Chipper is always Dad’s MVP

“He is still my son playing a game,” said Larry Jones.

He and Chipper’s mother, Lynne, happened to be in from Texas last week for a little visit. They were here just in time to read the headlines about the Braves star meeting with team brass, formulating plans for an imminent retirement. With two more years and $28 million left on his contract, Jones said Thursday he would make no formal announcement about his playing future until the end of the season.

“Obviously, I know where he’s at and the career he has had. But I don’t care how old they get; they’re still your little boy,” said Larry, who turns 61 later this month.

To his parents, Chipper said, “I’m always going to be the 10-year-old kid who used to get his butt whipped every day because he was bad. The one who told a little white lie or stole cookies out of the cupboard or made Cs on his report card or forgot to do chores.”

The fan sees the now, sees Jones through the prism of his plummeting stats and his growing roster of injuries.

The father sees him through the warm blanketing fog of yesterday. For who else possesses the balls from both Chipper’s first Little League home run and his 402nd major league homer?

Remember beginning

It cannot seem that long ago that Larry was pitching tennis and whiffle balls to Chipper, still too young to lift a real bat so he swung a cut-down piece of PVC pipe.

The son was named Larry, too, but they always called him Chipper, as in chip off the old block. Back in Florida, Chipper followed his father everywhere — to practice with the high school teams he coached, to a deer stand, to the lake. For countless hours, with an old barn as a backstop, Larry threw batting practice to his son. When Chipper was no more than 11, Larry came into the house and told his wife he couldn’t throw anything by the boy.

Larry filled his son’s head with the legend of Yankees great Mickey Mantle and taught him to switch-hit, just like the Mick. Now, all these years later, Chipper’s career (the 430 home runs, the .306 lifetime batting average) is compared favorably to Mantle’s.

Fans see the end nearing and realize this is officially a vigil now, that they are witnessing the last gasps of a great career spent entirely in Atlanta.

Chipper’s father remembers the beginning, the day in 1990 when the Braves made Jones the first overall pick in the draft. Back then, Chipper had tears in his eyes after his father’s father — the incomparably named Norfleet Jones — whispered something in his ear. Chipper still writes the words beneath the bill of his cap: Remember where you came from.

Ask Larry about his best Father’s Day memory and he will invoke 2007, when the Braves were playing an interleague series versus Cleveland. Norfleet, now 87, lives in that city, so three generations were at the park that day when Chipper rapped out his 2,000th career hit.

Just two years ago, Chipper was baseball’s batting champion, hitting a career-high .364.

Parent and coach

Yet, today, his stats read like some terrible misprint — .234, four home runs. His numbers — last season he hit only .264 with 18 home runs — appear to be tumbling down a stairwell.

“The problem that he has run into now is that the funk he has been in has lasted a year,” Larry said. “He has never had to deal with that, and he has had a hard time with it.”

Larry has been the coach of final resort other times when Chipper’s swing has gone sour. “No one knows my swing better,” Chipper said. But it has never been this bad for this long. And there is only so much a few swing tips can do to hold off the advance of time.

Father and son’s frequent phone conversations hardly center on baseball. There’s always news to report from back at the southwest Texas ranch the family owns and Larry and Lynne run. There are updates on four grandsons. Then, when the talk does drift into baseball, more and more the tone is emotional rather than technical.

Just a week ago, Larry said during one of those calls, “Selfishly, I wish you could play forever. I understand you can’t.”

And he offered the one bit of advice he hopes Chipper will fold into the process: “I’ve told him, ‘Don’t make this decision when you are too high or too low.’ ”

‘Like losing me again’

Chipper has made it plain that the call to retire is going to be pretty much his alone. Dad can’t make this call.

“He throws in his two cents, don’t get me wrong. He’ll bring up points, maybe things he thinks I need to think about, which is all appreciated,” Chipper said.

“But, the fact of the matter is, no matter how much he has done for me and how influential he has been, he doesn’t know the toll this game has taken on me — mentally, physically. He doesn’t know what I’m feeling day in and day out. I try to relay it to him as much as possible. But, when it comes down to it, it will be me and only me (deciding).”

The signs read retirement after this season. Every hint Jones gives points in that direction. For certain, it will be soon, and an all-time Brave will walk away, awaiting word from the Hall of Fame.

Maybe a fan can be a little wistful.

Think of the father.

“It is going to be hard for him,” Chipper said. “It will be like losing me all over again, like when I went away to high school (boarding school at Jacksonville Bolles). The last 17 years, their days have revolved around the Braves schedule, turning on the TV, being able see me on TV.”

“There is nothing nicer,” Larry said, “than flipping on the TV every day and seeing your son there.

“I’m resigned to the fact that the end is near. I want him to go out in the right way. Does that mean hitting .300 with 30 home runs? No. I want him to go out feeling like he is making a sincere contribution to what I think is a pretty good baseball team.”

That said, Larry Jones holds one impossible Father’s Day wish.

“I’d give my right arm today if we could go back to when he was 10 years old and do it all over again.”