Thursday after working out at Turner Field.
As for Woods, the winner of his past six tournaments overall, including three straight to begin this season, Aaron walked the course that day in Milwaukee 12 years ago when Woods made his pro debut. It turned the baseball Hall of Famer into a fervent Woods watcher and admirer. The Tiger Slam. The 13 major titles, including four at Augusta. The latest streak for Woods that continued after his annihilation of Stewart Cink in match play last weekend for a 63rd PGA Tour victory. The sliding past Arnold Palmer on the all-time wins list.
The inevitability during every tournament featuring Woods that he is not only going to win but romp.
It’s a combination that has Aaron calling Woods the most dominating athlete in sports history. “I don’t know of anybody who would be better,” said Aaron, a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan who even placed Woods ahead of the Browns’ icon of the 1950s and 1960s.
Yes, that guy.
“As great as Jim Brown was, and as great as Michael Jordan was, and as great as anybody you’d want to keep mentioning, I don’t know of anybody who was as great at his sport as this man is now,” Aaron said. “I mean, he’s totally incredible. He’s phenomenal. Sometimes I hear people say, ‘He’s lucky.’ Well, you can throw that talk out. You can be lucky and good, but he is absolutely good. Even when he’s way ahead, he wants to make every putt and every golf shot as perfect as possible.
“I don’t know of anybody who has ever played any sport who was able to concentrate as much on perfection at all times as Tiger Woods.”
Somebody was close: Aaron, who did everything well enough with his bat, glove, arm and legs for 23 seasons to rank with Willie Mays and any Yankee great among baseball’s most complete players ever for those who weren’t juicing. You also had the sensational likes of Muhammad Ali, Carl Lewis, Wayne Gretzky, Magic Johnson and Mark Spitz in other sports.
None intimidated their peers as much as Woods. Consider, too, that professional golf never has been deeper in players who are better than good. It hasn’t mattered, because Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and the rest have needed to be better than great to approach Woods territory.
“Tiger is great, and there’s no question about it, but I think his competitors are so amazed by his greatness that they forget to play the golf course. They play Tiger Woods,” Aaron said. “I’ll tell you this right now: They’ll never beat Tiger Woods, because the only person who’ll ever beat Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods.”
That said, Aaron remained his eternally consistent self. For instance: He always has said records are made to be broken, including his old mark for homers that was surpassed last summer by artificially inflated Barry Bonds. As a result, it was logical for Aaron to say somebody will shatter Woods’ slew of records someday, but Aaron said as much with an asterisk as big as the one next to Bonds’ name.
“I think Tiger is going to put things so far out of reach for records that it’s not only going to take somebody very special to come along, but the game is going to have to change,” said Aaron, referring to the need of more explosive balls and new-age clubs to enhance a golfer’s game.
It’s just that all of those things also would enhance Woods’ game, which is a frightening thought.
Permalink | Comments (26) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Kotsay won’t play in Andruw’s shadow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Vero Beach, Fla. — On the day Andruw Jones made his debut in another uniform, Mark Kotsay was given a day off. It’s the Braves’ sincere hope that this remains simple irony and not something more significant. Like, say, foreshadowing.
Kotsay is the Braves’ new center fielder. If he doesn’t have the most daunting task in professional sports, he is at least in that neighborhood.
What’s more difficult: Trying to make a full recovery from back surgery at 32, or replacing a 10-time Gold Glove center fielder and five-time All-Star who now plays for Los Angeles (Kotsay’s resume has neither gold nor stars)?
Actually, don’t answer. Kotsay has to do both. But his view on the situation is what you would expect from someone known for crashing into outfield walls.
“I like this situation,” he said. “For whatever reason, this is the kind of situation I thrive in. It’s true — I have a lot on the line. I have a lot riding on this year. But my attitude is, let’s play for something here.”
Braves manager Bobby Cox calls Kotsay “a dirt player.”
Kotsay puts it another way: “Andruw makes everything look so easy. I make everything look hard.”
Which is fine. As long as he’s making the catch look hard and standing easy, nobody will have a problem.
Jones is gone for economic reasons. Kotsay is here for economic reasons. That might be their only common denominator.
The Braves — following a self-imposed budget and determined to improve their starting pitching — didn’t want to take the payroll hit for what Jones’ one-year salary likely would have been after arbitration. So they let him go in free agency, where the Dodgers gave him over $36 million for two years.
Oakland was leery of Kotsay’s back issues and was going through another organizational churn: veterans out, prospects in. The A’s were so determined to get Kotsay out of their team, if not their books, that they agreed to pick up $5.35 million of his $7.35 million salary. The Braves traded away two young arms, though didn’t particularly value either that highly (Joey Devine and Jamie Richmond).
The team was just looking for a cheap and safe bridge in center field between Jones and prospect Jordan Schafer. Cheap, he got. Safe, not so much. Kotsay’s a gamble. If he can play 150 games, it pays off. If he’s closer to the career-low 56 he played last year, the Braves have a problem.
(Kotsay wasn’t injured Thursday. He reported early and played in Wednesday’s exhibition against Georgia. Long bus rides to Vero Beach tend to be bad for backs, so Cox rested him.)
