Thursday, December 29, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Former Brave of the Fortnight: Marcus Giles
The younger brother of one of his era’s most unsung superstars, Marcus Giles may have been genetically predisposed to a superb batting eye, but nothing could have foretold his sudden loss of talent. While the elder Giles enjoyed a lengthy career as a criminally underrated slugger, Marcus enjoyed just three peak seasons before an intense decline forced him out of the game far too early.
Born in San Diego, California, Giles was drafted by the Braves in the 53rd round of the 1996 Amateur Draft. At the time, brother Brian was a hot prospect with the Cleveland Indians, who foolishly traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Ricardo Rincon after the 1998 season. Marcus lit up the minors, cranking an absurd 37 homers in Single-A Macon and raking all the way through to spot duty in the major leagues by age 23. Giles shared time at second with Quilvio Veras and Keith Lockhart, and was impressive, if not spectacular, in his part-time rookie season, hitting .262 with a .338 on-base percentage and nine homers in 273 appearances. By this time, Brian Giles was a star in Pittsburgh, putting up .300 averages, .400 OBPs and 35+ homerun seasons on the regular and spurring optimism regarding his little bro.
2002 was not kind to Marcus Giles. He suffered a personal tragedy, the death of his prematurely born daughter, and a sprained ankle in late May. Giles struggled greatly, hitting just .230, and was demoted for a spell upon his return from the injury. He came back to the big leagues for more part-time duty in August. Expectations were tempered now, but Giles immediately restored our faith.
In 2003, the Braves second base job was his alone, and Giles cashed in on his sibling pedigree. He ripped off a .316 average, .390 OBP, 21 homers and 14 steals, making his only All-Star team (Brian himself was criminally underrepresented on All-Star squads, making just two in his career). In Giles family fashion, those numbers were a bit overshadowed by the overall success of the bombastic ’03 team, led by Gary Sheffield and Javy Lopez’s exhaustive supply of Homerun Growth Hormones. Giles was one of the few Braves who kept up the pace in the first-round loss to the San Francisco Giants, hitting .357 with a homer and three RBI in the short series.
Though underrated among the team’s plethora of bats, Giles still excited fans – with proven production, his brother’s gaudy numbers, and youth on his side, Giles looked to join upper class of second basemen for a long time coming. He came out gangbusters in 2004, raising his average to .339 by mid-May. Alas, on that ill-fated May 15th , a pop-fly led to a brutal collision with centerfielder Andruw Jones. The crash actually looked worse than it was, which is saying something, considering Giles broke his collarbone and right wrist, and suffered a concussion. Watching the play live, it seemed impossible that both players would actually get up; Jones, in the midst of his trademark ball-tracking sprint, inadvertently decked the drifting Giles like an unpadded linebacker cheapshotting an overthrown receiver. Giles missed 52 games, and was never quite the same afterwards, though he did finish the year with a .311 average, .378 on-base percentage, eight homeruns and 17 steals.
2005 was a fine year, statistically, for Giles, but it marked the last time Giles spent as an upper-tier second baseman. He hit .291 with a .365 OBP, 15 homers and 16 steals; those numbers were great for any second baseman, but slightly regressive after his past two campaigns. Braves fans weren’t necessarily worried; even if Giles’ ceiling was lowered a bit as he entered his prime, getting that kind of plus production for the next 5-10 years was plenty to help cushion the blow of a soul-crushing 18-inning playoff lost at the Houston Astros.
Here’s where things get curious for Giles. The Braves lost Rafael Furcal to free agency after 2005, and plugged Giles into the leadoff spot. This was a pure Moneyball move – Giles was not a typical leadoff hitter at all, but his high walk rates made him an appealing table-setter. As the Oakland A’s found out, baseball is still more than a numbers game, and intangibles still inhibit the consistency of plug-and-play lineup-tweaking. The stats suggested he should have been just fine even with atypical leadoff speed and plate approach, but Giles never really worked out of the spot. He stated openly that he was uncomfortable in the leadoff spot – for whatever reason, this discomfort affected his play. Giles’s numbers took a big hit – his average dropped to .262, his OBP to .341, and his homers and stolen bases dropped to 11 and 10, respectively.
Giles complained of chest pains that September. He was hospitalized and tested for damage to his heart valve; fans were concerned about the livelihood of their slumping second baseman for several days, until he was diagnosed with acid reflux and cleared to play. The incident was isolated and strange; foreshadowing the weird demise of his playing career.Following 2006, Giles’s still relatively hefty price tag, declining numbers and attitude/discomfort about his lineup spot caused the Braves to let him walk as a free agent. A soon-to-be 29 year-old middle infielder with solid defense and a track record of prime offense was a big draw on the free agent market despite a subpar walk year, and the San Diego Padres reached out to Giles, uniting him with his older brother, who had been a mainstay in San Diego since a mid-2003 trade that sent Jason Bay and Oliver Perez to Pittsburgh. The tandem didn’t deliver; Brian remained a consistent hitter despite declining power, but Marcus could not adapt to the spacious bat-zapping Petco Park. He hit .229 with a .304 OBP and just four homers in 476 at-bats. Giles was hugely disappointing and the Padres released him following the season.
He was scooped up by the Colorado Rockies, in what seemed like a career-resurrecting opportunity. Scores of hitters have risen from baseball’s ashes in the thin air of Coors Field, and 30-year old infielder who should have been in the tail end of his prime was the perfect candidate for a big return. Alas, whatever was zapping Giles’s talent could not be ailed with the change in altitude, and he never even made it onto the field at Coors. He bailed on an agreement to terms with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and bided his time until the season was out. The Philadelphia Phillies gave him one more shot in 2009, but again, Giles couldn’t even get out of spring training. It made no sense, but Marcus Giles turned out to have played his last major league game at only 29 years of age. His brother finally fell of the cliff as well that season; Brian retired in the spring of 2010, at age 39.
Revisiting Giles’s legacy, it’s odd that his sudden disappearance from the sport was viewed so nonchalantly. Position players in baseball tend to have some of the longest careers of non-specialist athletes. Their primes typically fall in the ages of 27-29; Giles was done by 29. His bloodlines even suggest longevity, as Brian lasted a decade longer than the younger Giles.
