Salute to Chipper

As a kid, I loved baseball. I loved playing it, talking about it, and watching it. Also as a kid, my parents taught me things like loyalty, discipline, and class. "You're either first class, or no class", my dad used to tell me. While that sentence makes absolutely no sense, you get the jist of it. Either you do things the right way, or you might as well not even do them. Now, like most kids who love sports, I idolized my favorites. My favorite baseball player was Chipper Jones, the third baseman for the Atlanta Braves. He was, in my opinion, the only elite player that fit the mold of what kind of person I wanted to be, besides Derek Jeter, but he played for the Yankees, and that just wasn't going to fly.

Growing up in the Midwest, the Braves kind of fit our "country" culture. They weren't flashy like the New York's or the Boston's of the world, but they weren't small-market either. Chipper was the cornerstone of their franchise. He was easy to attach to, sometimes even reminding me a lot of my family members. I'd watch a game and see him wandering around by his perch on third base, "shootin' the bull" with the left side of the infield with a giant dip of tobacco in his lip, and then the play would occur. He seemed so casual and laid back, but when the time came to work, he got the job done as well as anyone else could. And for the record, if "Chipper" isn't a baseball name, I don't know what else even qualifies.

It was predetermined that this season would be Chipper's last. It's sad to see him go, but as a sports fan, I know that every player gets to a point. With some players, like Brett Favre, they don't realize when they've reached it, but Chipper has exited with class. He finishes his 18 year career in 2012, some 22 years after he was taken first overall in the 1990 MLB Draft. From his first day in the league to his last, Chipper has been a Brave. In today's world of sports, this is an incredible feat.

Historically, Chipper is one of the best hitters that ever stepped on a Major League field. He ranks third all-time in home runs by a switch-hitter with 468 (behind only Eddie Murray and Mickey Mantle), and second all-time in both career batting average and runs batted in, with a .303 average and 1,623 RBI. In Braves history, Chipper is second to ONE, and that is the great Hammerin' Hank Aaron, in my opinion the holder of the single season home run record. (Barry Bonds broke the record, but has also been in steroid allegations.)

Jones was one of the most feared hitters in baseball during his prime, and also one of the most clutch. This falls in the "intangibles" category, and these statistics cannot be measured. These can only be experienced. There is no number that defines clutch. There are no statistics that can define when great players make game-changing plays, or the fact that the mere presence of a man on a field can change the dynamic for an entire team. There aren't numbers for that, but sports fans across the globe know when it happens and it draws them in. There are kids in fields across the globe that dream of being this type of player, and to someday change the landscape of the sport. Chipper Jones used to be one of those kids, and now he's likely to be on his way to the Hall of Fame. Cheers, Chipper, to one hell of a career.

Signing off,
The Sports Guru