Kotsay never had a back issue until 2003, when he crashed into the wall at Colorado while playing for San Diego, putting him on the disabled list with a sprain. The following year with the A’s, he played in 148 games and batted a career-high .314. But the back worsened the next two seasons. In 2006, he missed 25 of Oakland’s final 51 games.
He added yoga stretches to his conditioning program. But the herniated disc in his back wasn’t receptive. In March, Kotsay was forced to undergo surgery and spent over two months on the disabled list. He now admits he probably rushed it back in June, which explains why he played only 56 games before being shelved for the year.
And now?
“I feel great,” he said. If he didn’t say that, I’m guessing the Braves could void their $2 million contribution.
Openly, the team remains confident. Kotsay insists the memory of surgery won’t lessen his aggressive nature in the outfield. But the A’s clearly had doubts.
“The team had a long line of injuries last season,” Kotsay said. “It put a lot of stress on the organization. They made changes in the medical staff and the training staff. Whether it was anybody’s fault or just bad luck, nobody knows. But they just tried to get rid of guys with that cloud hanging over their heads.”
He expects some fans will have doubts. Vocally, also itchy trigger fingers. He knows that the, “Andruw would’ve gotten to that ball,” cries are on deck. If he cares, he’s hiding it well.
“The guy was here for 11 years,” Kotsay said. “He’s got [10] Gold Gloves. I don’t have any. The fans are spoiled and they’re going to want nothing but what Andruw was capable of doing. But I’m not here to please them. I’m here to do my job.”
If he stays upright, that will be a start.
Permalink | | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Big Tex + Big Season = Big Exit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Two predictions.
Mark Teixeira will have a huge season.
Then he’ll leave.
As a free-agent-to-be, Andruw Jones seemed at an ongoing loss. (He hit .222, in case you’ve forgotten.) In conversation at spring training last week, Teixeira sounded like a measured man who has long awaited the opportunity. He will not hit .222. He might well hit .333.
Jones and Teixeira have the same agent, the famous Scott Boras. But the mighty Boras machinery is geared toward maximizing Teixeira in a way it never was Andruw. (Not to say Boras did all that poorly by the departed center fielder, who’ll make $18 million the year after he hit .222.) The big Boras free agent last fall wasn’t Jones but Alex Rodriguez. The big Boras free agent this fall will be Mark Teixeira.
“That’s just the natural progression,” Teixeira said. “When I was a rookie, there were a lot of [Boras] free agents. Every year there’s a new guy coming along. This just happens to be my year.”
Don’t look for Teixeira to disown Boras the way Gary Sheffield has, or to fire him the way Kenny Rogers did, or to go behind the agent’s back the way A-Rod did. Teixeira, see, is a truer believer. He calls Boras a “friend.” The two talk weekly. “There are always issues,” Teixeira said, “but a lot of it is, ‘How’s your family?’ “
As much as the Braves might try to keep Teixeira, there’s too much invested in this for Boras and his client to offer a hometown discount. (It didn’t happen with J.D. Drew, yet another Boras client, did it?) For the Braves to have any real shot, they’ll have to stop acting like a small-market team — Boras, as we know, loves bigger markets — and even then they’ll surely be outbid by one of the New York or L.A. clubs. That’s just the way this skewed system works. Or doesn’t work.
Don’t hate Boras for seeking to make his rich client richer. That’s his job. And don’t hate Teixeira if, after an All-Star or even an MVP season, he signs elsewhere for massive money. That’s the way of the baseball world, and Boras pretty much runs baseball.
Permalink | Comments (111) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Hawks longer on talent, but short on time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Marvin Williams was considered the most promising player in the 2005 draft, and if he hasn’t had — sorry for broaching this yet again — the galvanic NBA impact of a Chris Paul, it’s nonetheless true that Williams averages 15.8 points and 5.8 rebounds. And he’s now the fifth-best starter among Hawks.
You could — yes, this again — stock a playoff roster with the guys Billy Knight hasn’t drafted, but the greater point is that Knight has, at excruciating last, built a playoff roster for his team. Not many teams can boast five starters of this eminence:
— Al Horford, the third player picked in 2007.
— Williams, the second player picked in 2005.
— Josh Smith, the 17th player picked in 2004.
— Joe Johnson, the 10th player picked in 2001.
— Mike Bibby, the second player picked in 1998.
Asked Wednesday what he saw when he watched tape of the Hawks, Reggie Theus — Bibby’s coach with Sacramento and briefly a Hawk himself — said this: “I see a very athletic team, a very dangerous team. When they get it going, they can cause a lot of problems … They could be a very exciting team in the long run.”
Here’s the thing, though. The long run starts this minute. The Hawks awoke Wednesday 10 games under .500, which should never have happened. But now they’ve seen their last excuse shredded — the Hawks have a point guard! — and these next two months cannot be two months more of false starts and broken promises.
They could and should make the playoffs. They could and should become a rising force in the thin-gruel East. Then again, they could and should have done that already.
The trade with Sacramento has been characterized as Bibby’s chance to land with a playoff team, but the cold truth is that the Kings have a better record in a more difficult conference. The Kings do not, however, have better players. A lot of teams with better records have worse players than the Hawks, especially now.