One guess that might be hazarded speaks to the current state of sports medicine – perhaps Giles suffered long-term effects from concussions? He had two diagnosed during his playing career. The first, the result of a baseline collision with Mark Prior, kept him out for a week; the latter, from the Andruw Jones explosion, was treated alongside the broken bones that kept him out for over two months. He did not appear to show post-concussion symptoms, but neurological attention to brain injuries was light years behind where it sits now. Could Giles’s rattled head have permanently affected his performance?
Another potential culprit, as is always the case for players in his era, is steroids. Access was certainly not a problem for a player coming of age in the Lopez.Sheffield era. Though he was never linked to ‘roids directly, Marcus’s sudden decline (and Brian’s exceptionable longevity) can be a seen as a signal of juice usage. It’s quite possible that he rode steroids to early fame, then peaced out when drug testing went into effect.
Maybe not. Perhaps Giles just one of many players to lose it suddenly for unknown reasons - or possibly no real reason at all. Whether Giles should have still been an impact player from his 26th year into his 30s does not dispel the fact that he wasn’t – Giles was involuntarily retired from baseball because three different teams saw no salvageable talent left in him. A non-violent domestic abuse charge leveled against him in San Diego didn’t help his cause, but lesser players have been forgiven for far more egregious offenses. Giles inability to find a team willing to pay him to play baseball was almost singularly because of his diminished ability to hit baseballs.
Marcus Giles’s career felt like a cautionary tale, yet it is impossible to say exactly what his story cautioned against. His precipitous decline made so little sense that is made perfect sense. He was enigmatic in the least compelling way, and left baseball with barely a whisper. We’ll remember him for the sweet-hitting Furcal/Giles double-play combo, his spot on the best offensive Braves squad of our generation, and for stepping out of the shadow of his older brother in a big way, for a short time. Over time, we’ll continue to forget how unnatural his departure from the game was, and that we ever even envisioned Giles as a long-term lock in the middle-infield. His name was just big enough, his looks just good enough, his talent just short enough of elite, and his early-career tragedy so “bigger-than-the-game,” that little misfortune could ever garner him the sympathy of fans. We took no schadenfreudic pleasure or attached pain in his demise; he merely left the Braves and went out-of-sight, out-of-mind. His skills may have eroded prematurely, but, as a Brave, Giles gave all he had, then fought no more forever. Don’t stop the Chop.Monday, December 5, 2011
Former Brave of the Fortnight: Fred McGriff
His Atlanta debut was stuff of forced mythology, a coincidence turned canon by circumstance and fate. The story would instantly become his legacy; that the preordained tale held true is only reaffirmed his place in Braves lore. Fred McGriff was born in Tampa, Florida and drafted in the ninth round of the 1981 draft by the New York Yankees. He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays as a minor leaguer; he debuted with the Blue Jays and provided immediate power. McGriff hit 20 homers in a partial 1987 campaign, then launched 34 in 1988, his first full year in the Bigs. McGriff led the league the following year with 36, and didn’t slow down. After the 1990 season, he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays , along with Tony Fernandez, for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. McGriff continued to rake in San Diego, but the team’s potent offensive weaponry (McGriff played with Gary Sheffield, Tony Gwynn, Bip Roberts and Benito Santiago) weren’t enough to overcome holes in the lineup and suspect starting pitching, and the Padres meddled just above .500.
McGriff arrived in Atlanta on July 18, 1993. For his services, the Braves sent the Padres prospects Vince Moore, Donnie Elliott and Melvin Nieves. This trade would become one of the Braves biggest coups, as Vince Moore, Donnie Elliott and Melvin Nieves all turned out to be terrible at baseball. McGriff, however, ignited the Braves. Following the stadium light fire that coincided with his debut, McGriff led the slumping team to a division title, hitting .310 with a .392 on-base percentage and 19 homers in the final 68 games of the season. The team went an absurd 51-19 during this stretch, eventually losing the National League Championship Series 4-2 to the incorrigible 1993 Philadelphia Phillies.
McGriff continued to hit with Atlanta, forging his place in the heart of the lineup and the fans. Tall, sleek, lithe and powerful, he became entrenched at the clean-up spot. The chiseled lefty, with his big, shallow Motown mustache and era-perfect close-cut flat-top, looked less purely athletic than highly refined at distinct baseball skills. He was the big robotic lefty, a power guy with a long carved swing. When it was on, we salivated at replays of his longball shots, all ending with McGriff - bat artfully slanted in one hand - almost taking a scissor-step towards the mound. At the plate, his perfect posture and robotic motions made his stance perhaps the most instantly recognizable and imitated on the team, as well as practically a template for video game first basemen.
When balls didn’t leave the park, McGriff was notorious for his slow speed on the bases, but the phrase “pretty fast when he gets up to speed” was an oft-used and apt descriptor. McGriff ran the bases like an 18-wheeler coming out of an interstate stoplight, churning and jerking as the engine revved before finally coasting along at a seemingly unstoppable rate. Watching him try to stretch a stand-up double into a triple was one of the rarest and most exciting experiences a Braves fan could ask for.
Following the 1997 season, in which the Braves fell to the mercenary Florida Marlins in the NLCS, McGriff’s contract was purchased by the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays. His power had been dipping slightly already, and he hit just 19 homers in his first year with the team. But he soon experienced a resurgence, hitting 32 in 1999, with a .310 average and .405 OBP. In 2001, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs, but had just one more productive year, hitting .273 with 30 homeruns in 2002. After a largely unproductive 2003 with the Dodgers, McGriff, at 40 years old, played 27 games with the 2004 Devil Rays. It would be his last season in the big leagues.
McGriff’s power was potent, but not quite prodigious. He homered in throwback fashion, regularly if not immensely. McGriff was among the last of the old-school sluggers, at a time when McGwire and Canseco were already pumping themselves full of pick-me-ups in Oakland men’s rooms. McGriff led each league in homers, with 36 in the ’89 AL, then 35 in the ’92 NL; by the end of his career, those totals were achieved by a handful of middle infielders.
McGriff’s Braves legacy makes Atlanta one of the few places he will be remembered more for his play on the field than his endorsement off it. McGriff was the celebrity spokesman for one of the longest-running commercials of all time, Tom Emanski’s Baseball Training videos. With an un-bent foam trucker’s cap so comically placed it seems almost intentional, McGriff (introduced as “Major League Super Star" Fred McGriff) deadpanned his endorsement of the video drills used to produce back-to-back-to-back AAU champs. The video was unavoidable during ballgames and weekend cartoons. McGriff appeared between low-quality cuts of horrifying amounts of children identically completing specific drills – hitting balls of tees with a disjointed swing, throwing a baseball in a plastic tub from the outfield – and made every little leaguer fear his coach would actually subscribe to the successful tactics and make summer baseball practice even more boring than it already was.
