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Saturday, March 1, 2008
Lopez still has something to prove
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — One day after proving the parts can still move in harmony, even if the memory may require some updates, Javy Lopez was back in his new role of desperate rookie Saturday.
He dropped into a crouch down the right-field line, then quickly stood to throw to a teammate in shallow center. He visualized base stealers as he practiced throws from home to second. He stretched. He ran. He swung. He alternated drills with an obscurity, Corky Miller, who has spent most of his 10 pro seasons in the minors.
If you ever wondered what it looked like to see a former $22 million free agent go back to school, this was it.
“I can’t have the attitude that I’m just here to get ready for the season,” Lopez said. “I’m here to make the team. I have to prove that there’s some baseball left in me. Time is gold for me.”
It happens in sports. Skills fade but desire grows. The trick is knowing whether one compensates for the other.
Lopez is in camp as a non-roster player. It’s symbolic that his cubicle is at one end of the Braves’ clubhouse and a horseshoe of lockers representing the teams’ core is at the other: Teixeira-Kotsay-Francoeur-Hudson-McCann-Smoltz-Glavine-Jones.
He is not the 32-year-old, 43-homer, All-Star who fell into riches. He is a 37-year-old who went from the Braves to Baltimore to Boston to unwanted. His home-run totals the past four years: 23-15-8-0 (when he was out of baseball).
Lopez has a pretty good chance to win the job as catcher Brian McCann’s backup. He is lighter (218 pounds) and leaner than he has been in years, but showed he still has some power when he homered in his first spring at-bat against Los Angeles. It’s the defensive aspect of his game that he and the Braves are most concerned about, and there was evidence to support that concern Friday.
Lopez relayed an incorrect sign from coaches who had wanted him to throw to second on a steal attempt. He didn’t realize that he actually signaled to infielders that he wouldn’t throw to second but instead check the runner at third. So Lopez threw to second and nobody was there. A run scored. Another runner advanced.
Lopez’s explanation: “I know the sign we had here in the past. I thought it was still the same.”
The comment amused Cox — somewhat.
“We’ve changed things a few times in the last few years,” he said.
Lopez understands 2003 is not going to buy him any votes. His production in Baltimore never matched what he did that last season with the Braves. He had health issues. He wasn’t enamored with Orioles’ management — nor they of him. He fell so far that Baltimore drop-kicked him to Boston for the dreaded “player to be named later or cash considerations.”
It sounded better than: Just go.
Lopez spent a year out of baseball. He got in shape and started training with Braves coach Chino Cadahia, who gave frequent updates to general manager Frank Wren. Wren was pretty much sold by early December. One day, he dropped his kids off at Landmark Christian High School in Fairburn — and saw Lopez working out on one of the fields.
“It must’ve been 40 degrees,” Wren said.
He signed Lopez to a minor-league deal. Lopez’s salary if he makes the roster: about $750,000. There’s a wakeup call.
Said Chipper Jones: “Once you hit your mid-30s, especially playing that position, you mature real fast. Javy knows he’s not going to hit 40 home runs. He knows B-Mac [McCann] is the man now. He just wants to play.”
Lopez acknowledges he’s not the same guy.
“Let’s put it this way: My work ethic now is a lot stronger,” he said. “I’m not the every day guy now, and my work ethic needs to be stronger to warrant my position. It’s a different mentality. I’m trying to listen more. I’m trying to do that little extra work that before I didn’t do, for whatever reason. At this point of my career, everything counts.”
Lopez looked around the clubhouse.
“I think some of these guys were two years old when I signed with the Braves,” he said. “Oh my God.”
Reminded that a few members of the starting rotation weren’t in the room, he said, “True, but they’re on the team. I’m not there yet.”
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Hawks a strange outfit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Something significant has happened: The same owners who backed Billy Knight to the hilt in the fight against Steve Belkin in the summer of 2005 have disregarded Knight’s recommendation that Mike Woodson be fired. The general manager who once inspired blind trust in his ownership (if not his fan base) has lost his hold and might soon lose his job.
The same owners who declined to utter a discouraging word after Knight passed on Chris Paul/Deron Williams have now broken with Knight on an essential basketball matter — i.e., who should coach this long-suffering team. Regarding the Hawks, the one thing you could count on these past few forlorn years was that Knight wouldn’t be second-guessed in-house. Now even that’s gone, and here’s where we are:
The team that hasn’t made the playoffs in the new millennium is trying to fashion a postseason run with a new point guard and coach who should be a featherless lame duck but, astonishingly, isn’t quite. Indeed, Woodson seems in a stronger position today than the man who hired him and who just wanted to fire him. This is known as the Tommy Tuberville Backlash Effect.
The Hawks are a strange little outfit — owners suing one another, the GM drafting wing after wing, the coach lugging a career winning percentage one point higher than Chipper Jones’ lifetime batting average. But the only owner who had previously questioned a key Knight decision was the pariah Belkin, and now it’s clear that some of the folks who didn’t say, “Hey, Billy — how about we take a point guard this time?” are pointing toward Mike Bibby and saying, “Hey, Billy — what took you so long?”
It would be wrong to suggest that Woodson is anywhere near secure. A three-game losing streak could well be his parting gesture. But ownership is clearly intrigued by the addition of Bibby and the way the Hawks have played in narrow home victories over Sacramento and New York (substandard teams, to be sure). And Knight’s attempt to dump Woodson after trading for Bibby seems to have struck some Atlanta Spirit members as untimely at best and unfair at worst.
The improbable upshot is that the dour Woodson has been rendered a sympathetic figure. With news of his GM’s blocked move swirling, Woodson pressed on Friday, ordering up the game-winning play — an alley-oop from Bibby to Josh Smith — on a night when his team looked to have run out of ideas. I’m not a fan of the man’s body of work (career record: 93-209), but credit must go where credit is due.
“It’s not about my job,” Woodson said afterward. “I’m not here to discuss that.”
As for his new player: “It’s not easy [breaking in a point guard on the fly], but Mike is making a tremendous transition. He hit a big [clinching] shot.”
Said Al Horford, who gets better and better: “I really don’t get the papers, and I don’t really pay attention to that [outside] stuff. My job is to go out and play. Coach is doing a good enough job — he’s going to be fine.”
The belief here remains that the Hawks have too much talent to miss the playoffs. If we assume Woodson will be around for the duration of this season, that sets up a loaded offseason. Woodson and Knight are under contract only through June 30. If the tempest-tossed coach winds up presiding over this franchise’s first postseason appearance since 1999, might ownership be so grateful that it rewards him with a new contract?
And might Knight, who was the object of a Spirit-staged political rally on the floor of Philips Arena when the Joe Johnson trade was consummated in 2005, be penalized for having failed to supply Woodson with the proper tools all these years? Might the King of Wings ultimately get sacked because — oh, the incongruity! — he finally found a point guard?
Permalink | Comments (74) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
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