Asked before his first home game in Philips Arena if his new team has the wherewithal to qualify for the postseason for the first time this century, Bibby said: “I think it does. We’ve just got to get on the same page. We’ve only had five games, and it’s still tough — we’ve only had one practice. But it will come.”
Asked the same question, Johnson said: “We do, but it depends on how bad we want it.”
It’s a cliché, sure, but it’s one of those clichés that has the benefit of being true. In calendar year 2008 the Hawks too often have played like a team that didn’t know how to win. Bibby could change that. He knows what he’s doing. He knows because he has done it.
And if you want to know if he, at the ancient age of 29, has anything left … yeah, he does. He showed that against the Kings, scoring 24 points and making 12 assists and steering the Hawks to their highest-scoring quarter of the season in his first quarter as a Hawk in Philips. (And Williams, who was ill, didn’t participate.)
To watch this team swooping and slashing and stacking 40 points on Sacramento in 12 minutes was to wonder if this is how it will be, and if it is there’s no doubt this team will be playing beyond its 82nd game. But what got the Hawks 10 games below .500 was the bizarre inability to consolidate a single gain. This powerful effort — the Hawks won 123-117 — cannot be a one-night or a one-month thing. This must be sustained.
Said Josh Childress, who scored 25 points and who’s yet another lottery pick (sixth overall in 2004): “We have to make it a goal and commit to getting a win by whatever means necessary.”
Sure, that notion could and should have taken hold long ago. But there’s still time, just, for this to work. There’s no longer any reason for these Hawks to stink.
Permalink | Comments (43) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
Author Heinz was at his best on boxing, war
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Too often, distinguished journalists move on without a proper benediction, like those who write songs but to the singer goes the glory. W.C. Heinz shall not be one of those, especially to those of us who strive along in his path.
Bill Heinz was one of America’s finest writers, not just of sports. Three decades or more ago, his name lit up the sky of journalism. Know who wrote “Run to Daylight” with Vince Lombardi? Know who wrote “M.A.S.H,” the book? Know who wrote “The Professional,” which Ernest Hemingway said was “the only good book about a fighter I’ve ever read” (in a note personally written)?
One and the same W.C. Heinz. There’s more, but first, I want to say this: That there are special persons who influence those who follow them, and those who aspire to their state in journalism, as out of reach as it may be. There was a time when my newspaper sent me to New York to cover major boxing events (Patterson vs. Johanssen, Ali vs. Norton, and so on), and it was on one of these adventures that I happened into Bill Heinz on the street, walking toward a press conference. We talked, and in the time that followed, we became acquaintances and he made this country rube feel like a friend.
He began at the lowest level, as a copyboy. (There are no such now.) He later went to Europe as a war correspondent and followed the 1st Army across France, through the Battle of Huertgen Forest, and on until V-E Day. When he came home, he was given his own column, and America was in for a treat. It was boxing that hooked him, and he came up through the age of Marciano, Pep, Sugar Ray and Graziano, and Stillman’s Gym, more a warehouse filled with sweaty hopefuls, became his campus.
When his newspaper folded, he moved on to freelancing and won award after award, including the A.J. Liebling Award for boxing writing. There wasn’t a subject he couldn’t move into with grace, and thus was led to Dr. H.R. Homberger, who had been struggling with a novel about the war in Korea in 1968. Bill took over, and thus “M.A.S.H” resulted, followed by one of the most successful television shows in history. It may be noted that the author is listed as Richard Hooker. That’s Bill Heinz, his pen name.
After the clock ticked on and journalism sank into its bottomless mire, he was in demand on television, but only occasionally did he respond. Writing was his art, and now a great artist has passed on. He retired to a farm overlooking the Vermont countryside at Dorset. After his wife passed away a few years ago, he moved into a retirement home in Bennington, and it was in a hospital there that Bill Heinz passed away Wednesday. He was 93, but his work is ageless.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Furman Bisher
Torn over thoughts on HGH testing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
In Tom Glavine We Trust, particularly on issues involving labor and management in baseball.
After all, the Braves future Hall of Fame pitcher led the players’ mostly admirable charge against the Evil Owners during the 1994 strike before resuming his stroll to Cooperstown.
So I’m torn when it comes to how the game should approach this HGH thing regarding testing.
Chipper Jones brings up a wonderful point. In fact, he is just seconding the remarks of Derek Jeter. In sum, they say that if a player has nothing to hide, why wouldn’t he agree to a blood test for HGH and other performance-enhancing drugs?
Said Jones to our David O’Brien at the Braves spring home in Orlando: “The only people I would say who would object would be people afraid of needles, or who are on something.”
Makes sense to me. It doesn’t to Glavine, though, which is why I’m torn.
Said Glavine to O’Brien, “It’s (blood testing) potentially opening up a big can of worms. There’s the potential for so many problems with the way it’s handled, the way it’s stored. It scares me to think of somebody having my blood and the potential to tamper with it down the road, and you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”
That actually makes more sense to me, but only by the length of Louisville Slugger.
What a mess.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Woods putts distance between himself, world
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
For the longest time, I have thought that Jack Nicklaus was the surest pressure putter I’d ever seen. Over the weekend, in fact, I saw him roll in a few, delivered by television, in the Skins Game played in Maui, and he is now 68 years old.