In Atlanta, McGriff’s firestorm arrival at least equaled his Emanski notoriety. Symbolic and absurd, it set the stage for a memorable run. In the aftermath, McGriff’s nomenclature was so similar to that of basset hound/detective/children’s safety advocate McGruff that no one could find a nickname for McGriff that didn’t end in dog. Crime Dog and Fire Dog both floated about, with Fire Dog particularly relevant and unfortunately less catching. At some point, the distinctive ring of ‘Fred McGriff’ proved enough to quell the search for a more fitting nickname, and Fred McGriff went eponymous.
McGriff’s baseball legacy finds him alongside Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro - company he’d surely just as soon not keep, for myriad reasons - on the borderlands of a milestone and on the outside looking in at Cooperstown. McGriff finished his career with 493 homers, begging for a contract but ultimately shut out, retired against his will on the cusp of 500..
Five hundred home runs was once an instant ticket to the Hall of Fame, but McGriff fell just short of the marker. As demonstrably unfair as this fact is, it has enveloped McGriff’s legacy. Though McGriff seems to feel that seven more bombs would have punched his ticket, it’s more likely that even 507 wouldn’t get McGriff to baseball’s Ragnarok. He was the first case study in an era of re-examination for the 500 Club; his candidacy suffered under the closer scrutiny of raised standards, just prior to the mandatory contextualization of steroid enhancement. Shortly after McGriff retired, Jose Canseco tested the Hall of Fame concept to its limits with his failed admittance and bitter exposal of baseball’s deepest secrets. McGriff has avoided steroid scrutiny, but he remains linked to an era in which power numbers are graded on a scale.
Ironically, McGriff was both overrated and underrated statistically as the result of his tweener-era status. He retired with a .284 batting average and .377 on-base percentage. The average was respectable, but the on-base percentage was wildly underappreciated in the pre-Moneyball era. Had McGriff retired five years later, his on-base percentage would have been a key point of discussion; five years sooner, his power numbers would have been more appealing. As it is, McGriff was born at the exact wrong time and, over 19 notable seasons, fell just short of his Cooperstown dream.
McGriff will always be remembered as one of the most unintentionally hilarious Braves. The fire, the Fire and Crime Dog nicknames, the Emanski hat, the baserunning, and even his tragi-comic career curtailment; all emotionally endearing, especially for a man as consistently stoic as McGriff himself. But his public perception never entered into his play, where he gave Atlanta power and [atience in the heart of the order, at the team’s loftiest heights. Whether he was ever in on the joke or not, McGriff’s affective comedic stylings only enhanced the memory of his time in town. Though the Hall of Fame may never find him, he will live on infinitely on a smaller scale, in the hearts and souls of die-hard Braves fans. Don’t stop the Chop.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Former Brave of the Fortnight: Damon Berryhill
Backup catchers come and go in this game; some develop into starters, others flame out early, but often these substandard tradesmen hark their wares from team to team, earning the trust of a pitching staff and locking in here and there for four-year spans of a one-start-a-week existence. No squat child catcher dreams of becoming a career backup. Many part-time backstops realize early their talent limitations, and earn their way onto the big club with tough defense and passable offense. Damon Berryhill started from the top and worked his way down. A California kid (born December 3, 1963), Berryhill starred at Orange County community College after graduating from Laguna Beach High School. He was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the 13th round of the 1983 amateur draft, but chose not to sign. His gamble paid off, as the Chicago Cubs selected Berryhill with the fourth overall pick the next year. (Though it would seem he was a bust, the first round of the 1984 draft was horrible; Berryhill would probably have gone third or fourth if it was done over. As first round picks, only Jeff Blauser and Gil Heredia ever proved more useful to major league teams).
Berryhill signed with the Cubs and progressed through the minors, earning a late-season call-up in 1987. Berryhill didn’t hit in his 12-game splash in the Show, but continued to garner attention in the minors. He was called up during the 1988 season, and quickly became the everyday catcher. As a 24-year-old rookie, the switch-hitting Berryhill hit seven homeruns and knocked in 38 runs with a .259 batting average and .295 on-base percentage; nothing special, but good enough for sixth in the Rookie of the Year voting. Unfortunately, Berryhill’s inability to draw a walk was already an issue. He was beset by injuries in 1989, ending the campaign with similar abbreviated numbers (.259 average, .291 on-base, 5 homers) in just 91 games. Berryhill played just 46 games between the majors and minors in 1990, and the Cubs gave up on their investment. He was traded to Atlanta late in a 1991 season that saw him spend more time at Triple-A and struggle greatly in the majors, with a .l89 average and .244 on-base percentage in 172 plate appearances. Having seen enough, the Cubs made their move, and the Braves sent Yorkis Perez and Turk Wendell to Chicago for Berryhill and starting pitcher Mike Bielecki.
Greg Olson was already entrenched as the starting catcher in Atlanta, and Berryhill began his career transition to understudy in 1992. He hit .228 with ten homers in 328 appearances, with a paltry .265 on-base percentage. The power, slight but real, was intriguing for a backup catcher, and Berryhill’s pedigree preceded him. He was as exciting as a low-average part-timer could be, always appearing capable despite his repeated failures at the dish. When Greg Olson suffered a devastating knee injury at the hands of villainous Ken Caminiti, we felt comfortable with Berryhill on the interim.
Atlanta’s trust was repaid in Game 1 of the 1992 World Series. Berryhill’s shining moment came in the sixth inning, as the Blue Jays led 1-0 behind a laboring Jack Morris. A walk to David Justice, a single from Sid Bream, and a fielder’s choice by Ron Gant put two men on with two outs for Berryhill, who launched a homerun to deep right field and gave Tom Glavine a two run lead. It was more than enough for Glavine, who went nine to give Atlanta the Series lead - the last bright spot of that postseason, as Toronto took the next three games and finished the Braves off in six.
It was to be the precipice for young Berryhill, as Greg Olson’s return forced him into a timeshare. Though Berryhill still ended the 1993 season with the majority of the at-bats, his numbers were still quite modest, even by pre-steroid era standards. Eight homers, 43 RBIs, a .245 average and a .291 on-base percentage were not enough to earn Berryhill a new contract in Atlanta. He signed with Boston as the Braves cleaned house at catcher, giving the reigns to Javier Lopez and Charlie O’Brien.
Berryhill hit .263 (albeit with just six homers and a .312 OBP) in part-time duty for the Red Sox, but he also hit age 31 that offseason. When his one-year deal expired he again hit free agency, joining the Cincinnati Reds. He barely tasted the field, hitting just .183 in 97 appearances. A bone spur in his elbow cut Berryhill’s 1995 season short, and he had to watch from afar as the Braves swept the Reds in the National League Championship Series. He never even made it out of spring training in 1996, as doctors found ligament damage in his throwing elbow. Berryhill reappeared briefly in 1997, earning a 73 game stint with the San Francisco Giants by raking in a minor league audition. Though he had arguably his best career numbers in those 188 appearances (.257 average, .335 on-base), it was the end of the line for an aging catcher with a reconstructed right arm. Berryhill was spit out of baseball by the Edmonton Trappers (an Oakland Athletics affiliate) in the 1998 minor league season.
Damon Berryhill was hardly reliable, offensively, at least in any way baseball fans define the word. He was consistent, inasmuch as he spent his entire career getting on base just under 30% of the time, hitting a few homers a season, and getting a hit every four at-bats. None of those numbers are good, but Berryhill skated by with them in Atlanta because he always seemed to be on the verge of something bigger, until his track record finally proved he wasn’t. Berryhill was the young backup for a short spell, then the glad-we-got-him replacement and soon the didn’t-notice-he-was-gone ex-pat. After the fact, Berryhill was a fleeting glimpse of a still-frame past. He was remembered not for his exploits as much as for his mere existence. Braves fans do not hold Berryhill’s blast in the same iconic reverence as Bream’s steal, Justice’s shot, Lopez’s pickoff, Otis’s catch and other hallowed memories. Part of it is that Berryhill’s tenure was so short, and his legacy so non-vital to the game itself, but part of has to do with the inner workings of iconography.Problem was, the Braves lost the 1992 Series. After the bomb, Atlanta dropped three straight and hope was lost. Berryhill suffered historical insignificance thanks to the timing of his heroics. Special moments sometimes exist on a precipice of immortality, but it is ultimately the circumstances surrounding these moments that forge indelible memories. Late-Series moments hold significantly more import - though mathematically each game is worth the same, it is impossible to deny the upped intensities of tomorrow-less finality. It is human nature not just to increasingly exalt others, but to personally become more distinctly aware and nerve-wracked when watching or performing in these very moments.
Had Atlanta won the World Series, perhaps Berryhill’s moment in the sun could have stood for something, some omen or momentum-shifting swing that signaled and propelled. Alas, Molitor, Alomar and Olerud swung Toronto on to glory and left Atlanta to lick its wounds. Instead of becoming an unsung hero, Berryhill became simply unsung. We always appreciated Berryhill for his (largely overestimated) power potential and (largely overestimated) funny last name. He was quite lithe for a catcher, at attribute that caused his youth to be overestimated as well. Every detail about Berryhill, it seems, was generously inflated during his playing days, then summarily forgotten when he moved on. Today he exists as more of an individual image than a fleshed out memory; a single frame in a 1992 slideshow.
In 2007, Berryhill was named manager of the Texas Rangers’ low-A team, the Bakersfield Blaze. Today, he guides the Ogden Raptors, the Dodgers’ rookie ball squad. Berryhill continues to live the game as he has since his departure from the Braves; fighting for chances on baseball’s peripherals. Wherever he ends up, Berryhill’s Braves years remain with us, his story at once over-appreciated and under-remembered. Don’t stop the Chop.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Lowe-Balled
Lowe had a reputation as a workhorse; he had no significant injuries to his name since his 1997 arrival in Boston. As both starter and reliever, Lowe took the ball whenever asked and threw sinker after sinker until he punched his time-card. The Braves wanted consistency from Lowe, and when he lowered his asking price in the 2009 offseason (Lowe initially sought an absurd five-year, $80 million deal), Frank Wren pulled the trigger.
Braves fans never expected big things out of Lowe, and never got them. For three years he plied his trade. The highs came at the end of the 2010 season, when a red-hot Lowe put up some of the best numbers in baseball (a 1.17 ERA in five September starts) as the Braves eked into the playoffs. The lows came a year later, with an 8.75 ERA in his five September starts, as the Braves collapsed out of the postseason.
Fredi Gonzalez had no business allowing Lowe to start those last two September games; Lowe had been sub-par all season and word had already leaked that Lowe would be traded during the offseason, giving no incentive for veteran respect or confidence building. Arguments that Gonzalez was alleviating pressure or limiting the workloads on the team's young prospects were rendered moot when Fredi pitched them all in high-pressure innings anyway. Why not start Julio Teheran with Lowe as the long-relief option? Lowe was a given loss at that point. Alas, Lowe took the ball and more poundings, and the Cardinals took the Wild Card.
Atlanta will now pay Lowe $10 million not to pitch for them, receiving Chris Jones in exchange. Jones, a 22-year-old lefty, is a middling prospect; a 15th-round pick with 15th-round pick results so far. Drafted as a starter, he's been converted to the bullpen where he's flashed good strikeout numbers and walked a few too many batters. In four minor league seasons he has not yet made out of high-A ball, and has not shown much improvement. His ceiling might be as a LOOGY, but really, anything the pro club gets out of Jones would be icing, the key here for Wren was getting Lowe off the team to free up what money he could and open up a spot in a crowded rotation. Entering next season, Hudson, Hanson, Jurrjens and Beachy appear to be locks, while top prospects Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, Arodys Vizcaino and Randall Delgado battle out for the final spot and injury fill-ins. The smart money is on the more experienced Minor, allowing the younger three to return to to the minors for more conditioning. Tommy John returnee Kris Medlen is a wild card; Medlen looked as strong in his late-season bullpen work as he had in his starts before the injury in 2010.