As it turned out, Tiger Woods was finishing off a show of his own in the desert suburbs of Tucson, devastating the field in the World Match Play Championship. This was, I’d presume, another step in Woods’ concentrated campaign to make this his year of the Grand Slam. This was no stroll in the park, at first. In fact, J.B. Holmes, the rustic from Kentucky, had him down by three holes with five to play. It was then that Woods snapped out of it, as if somebody had pushed his button. He putted Holmes into submission, and they weren’t tap-ins. Some were cross-country putts that left Holmes gasping.
The Arron Oberholser match was routine, “barely raising a sweat,” in the words of Doug Ferguson, the Associated Press golf writer. It is not to say that Woods rode a gravy train into the championship. He can be vulnerable. Last year, a left-handed Australian, the somewhat lank and ungainly Nick O’Hern with the broomstick putter, took him out in the third round. This time, here came Aaron Baddeley, a younger and handsomer Aussie. Twice Baddeley had his chance to close out the match, but twice he missed putts of some 10 or 12 feet that would have ended it.
From that point on, Woods turned the thing into a train wreck. K.J. Choi, the Korean who won Woods’ Washington tournament last summer, fell next, and the less one dwells upon the match with Stewart Cink, the better for the Georgia Tech alum. Back here in Georgia there was a colony of Cink believers who, with an ear to history, thought that this was his time to give his career a fresh launching.
You see, when they were collegians, the Stanford golf team came to Georgia for competitions. Woods was a freshman at Stanford, Cink an upperclassman at Tech. They were matched twice, and Cink won both. Nothing more realistic than fairy tale hope. Years have passed since collegiate days, and the two have taken off to different altitudes, one soaring, the other living happily ever after.
Woods turned it on once again Sunday against Cink. He sank putts halfway across Gila County. Even when the match was long since beyond a competition, he completed a week of putting the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen. When he needed them, he made them. When he didn’t need them, he made them.
Then I opened the latest issue of Golf Digest, and there I found his recipe. “Making Putting Natural,” is the title. (Natural for him, maybe, but you and me?)
“Let your putter release to the hole with your right hand.” (That’s first. The problem is, I play left-handed.)
“Grip pressure varies from player to player.” (Mine is fairly light.)
“The shape of the stroke-path is another choice.” (This is heavy scientific stuff.)
“The key is to find what works for you.” (Now you’re talking.)
“I’ve started to monitor my stroke on a computer to make sure of my mechanics.” (This is sort of rising to another zone.)
“To practice the release, I focus on my right hand. I’m most consistent when my stroke path is one degree in to out through impact, with the putter face releasing.” (Now you’re way over our head?)
“I swing on an arc with the face rotating from open to closed.”
Well, there you have it. That’s about the best I can do for you. You have all his secrets. Most all. You don’t think it might be his readjusted eyes, do you? You know, the new vision he advertises.
Whatever, when it comes to that last great putt of all, I’ll go with Tiger.
Permalink | | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Thrashers can’t pretend at contending
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Three months after the deluded Bruce Levenson exclaimed, “Stanley Cup!” during a win in game No. 21 of an 82-game season, reality smacked a franchise and a shortsighted owner back to Fantasyland on Tuesday.
The Thrashers are not a Stanley Cup team.
They are not a playoff team.
They are not a team on the rise with structure or promise or any semblance of either.
If there was a blueprint in season one, or two, or seven, somebody must have spilled coffee on it. Because this can’t possibly have been the plan.
Season eight, and it’s another fire sale at the trade deadline. Is this what you signed up for? No? Then don’t blame Marian Hossa.
Regardless of what you may think of Hossa as a player — good, special or somewhere in between — understand that what happened Tuesday was less about a talented forward desiring to test free agency this summer than it was about making a statement on the Thrashers: their past, their present, certainly their future.
Money is always an element of these decisions. Hossa knew he could have landed a big contract in Atlanta. But in this case, it really wasn’t all about money. He wants to play for a Cup contender. The Thrashers aren’t remotely close, the nonsensical ramblings of an owner notwithstanding. The general manager, Don Waddell, entered his eighth trade deadline with another sub-.500 team and 62 points — closer to the team with the worst record (six ahead of Los Angeles) than the last playoff spot (seven points behind Carolina).
Gee. I guess it wasn’t all Bob Hartley’s fault.
Whether Hossa is worthy of landing an annual salary of $7 million to $8 million is debatable. He disappeared for stretches this season. He hasn’t driven to the net with the same zeal or consistency since banging his knee late last season. He has never been a factor in the playoffs.
But what he remains is one of the smartest players in the league — on and off the ice. He looked around. He wasn’t impressed. He liked the city. He liked his teammates. But a star with options wants to know there’s more. He didn’t like the direction. Could he have bypassed free agency? Sure. But why? There was no obvious payoff.
Waddell let center Marc Savard go in free agency two years ago. The team, already weak on the blueline, has had a void in the middle ever since. This was the second straight year the Thrashers seemingly were built to be average. It’s why Waddell had to scramble at the deadline last year to make the playoffs, dealing picks and prospects for Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhitnik.