Regardless of the replacement, the team couldn't afford to pay $15 million for a guy who didn't fit the plan, and didn't want to risk the chemistry dissolution were Lowe relegated to bullpen work. And so they sent Lowe shipping, eating the sunk cost, getting back a bit of money and taking a flier on a young arm. The move has a sense of inevitability to it; it's been in the making since the moment the team willingly overpaid for an aging arm with a strong past pedigree but deceptive recent returns. With the exception of a brief September '10 hot streak, nothing over the past three years has done anything but strengthen the inevitably of Lowe becoming an albatross in 2012. It's hard to fault Lowe, who took the money and did what he could to earn it; it wasn't his fault the team overpaid, and it wasn't his fault that Fredi didn't bench him. We can wish him well and be glad he's gone at the same time. Consider it a $10 million lesson in sabermetrics, and a suddenly free cash-flow for a decent position player. If the Braves spend wisely, and luck into one of the bargain bats that are seemingly always out there, the trade could reap much deeper dividends.
Former Brave of the Fortnight: John Rocker
Looking back on a career fraught with lunacy and the inspiration for one of the least sympathetic protagonists on television, it can be a trial to remember the good times with John Rocker. Often, it seems impossible that there were ever any good times at all.
Born in Statesboro, Georgia (where else?), Rocker excelled at First Presbyterian Day School in Macon. Rocker was impressive enough that the hometown Braves selected him in the 18th round as an 18-year-old starter in the 1993 amateur draft. Rocker was a starter for much of his minor league career but, despite high strikeout rates, found little success. Eventually, coaches realized Rocker was more effective in short bursts, and Rocker became a reliever. He debuted in the majors in 1998, throwing 38 high-caliber innings (he finished that year with a 2.13 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 42 strikeouts). Incumbent closer Kerry Ligtenberg blew out his arm before the 1999 season, setting the stage for Rocker to take over the closer role.
The intensity with which Rocker approached baseball and life was evident from his first appearances. Sprinting madly from the bullpen to the mound, Rocker uncoiled movie-scene fastballs with bundled rage. Physically, he took to the closer role seamlessly, marrying the intimidation and velocity of the ideal closer. Performance-wise, Rocker was very good, with a 2.49 ERA and 1.16 WHIP, to go with 104 strikeouts in 72.1 innings. However, he blew seven saves, and his 4.6 walks per nine innings were disconcertingly high.
Nevertheless, Rocker saved 38 games and was a presence in the ninth, his mad dash to the mound, scored by Twisted Sister, quickly becoming a spectacle in and of itself. As a closer, Rocker became a rock star. A course toward larger-than-life bullpen superstardom appeared inevitable. The harnessed madman was testosterone in baseball form, charging, surging and annihilating in three-minute bursts.
More Ted Nugent than Dee Snider, Rocker went off the rails with his notorious Sports Illustrated interview in the winter of 2000. Racing down state route 400 (late for a speaking engagement) Rocker matter-of-factly spewed political incorrectness, racism and homophobia as sports journalist Jeff Pearlman assuredly struggled to hide his mix of personal disdain and professional excitement.
Rocker railed against anyone and everyone. He honked and screamed at other drivers, shouting “I guarantee you she’s a Japanese woman. How bad are Asian women at driving?” at a passing car (driven by a white woman, Pearlman notes). On New York, Rocker offered his most infamous opine, stating “Imagine having to take the [Number] 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you're [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing.” Rocker stopped beating around the bush when discussing Times Square, acknowledging “The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. I'm not a very big fan of foreigners.” Rocker’s uninhibited rage towards New York and multiculturalism was immediately a national story, drawing the first amendment, the lines of racism and the scales and limits of sports rivalries into public discourse.
Rocker had already become a villain in the Big Apple; in the previous year’s playoffs, he clashed with Mets fans in the bullpen.. Middle fingers, swears and a baseball hurled at protective netting were the highlights of the already volatile Rocker’s exchanges with Mets faithful. The Sports Illustrated comments reified what Mets fans already felt about the impetuous young gunner, and turned the rest of America against him.
What made Rocker’s vitriol so reviled wasn’t just the rhetoric itself, but the insinuated truth behind it. From his own mouth, Rocker released the most infuriating ignorant crutch: “’I'm not a racist or prejudiced person,’ he says with apparent conviction. ‘But certain people bother me[1].’" Rocker represented an outsized but very real population, and a nation still purportedly striving for unabashed equality had no choice but to soundly condemn a man espousing such a dangerous line of self-deception represented by a defiantly ignorant minority.
The Braves are the most truly “Southern” baseball team. With no Major League Baseball presence in Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas or Louisiana, the Braves’ reach extends far beyond the I-285 perimeter. Cursive ‘A’ caps adorn the bald or shaggy heads of many a good old boy throughout the Deep South; the region itself home to some of the last unabashed pockets of pure bigotry. Of course, ‘southern’ bigotry is an overrated epidemic - racism, sexism and homophobia are by no means close to dead in even the bluest regions of California – but the “tell it like it is” hate speech in Rocker’s tone is the last of pre-Civil War “honesty” so wholly believed by too many Deep South lifers.
The fear was not just that Rocker would go un-reprimanded; it was that Rocker’s statements could encourage others – indeed, Rocker quickly emerged as hate-speech’s “It Gets Better” poster child. Supporters blindly rallied behind the first amendment and seemed legitimately bewildered that a private company such as Major League Baseball could punish an employee for openly attacking other races and orientations. A concerned nation had to show it did not stand for prejudice, and while the Constitution rightly protected Rocker from the judicial system, Bud Selig could brandish the stick demanded in the court of public opinion. Rocker was suspended for spring training and the first 28 games of the 2000 season (later reduced to the first 14 games of ’00). Upon his return, Rocker was met with a chorus of Mets-esque boos in every away city.
When not lambasted, he was lampooned. John Rocker was memorably portrayed as a character on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update. Rocker was played by Will Ferrell, whose physical size and hit-or-miss hammery played perfectly as the hot-tempered closer. Ferrell’s character was met with giddy play-along boos as he proved incapable of delivering a “wish for the New Year” without peppering in a desire to “hunt down the black baby the Jews and the Pope had together” and scorning New Yorkers for watching the “queer Mets go down on the homosexual Yankees.” The segment ended with a borderline violent Ferrell/Rocker decrying various non-WASP groups while championing his “daddy” and blue-collar willful ignorance, a brilliant, hilarious and depressingly realism-rooted send-off of the pitcher and all loudmouthed Rocker prototypes. Rocker’s fragile psyche was already beginning to show, and the nonstop public flogging quite possibly broke him. He managed a steady 2.89 ERA (despite an ugly 1.70 WHIP) after his return in the 2000 season, but the distraction proved too much. Rocker had a 3.09 ERA and 1.28 WHIP after 32 innings, but by late June the Braves had been worn down by the circus and Rocker was shipped to the Cleveland Indians for two bullpen Steves; Karsay and Reed.
Rocker struggled in Cleveland, with a 5.45 ERA and 1.67 WHIP in 34.2 innings as the walks finally caught up to him. He was traded to the Texas Rangers in the offseason, where a fitting 6.66 ERA in 24.1 innings marked the unceremonious end of his big league career. Though he still had washouts in the Texas and Tampa Bay minor league systems ahead of him, Rocker had thrown his last major league pitch at age 27. A 2005 comeback with, of all teams, the Long Island Ducks, ended after 18 innings and Rocker was finally finished with baseball, long after baseball was finished with him.
Between comeback attempts, Rocker found time to star in The Greenskeeper, a 2002 horror/comedy in which he played a psychotic golf club groundskeeper. Channeling his rage-fueled mound face, Rocker dove headlong into the surreal project. When not on the field or behind the movie camera, Rocker still found time to stir up controversy, making insulting remarks to patrons at a LGBT-friendly Texas brunch restaurant he must have accidentally stumbled into. In addition, he consistently displayed blasé contrition for his previous comments, and was eventually linked to steroid usage, surprising no one. After his playing career ended, Rocker tried to remake himself as a conservative Republican talking head, launching a “Speak English” campaign and T-shirt line, joining hands with the woefully misguided legions of Americans too blinded to any notion of global politics to recognize the already world-wide proliferation of English as in any way contradictory to their obsession with forcing all American citizens to promptly master the English tongue.
Rocker long ago relinquished his rights to be remembered for his on-field exploits. He is less a baseball player than an idea at this point. But, briefly, Rocker was a damn fine ballplayer. At one time, a future of a Ligtenberg/Rocker bullpen gave Atlantans still reeling from Mark Wohler’s implosion faith in the bullpens of the future. His PR disaster was initially seen as forgivable; a blip in his career that a year of heckling and sensitivity training would rectify. It wasn’t until Rocker’s return to Shea Stadium that the scale of the situation truly hit. Rocker’s appearance was met with 700 security officers, up from the usual 60. Special fences were erected around the bullpen, alcohol sales were limited, and Rocker left the stadium 30 minutes after his teammates, with a black van with a security convoy. Though no attempts were made on Rocker’s life, the spectacle proved the immensity of the distraction Rocker had created.
Once his trade was imminent, Braves fans still struggled to reconcile the issue in their own moral codes. Rocker was a nutjob, but he was a nutjob in the most earnest possible way. This at once made him both more and less dangerous than your typical head case. His xenophobia made a future with Atlanta impossible while simultaneously making him the most emblematic Brave of all time. But his anger, initially endearing when it was just a sports spat with the hated Mets, swelled larger and larger in the post-SI era. Calling Randall Simon a “fat monkey[2]” and hating New York because of some “queer with AIDS” on the train were the rare off-color statements that became less and less forgivable as time went on. He had seemed salvageable; the small-town Baptist who went to college and had his eyes opened. Time proved otherwise, Rocker was moronic, not misguided.
Although he has readily lamented his own lack of intelligence, Rocker’s steadfast refusal to accept his intellectual limitations as an obstacle is troubling. His inability to differentiate his “political” beliefs from a traditional white pride persecution complex has thus far destroyed any chance he’s had at redemption. Rocker has embraced his position as the face of the ignorant south. Hiding behind Freedom of Speech and conservative politics, Rocker remains a despicable icon and a “celebrity” spokes-piece for divisive racial politics, planting himself firmly alongside Anglo-centric lobbyists with strong enough cognitive dissonance to convince themselves they are anything but the evolutionary form of the Ku Klux Klan
An issue that remains seldom discussed, at least in revisionist sports-talk, is the early demise of Rocker’s playing career. Attributed largely to arm injuries that sapped his command and velocity, Rocker’s flameout might have been a bigger deal for a less notorious character[3]. But pitching is a mental endeavor, and Rocker became his own worst enemy by turning the world against him. Had Rocker possessed the common sense to self-censor (or, better yet, the self-awareness to overcome his prejudices) would the remainder of his baseball career have unfolded any differently? Was his arm doomed to deteriorate regardless of his mental make-up, or was his high-strung approach vitally fueled by his pent-up aggression? Or, was Rocker simply lucky to manage his suspect control in consecutive seasons, his shortcomings masked by the small sample size of bullpen duty? In a pure baseball sense, we’ll never know the truth behind Rocker’s rise and fall; thanks to Rocker’s personal life, we’ll never care. With a menacing playground-bully aesthetic and un-channeled aggression that dominated his on- and off-field persona, Rocker was nothing if not one-of-a-kind - at least, we can only hope so. Don’t stop the Chop.Monday, October 24, 2011
Former Brave of the Fortnight: Rico Brogna
Rico Brogna spent but a portion of a season in Atlanta. It would be the last of his career, as the left-handed first baseman - who suffered through career-long struggles with injuries and southpaws - would retire mid-season and accept a job as a high school football coach for some reason. Though quick with the glove, Brogna was exceedingly unproductive offensively during his tenure in Atlanta. He hit just .248 with a measly 3 homers and .297 OBP in 223 plate appearances, a worse performance than even Quilvio Veras. Despite his struggles and history with rival teams, Brogna was difficult to hate; a few early-season clutch hits, outstanding defense and a demeanor that at least intimated he was always trying his best bought him good will. By the premature end of his season, he was but an afterthought. Brogna was not always a defensive replacement-level player, however.
After a brief debut with the Detroit Tigers in 1992, Brogna spent practically his entire pro career in the National League East (save for 60 plate appearances with Boston following a 2000 deadline deal). He came out firing for the New York Mets in an abbreviated 1994 campaign, hitting .351 in the 39 games, though his playing time was hindered by David Segui and a player’s strike. The following season he hit .289 with a .342 on-base percentage, 22 homeruns and 76 RBI, and the best fielding percentage among eligible NL first basemen, which might be the best season ever from an ostensible rookie with chronic spinal arthritis[1].