Didn’t work this season. The Thrashers started 0-6, costing Hartley his job. Waddell stepped behind the bench and ignited the team to an 11-4 run. Some expected Waddell to eventually turn the team over to assistant coach Brad McCrimmon, but it never happened. After winning 11 of 15, the Thrashers won only 18 of 42 (18-20-4).
With playoff hopes dying again, Waddell did what he so often does — he dealt real players for magic beans and elixirs, with promises of a better tomorrow. Departing: Hossa and Pascal Dupuis. Arriving: a first-round pick, a top prospect (Angelo Esposito) and two other guys you’ve never heard of.
It’s Groundhog Day.
Hossa goes to Pittsburgh — the Thrashers’ alternate universe. The Penguins won two Stanley Cups and stayed competitive for several seasons before tearing down the roster. But after missing the playoffs for four straight years, they have been contenders for the past two seasons. And look at their lineup now: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Ryan Whitney, Ryan Malone, Hossa.
Pittsburgh probably didn’t want to deal both a No. 1 and Esposito, but it could afford to. Amazing what happens when you draft and trade well.
Tragedy led to Hossa’s arrival from Ottawa three years ago. Dany Heatley wanted to live and work elsewhere after the one-car wreck that took the life of teammate Dan Snyder. Emotionally, Heatley was damaged goods. The trade was understandable. But the belief here was that if Heatley ever fully recovered, it wouldn’t matter how good Hossa was because Heatley would be better. He did. And he is.
Now Waddell is replacing Hossa for a pick and prospects. The trade is understandable because the Thrashers would’ve lost Hossa for nothing. But this isn’t a time to weigh the who’s of a deal. It’s a time to ponder the why’s. And nobody is yelling, “Stanley Cup!”
Permalink | Comments (82) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
Greatest Georgia sports highlights ever
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
ESPN has its countdown for the greatest sports highlight of all-time. It’s such a wonderful idea, why don’t we just tweak it a bit?
Let’s spend the rest of this column giving our countdown to the greatest highlight ever regarding a sports moment involving the state of Georgia.
The choices are many.
There were those other splendid times for the University of Georgia, ranging from Herschel Walker running over Bill Bates to the duo of David Greene to Verron Hayes crushing Tennessee’s face after breaking its nose with a “hobnail boot.”
You had Morten Andersen completing the Dirty Birds’ journey from nowhere to the Super Bowl with that field goal in overtime on the road against supposedly invincible Minnesota.
You had Spud Webb forgetting he was maybe 5-foot-7 to twist, soar and gyrate better than the likes of Dominique Wilkins for an NBA Slam Dunk title.
You had David Justice’s homer, and you had Tom Glavine’s one-hitter for eight innings to secure the Braves’ only world championship during their brilliant run of the 1990s.
For Georgia Tech, you had James Forrest nailing his game-winning shot at the buzzer from the ozone during March Madness.
Those were all electric moments, but none surpassed the top five.
No. 5: Hank Aaron’s 715
It was history. It’s still history. After all, even though the artificially enhanced Barry Bonds now has more home runs than Aaron’s final number of 755, Aaron remains the legitimate slugging champion as someone who used adrenaline more than steroids.
Which brings us back to 715, still a magic number. It snapped Babe Ruth’s lengthy record of 714 home runs, and it occurred at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium with the whole world watching. Not only that, here we are 34 years later, and they’re still replaying Aaron’s easy swing that sent baseball history into Chief Noc-A-Homa territory.
No. 4: Run, Lindsay, Run
So what was more famous — Georgia’s play for the ages against Florida or Larry Munson’s call? It’s a tie.
With the Bulldogs trailing inside the final minute and sitting deep in their own territory, Buck Belue found a streaking Lindsay Scott, who caught the ball around Georgia’s 25-yard line. Scott became a blur to Florida defenders. While Scott kept running and running, Munson kept imploring Scott to run some more.
On D Soon, the Bulldogs were running all the way to an undefeated season and the 1980 national championship.
No. 3: It’s Atlanta
Prior to Sept. 18, 1990, this mostly was Losersville, USA. The Falcons were heading to their ninth straight losing season in a non-strike year, and the Braves were heading to their seventh straight losing season, period, and the Hawks were the best pro team in town, only because they weren’t bad. They were just mediocre.
Then, just like that, three years after Billy Payne had some crazy idea about bringing the Olympics to Atlanta, the head of such things was standing before the universe to say: “The International Olympic Committee has awarded the 1996 Olympic Games to the city of … Atlanta.”
No. 2: Vick did what?
I was there, and I still can’t believe what I think I saw in the Metrodome. We’re talking about that game in Minnesota six years ago, when Michael Vick did more for the Falcons than rush for 173 yards on 10 carries. He produced a highlight for the ages.
In overtime, Vick dropped back to pass, scrambled to his left and shifted into three, five, nine extra gears to weave 46 yards through the entire Minnesota defense for the game-winning touchdown.
He broke tackles and defied gravity along the way. At least that’s what I think I saw.
No. 1: Bream did what?
I was there, and I still can’t believe what I think I saw at Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium.
You remember. The Braves trailed the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-0 entering the bottom of the ninth inning, but the Braves cut their deficit to one with two outs. David Justice was at third and the extremely slow Sid Bream was at second.