Brogna’s arthritis, coupled with a season-ending shoulder surgery in 1996, concerned the Mets enough that they traded for batting helmet never-nude John Olerud. Brogna was sent to Philadelphia for Toby Borland and Ricardo Jordan, two middle relievers the Phillies might was well have just made up. In his new digs, Brogna had three worthwhile seasons, hitting at least 20 homers every year and playing excellent defense. The aforementioned deadline deal sent him to Boston for the tail end of 2000, after which Brogna became a free agent and returned to a familiar division as member of the Braves.
The Braves now appear to have their long-term answer at first-base, with young Freddie Freeman finding himself in the 2011 season. The long search has seen mercurial results, and Brogna was but one of many feet swept over by a doorway that has been steadily revolving since Fred McGriff donned Devil Ray yellow and joined Jose Canseco in futile strife for 500 homers. The Crime Dog departed following the 1998 season; in the years since, Andres Galarraga, Ryan Klesko, Randall Simon, Brogna, Wes Helms, Ken Caminiti, the Francos, Robert Fick, Adam LaRoche, Scott Thorman, Mark Teixeira, Casey Kotchman and Troy Glaus all manned the position at some point, with only LaRoche (and, wistfully, Teixeira) realistically a potential mainstay (Galarraga was wildly productive, but cancerous (literally) and nearing the end of his career). Brogna’s tenure was spent in platoon, to protect him from his career .227 average versus lefties. After a fruitless three months sharing time with Helms, Brogna’s ineffectiveness precipitated the signing of recently released steroid abuser Ken Caminiti on July 5th. On July 17th, Brogna walked away from the game at the age of 31. He dove headfirst into coaching football, a sport he excelled at in high school[2] but never played in college.
Just 30 years old when he arrived in Atlanta, Brogna had hit 20 homers in every healthy professional season, and was as dependable with the glove as anyone. “We got Rico Brogna” wasn’t exclaimed in excited phone calls, but his arrival came with some optimism. At Brogna’s peak, he was a prototypical sub-star. Never seeming destined for All-Star teams or rookie-card hoarding, Brogna was productive and accurately respected. He could hit well and field better. He was ultimately doomed by his back, and his uselessness against left-handed pitchers. As the book got out on him, Brogna was reduced to strictly platoon deployment. Defensive wizardry can outweigh offensive production at key positions, but first base is not one of them. Teams need power and production from one of the least strenuous positions, and Brogna delivered neither by the end. Few can fault Brogna for knowing when to walk away, and it remains unclear how much pain he may have been playing in; his drop-off from ’99 to ’00-’01 was nothing if not precipitous.
And so Brogna has become a faceless member of the endless non-fixtures between bookends McGriff and (hopefully) Freeman. He possessed none of the caliber of Galarraga or Tex, nor the quirkiness of a Julio or LaRoche. Brogna’s tenure was so ephemeral he will likely wear a Phillies jersey in our mind’s eye, if he’s considered at all. Brogna’s retirement raised half the eyebrows of the Caminiti signing, and he was quickly forgotten. Brogna had earned himself a lot of good will with a red-hot beginning to the season; on the strength of the platoon, Brogna was hitting close to .300 near the end of April, but saw that average drop and linger in the .250 range for the next few months. In all, Brogna only appeared in 63 games for Atlanta, starting 46 of them. He was a brief and largely un-endearing member of the squad who made no waves and few memories. Yet, momentary as he may have been, he was a Brave nonetheless. Don’t stop the Chop.Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Former Brave of the Fortnight: Tom Glavine
A glory years mainstay, Tom Glavine was a left-handed rock at the heart of the Braves’ 90’s success. He was the original ace on the Cy Young-hogging Glavine grew up in northeastern Massachusetts Billerica Memorial High School
Glavine progressed rapidly through the minors; in less than three full seasons, a late-1987 call-up put him in the major leagues for good. Though his ascent was nascent, Glavine’s first full season, the 1988 campaign was hardly inspiring. The 22-year-old went 7-17 with a 4.56 ERA and 1.35 WHIP for the 54-win Braves. He struck out just 84 batters in 195.1 innings, compared to 70 walks. While those numbers did not accurately foreshadow the bright things to come for young Tom Glavine, the horrible state of the Braves during this era allowed him the freedom to develop at the big league level while the club tolerated pedestrian numbers. He showed signs of improvement in the following season, posting a 3.68 ERA with an anomalous 1.14 WHIP, but regressed a bit in’90.
After a last place 1990 season, the Braves made some relatively dramatic tweaks to their lineup. Terry Pendleton became the everyday third baseman. David Justice moved to right field, replacing the aging Dale Murphy, while Sid Bream came in to play first. Speedsters Otis Nixon and Deion Sanders began splitting time in centerfield, while Ron Gant and Lonnie Smith shared left. Light-hitting defensive whizzes Mark Lemke and Rafael Belliard began seeing more time at second and short, platooning with the slower, better hitting double-Jeff double-play combo of Treadway and Blauser. These moves greatly upgraded the team defense, reflecting a new organizational focus on run prevention.
The Braves were early adopters when it came to micromanaging defensive alignments, and Glavine was an ideal beneficiary of the strategy. A crafty lefty even at a young age, Glavine’s go-to pitch was his change-up, an off-speed offering he placed on the outside corner; when located perfectly, it induced ground-balls or called strikes at superb rates. When the Brave put plus defenders in the likeliest routes of those groundballs, Glavine’s paintbrush-stroke changeups limned masterful tableaus.
Glavine won his first Cy Young in 1991, as the Braves’ and Twins’ dual worst-to-first transformations became baseball lore. The Series itself aided the dramatic nature, as a seven games and an extra inning were needed to separate them, with Minnesota Atlanta
When the dust settled, Glavine went back to work, winning 20 games each of the next two seasons and, save a sub-par 1994 (which was wiped off the books by a devastating player’s strike anyway), did not have another off year until he was 33 (a 4.12 ERA and 1.46 WHIP in 1999). Glavine responded by winning 21 games in 2000. He had two more stellar seasons after that, eventually whittling his ’02 ERA to 2.96 in his walk year, at age 36.