Francisco Cabrera slapped a single to left that scored Justice, and there was Bream charging around third in slow motion. Even so, his slide beat Barry Bonds’ throw at home plate to an explosion of noise. It was the loudest I’ve ever heard any baseball stadium. They wouldn’t quit cheering and stomping.
They still haven’t quit.
Permalink | Comments (146) | Categories: Terence Moore
Jones enters ‘08 feeling chipper
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — At a time when much of the baseball-watching world believed Chipper Jones had nothing left to show us, he showed us he’s still Chipper Jones. At 35 he had one of his greatest years, hitting .337 with 29 homers, driving in 102 runs and scoring 108. And where, he is asked, would he rank 2007 among his 14 big-league seasons on the scale of purely personal satisfaction?
“Fourteenth,” he says.
He’s kidding. Spring training 2008 has dawned with Chipper Jones feeling … well, chipper. Apart from the bruised thumbs suffered when he tripped over the opposing third baseman (more about that later), last season was free of the injuries that limited him to 109 games in 2005 and 110 in 2006.
A year ago we all were wondering if this demonstrably great player was near an end. Today, Jones says, “I want to play until I’m 40.”
About last season: “It was awfully gratifying for me to prove I could still play the game at a high level when a lot of people were writing me off and saying they should get rid of my salary.”
Some athletes pretend they don’t read and hear criticism. Jones admits he sees and hears everything. “I read y’all’s paper and go online and check out the rumor mill,” he says. (Indeed, he even participated, without being solicited, in David O’Brien’s AJC Braves blog two weeks ago. He logged in as “U Kno Who.”)
Does U Kno Who get mad when he sees someone post something less than positive?
“No,” Jones says. “I use it as positive motivation sometimes.”
The creeping consensus in spring 2007 was that Jones’ body was beginning to fail. Something was always going wrong — a hamstring, an oblique, a foot. What prevented him from believing he’d become decrepit was that it wasn’t always the same injury.
“Those last two years were really fluky [injuries]. It hasn’t been my body breaking down.”
Here he smiles in that wry Chipper way. “If Frenchy [Jeff Francoeur] takes a pitch and lets me steal third base [instead Francoeur grounded to third and Jones, running on the play, flipped over Pittsburgh’s Jose Bautista], I probably would’ve played 150 games last year.”
He played 134, his most since 2004, and he finished sixth in the Most Valuable Player voting, his best showing since he won the award in 1999. “Last year could have been my best all-around year. I was in the running for a Gold Glove — my errors were way down, and my fielding percentage was up — and I challenged for a batting title. And I hit .300 and drove in 100 and scored 100 just like I did when I was a younger cat.”
Sometimes it takes an outside observer to bring a familiar sight into sharper relief. Steve Phillips, once the Mets’ general manager and now an ESPN commentator, called Jones “the Derek Jeter of the National League” a couple of years ago, and Jeter is the most respected player in the sport. To be likened to him is the ultimate compliment. Jones took it as such.
“Jeter and I are good buddies,” he says. “We’ve squared off in a couple of World Series, and I think he’ll challenge 4,000 hits before he’s through. He’s a winner. I dare say I don’t think he’ll have any problem going into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.”
And his own Hall prospects? “I’m one of the guys who, if I quit right now, I wouldn’t make it. I’m on the cusp. The next five or six years will tell the tale.”
Until July 2007, Mark Teixeira was one of those outside observers. Today he hits behind Jones and says, “He’s the most underappreciated player in the game … No doubt Alex [Rodriguez] is the most talented player I’ve played with, but Chipper is right behind him.”
And then: “Chipper could get a lot more attention in New York or L.A., but he’s a country boy who likes to hunt and fish.”
If Jones indeed plays until he’s 40, he wants it to be in the only place he has ever played. “I’ve always wanted to finish here,” he says. “Atlanta is a laid-back town, and I’m not a big-city guy. I know I could probably garner more attention and accumulate more accolades in New York, but that’s not me.”
There was a time when the young Chipper was as beloved by Braves fans as Francouer is now, but the inevitable familiarity (and a messy divorce) took some luster off the golden boy. Still, Jones says, “I think I have a really good rapport with fans. They certainly make me feel that way when I’m out in public. You can’t go to dinner or to a movie without people showering you with praise. You’re never going to please everybody, and I’m not going to try. But I think I’m good enough for the majority.”
So here he stands: Larry Wayne Jones Jr., age 35, about to go to work on another February morning, feeling rather better this February than he did a year ago. “Last year I was putting a little pressure on myself after what had happened. This year I’m a little more relaxed.”
But not fully content. If he has learned nothing else, Chipper Jones has learned that baseball is about today and tomorrow, not yesterday. “At the end of the day,” he says, “I’ve still got to keep putting up numbers to hold everybody at bay. At my age, if you have one bad year everybody thinks you’re washed up. And I don’t want to hear it.”
Permalink | Comments (62) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
What’s it like to be Vince Dooley?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Now Vince Dooley has a whole section of Georgia’s campus named in his honor, and a fancy statue is on the way. Then again, he has been a football coach, an athletics director, a state icon and often all of those things at once during much of the past 44 years for barkers in the Bulldog Nation from Athens to Rome to Valdosta.
Which begs the question: What is it like to be Vincent J. Dooley as an overwhelming figure to many?
I mean, how does it feel?
“I’m recognizable. I’ve come to that conclusion, at least in the state, so I don’t get surprised at it,” said Dooley, 75, pausing, before easing into a chuckle when contemplating whether he has become bigger than life. “I’m always aware that not everybody feels that way. Some people feel very strongly and passionately for me, which I appreciate. But I also realize that other people don’t feel that way.”
No question there. Some view Dooley’s legend as just a creation of a guy named Herschel. In fact, if you subtract those years with Mr. Walker from Dooley’s life, you have a coach with no national championship and a bunch of seven-victory seasons against few opponents worth mentioning outside of the SEC. There also is Dooley’s frosty relationship with Michael Adams. Let’s just say the Georgia president would prefer dining with Uga VI than the former AD that he forced to retire early.
Speaking of Uga VI, when compared to their fawning counterparts, most of the Vince Dooley haters in the state could squeeze into the doghouse of that Georgia mascot. “I probably see it more than he does,” said Barbara Dooley, referring to the masses that have elevated her husband into a little god since he arrived to coach the Bulldogs in 1963. Added the loving and vocal wife, “I get tickled when they are in his presence. It’s just different.”
So different that Vince Dooley says he doesn’t pay attention to it all. “I guess what I have done is come to grow into [the role of Georgia legend] and to accept it over a period of time, and I really don’t think much of it,” Dooley said. “Then if I ever feel like your head might be swelling, I always say a prayer of humility to remind myself who I am, and that settles it.”
This isn’t to say Dooley is oblivious to the eternal gawkers around him, especially with his recognizable profile and the coming of that statue that will sit at the corner of South Lumpkin Street and Pinecrest Drive. It’s an area that has many of Georgia’s athletic facilities, and after getting approved this month by Georgia’s Board of Regents, the area will be called “Vince Dooley Athletic Complex.”
Just like that, the visitors around Dooley will grow even more from a crowd to a friendly mob during just a stop to a Chick-fil-A in the state. He will spend even more time talking than sleeping on flights to and from Atlanta during his many travels courtesy of those wishing to shake his hand, hear his stories or tell him theirs.
Dooley laughed, saying, “Some people look at me, and they’re not really sure who I am. Or some people who haven’t seen me will say, ‘I’ve seen you somewhere.’ Some are more outwardly expressive than others by just calling my name out. Some kind of just look and then blurt out, ‘What is your name?’ Some won’t say anything, but you kind of feel that they’re maybe thinking who I might be. I’ve gotten used to it. But most all of them are very nice.”
So what about Dooley? Who causes his eyes to widen as much as many of those who saunter into his world?
Actually, the answer is that person who joins Dooley as the two biggest sports legends in the history of the state.
Hank Aaron.
“It was kind of a special thrill meeting him, and I guess you can say, ‘awe,’ because we’re both from Mobile,” Dooley said. “I used to always say that we both were from the wrong side of the tracks, because we both grew up with very, very modest means. But we were on different sides of tracks because of segregation back then. To follow his career and then to finally sit down and have dinner with Hank was a thrill.”
Dooley sighed, adding softly, “So, you know, if some people feel that way about me, I can understand how they feel.”
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Hard to feel too sorry for Joe Louis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
L
Look, nobody sends Valentine cards to the IRS — as in Internal Revenue Service. No contest, America’s No. l Favorite Enemy. But to blame this federal agency for the financial woes of Joe Louis, the great heavyweight, is sort of piling it on. It’s the popular way to go, for who’s going to make any defense for the IRS? Such is the theme of “Joe Louis: America’s Hero … Betrayed,” an HBO production given a preview in Atlanta this week.
Betrayal? I’m not positive that’s the proper term, in terms of the IRS. Yes, he was betrayed, but first by the various characters “in his corner,” so to speak. Jimmy Cannon, the columnist who first wrote of Louis, “He was a credit to his race — the human race,” also wrote that before the IRS ever got him, the bloodsuckers in his corner, the guys manipulating the books, split him up.
“He made four million dollars [in his ring career] but this was cut up many ways,” Cannon wrote.
You know what four million bucks looked like in those days? It was a king’s fortune, and yes, much of it never reached the champion’s pocket. I read this thing several years later, after Louis had defended his title against Billy Conn, and won twice, the two of them sat at a table in Las Vegas, both broke, both working as greeters at casinos on the Strip. The owner handed a stooge $300, told him to bet it for Joe, and when the stooge came back with a fistful of cash, the owner said, “Don’t let him near a table again.”
In my eyes, Joe Louis brought a fresh degree of popularity to the black athlete. No rip-rap, hip-hop and gangsta trash infected his life. He arose from Alabama poverty, did his stretch in World War II, fought Abe Simon and George Nicholson for the Army and Navy Relief Funds, and kept fighting on, mainly exhibitions, for spending money. But the more he made, the more he made for the IRS. They never let up, and that it is brutal, but that’s the USA. You earn it, you pay taxes.