During the team’s unprecedented divisional dominance, Braves fans willfully blinded themselves to the future. We ignored the certainty in the law of averages, the inevitability of the Phillies, Fish, Mets or Expos taking over, and the creeping visage of age on our vaunted frontline. Though the process took Steve Avery’s fire-balling left shoulder before his time, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz were indestructible icons at the forefront of our consciousness. They bounced back from diminished performance, always finding a Neagle, Burkett or Millwood to fill in the cracks. When injury came for John Smoltz, he moved to the bullpen and set the world ablaze.
The day came that the sad realities of sports-as-business reached even Tom Glavine. Going into a his age-37 season, Glavine had ironically pitched himself out of the Braves plans (he didn’t help matters by imploding against the Giants in the playoffs, getting dinked and dunked out of the stadium in two disastrous starts. Around baseball, short-sighted executives were too hung-up on his pedigree and previous season to notice his gradual decline and climbing age. With the added allure of inflicting indignity on a hated division rival, the New York Mets made a Godfather offer, guaranteeing Glavine $35 million over three years, with an incentive (which Glavine reached) for a fourth year at just under $10 million.
As the Mets were wooing one of our franchise lynchpins, the Braves brass watched with a calculated coldness. Though Glavine repeatedly expressed his desire to finish his career in Atlanta Atlanta
The moves looked great initially; Glavine’s first year in The logic was sound, but Glavine continued to defy expectations. Always a nibbler who lived on the outer edges of the plate, Glavine’s diminished velocity was far less problematic for him than it would be to most pitchers. Glavine was able to refine his approach even further and live off an outside changeup. He never approached his 2002 numbers, but had respectable showings in 2004 (3.60, 1.29) and 2005 (3.53, 1.36). He made his final All-Star team in 2006, winning 15 games with a 3.82 ERA, as his sterling first half (11-2, 3.48 ERA) helped propel the Mets to first place in the East, ending the Braves marathon run of division titles. It was troubling to watch our former son win Game 1 of the NLCS as the Braves sat at home, but hard not to respect the dignified longevity of a living legend.
In 2007, Glavine’s finally reached the next tier of aging. His wearying arm was spot-lit this season, not for his rising peripherals, but for his rising win total. Glavine was closing in on one of baseball’s hallowed benchmarks, opening the season at 290 career wins. On August 5, Glavine started at Wrigley field against the Chicago Cubs, on ESPN’s showcase Sunday Night Baseball. He gave up two runs on six hits, with a walk and strikeout, to become the 23rd pitcher to win 300 games in Major League history. Glavine was also just the 5th lefty to do so.
Glavine also picked up a hit and a walk in the start, fitting, considering Glavine’s legacy as one of the stronger-hitting pitchers of the modern era. Though “Chicks Dig the Longball” was a farce, Glavine did retire with a .244 OBP, not shabby for a pitcher. He hit .289 with a .333 OBP in 1996, and had several seasons in the low- to mid-.200 range, again excellent for a pitcher. He was also adept at sacrifice bunts, a useful attribute for a starter trying to help his cause. Along with John Smoltz and, at times Steve Avery and Denny Neagle, Glavine helped form one of the routinely stronger armaments of nine-hole hitters in the National League.
Glavine’s 300 milestone was especially bittersweet. He had re-upped for one year with the Mets after the 2006 season, amid speculation that he might return to Atlanta
A year later, Glavine finally did return to Atlanta Hampton Hudson
To say Glavine’s departure was divisive would be a misnomer. Divisive entails strong opinions on either; Glavine’s exit created uniformly strong opinions right down the middle. Unlike in good debates, differing ideologies did not interpret the decision with antonymically. Fans hated to see Glavine go and hated how it was done, but they understood that Glavine was a man past the twilight of his career. It was what it was, for better or worse, though it felt definitively worse.
Glavine retired with 303 wins, a 3.54 ERA and 1.34 WHIP in 22 seasons. He was on the frontlines as the Braves transformed from Dale Murphy’s one-man show to cellar-dweller to perennial contender.
Glavine’s finest moment as a Brave is undeniable. The team’s lone World Series win came in 1995, against an explosive Cleveland Indians team. Glavine took the win against Dennis Martinez in Game 2 with a solid six-inning, two-run performance. Glavine’s next turn came as the Series returned to Atlanta Martinez Atlanta
Glavine’s legacy stretched far beyond this pinnacle. In 17 seasons with Atlanta Glavine won two Cy Young Awards (he finished second twice and third twice), made eight All-Star teams, won 244 games and entrenched himself as an icon in Georgia and across baseball. He never had the otherworldly highs of Greg Maddux or the role-shifting resurgences of John Smoltz. Though his numbers were not remarkably consistent, Glavine’s constant success and atypical durability were more than enough to earn him folkloric praise as the first name in the big three – Glavine, Maddux and Smoltz. The rhetorical order was part convenient meter usage and part an acknowledgement. At their apex, Maddux was the Game 1 starter and Cy Young recipient, but Glavine was the original ace; the franchise identified more firmly with its farm-raised product than the free-agent import or trade acquisition. And in the glare of Maddux’s hardware, it was easy to overlook Glavine’s runs of 20-win seasons and sub-3.00 ERAs as league-wide offense exploded in the steroid era.Glavine was unfortunately faced with two unceremonious exits from the team he helped define. Baseball business trumped sentimentality in 2003 and 2008, incidents that could have become black smudges on a storied alliance. It is a testament to Glavine’s character that, both times, he humbled himself to return to Atlanta, first as a cheap retread and then, following a forced early retirement as a company man and broadcaster. Glavine expressed frustration both times he was jettisoned, but he didn’t held grudges, and emerged as the bigger man in retrospect.
Fittingly, each decision ultimately backfired. Mike Hampton had one healthy season with the team; even at the steep discount the Braves received via Florida Colorado
By bearing the business side of the game with thick skin, Glavine further endeared himself to the hearts of Braves nation. His exit is no longer a talking point, instead we remember what he meant to the franchise when he was on mound. He gave us the Young Guns. He gave us Cy Youngs. He gave us a time-stamped mullet, a steady lefty technician, Cabarnet Glavignon, and an historic pitching staff. And on one crisp autumn night in late October, he gave us all we ever wanted. Don’t stop the Chop.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Rock and a Hard Place: The Phillies' Phailure
The Phillies chose to play the Braves in a pre-playoff series, pulling out all stops to eliminate Atlanta. It worked, Atlanta fell to the Cardinals, and karma came around. The Phillies and Braves now both sit on the outside, as the Cards make their way to the NLCS. Hope it was worth it, boys.
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