Boxers have become virtually extinct in the order of sports prominence. Louis, though, represented another level, an American hero. A genuinely warm and likable fellow well met. Strange as it may seem, he had a warm friendship with Max Schmeling, the German heavyweight to whom he lost, then decked in the first round of the rematch. When Las Vegas staged a star-spangled event honoring Louis, Schmeling flew in from Germany to appear with him. And another time. They held a deep admiration for each other. When Louis died in 1981, through the influence of President Reagan, a place was made for him in Arlington National Cemetery, one of the most moving services I’ve ever attended. Supreme Court justices, congressmen, old sports stars wearing team jackets, entertainers, Frank Sinatra for one, came to the chapel. Joe Louis resting there among generals, admirals, leaders of men and winners of wars.
One of Louis’ other hazards to his bank account was the golf course. So often pride influences a serious player to assume a handicap that he can’t play to. Louis was not immune. It is written that Bill Spiller, the first black professional of note, once took him for $20,000. He played in several PGA pro-ams on the West Coast, as an amateur, while black pros were shunted aside.
Muhammad Ali sometimes took vocal jabs at this man he should have been applauding, instead leering and calling him an “Uncle Tom” in some of his degrading ragings. But as time passed, as Ali aged and came to his senses, he once whispered in Louis’ ear, “You are really the greatest.”
A stroke of irony is that Joe Louis’ most prominent legacy to sport of the day is centered in golf. He was born Joe Louis Barrow, and today Joe Louis Barrow Jr., an attorney in Denver, is president of the First Tee foundation. “My father gave a greater sense of hope for black Americans in the military beyond what he did in the ring,” he said, and First Tee is aimed at paving a path in golf for young Americans, black and white.
Joe Louis Barrow Jr. takes great pride in the father he came to know in his teens. “My parents were divorced when I was a child,” he said. “I’m tremendously proud of my father, and the sense of hope he gave black Americans.”
An American hero, beyond a doubt. But don’t blame all his travails on the IRS, not one of America’s favorite sets of initials.
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College basketball insider
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Every Friday between now and the end of the regular season, we’ll look at who’s up, who’s down and what you should be watching as the season gets closer to the NCAA tournament and the Final Four.
THE TOP SEEDS
If the season ended today, here’s what the top four seeds in each region should look like:
EAST REGIONAL
1. North Carolina
2. Georgetown
3. Stanford
4. Butler
SOUTH REGIONAL
1. Tennessee
2. Duke
3. Xavier
4. Louisville
MIDWEST REGIONAL
1. Memphis
2. Texas
3. Wisconsin
4. Wash. State
WEST REGIONAL
1. Kansas
2. UCLA
3. Connecticut
4. Vanderbilt
RISING Louisville Louisville has won six in a row and eight of nine to climb into a first-place tie atop the Big East. The Cardinals have beaten Marquette, Georgetown and Syracuse — heady accomplishments for a team that lost to Seton Hall last month. It gets harder from here: Louisville plays at Pitt on Sunday and then must face Notre Dame, Villanova and Georgetown. The latter game, to be staged in D.C., could decide the conference title.
FALLING Oregon An Elite Eight team last season, Oregon is in real danger of not making the field of 65. The smallish Ducks are 15-11 and 6-8 in the loaded Pac-10, and they’ve lost seven of 10. Ernie Kent has called his team one of the nation’s best offensive units, but Oregon managed only 43 points in losing at Stanford two weeks ago. The Ducks fell to USC on Thursday and play UCLA at Pauley Pavilion today. Yikes.
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING No. 2 TENNESSEE at No. 1 MEMPHIS 9 p.m. today • ESPN It’s the 38th time No. 1 has played No. 2. The No. 1 team has won 21 times. It’s the fifth time teams from the same state have met when ranked Nos. 1 and 2 — North Carolina and Duke have done it twice, and Cincinnati and Ohio State did it in consecutive NCAA finals — and each time the lower-ranked team won. But not since 1990, when Missouri won at Kansas, has the No. 2 team won on No. 1’s floor.
MID-MAJOR OF THE WEEK Saint Mary’s (23-3) The Gaels drew notice in November when they beat Oregon, which seemed like a bigger deal at the time. They are tied atop the West Coast Conference with — who else? — Gonzaga, and they’ve already beaten the Bulldogs head-to-head. The teams play again on March 1, but such is the cachet now afforded Gonzaga and its formerly modest league that the WCC will probably send two teams to the Big Dance.
FUN WITH NUMBERS Memphis began the week ranked 328th among 328 Division I schools — i.e., dead solid last — in free-throw shooting. The Tigers have made just 58.8 percent of their foul shots. (Or, put another way, they’ve missed 41.2 percent.) They’ve gotten away with it so far, but it’s hard to imagine a team that can’t hit unguarded 15-footers winning six games over three weekends in the crucible of the NCAA tournament.
THE NAME TO KNOW Tyler Smith, Tennessee Not to be confused with teammates Ramar Smith and JaJuan Smith, Tyler will be the best all-around player on the floor tonight. The Iowa transfer leads the Vols in rebounding and assists, a parlay not often seen in a forward, and is third in scoring. Chris Lofton remains the nation’s best contested shooter, but T. Smith is the reason the Vols have risen to No. 2. “He’s a tremendous player,” says Georgia coach Dennis Felton.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Mark Bradley