Goodbye, Mr. Jones…

Hello all! Travis here again…

As many of you reading probably know, I turned 29 just last week. Many of you would assume that I am looking forward to (maybe dreading?) what should be a major milestone in my life coming next year: The “Big 3-0.” However, I feel like I have reached a much bigger milestone in my life this year: Chipper Jones is retiring.


I beg you, even if you aren’t a sports fan, to hear me out on this one 😀

My father was an avid sports fan. He followed just about everything except hockey. His passions though were NASCAR and baseball. He reluctantly introduced me to NASCAR in 1990, not thinking I would enjoy sports at all given my… passion for things of a more fantastic or sci-fi nature. However, when I indeed became enamored with motorsports, he began introducing me to baseball the very next year. Being from Georgia, his favorite team was the Atlanta Braves and I fell right along with him. While he would tell me stories of the heroes of baseball past, I was becoming familiar with names like Smoltz and Glavine and Justice.

And then came… {Via}

Just a few years later, it happened. This young kid… a high school player that had been drafted #1 overall back in 1990… a product of the Braves minor league system… began playing third base. While I had previously loved the amazing pitching rotation the Braves enjoyed throughout the 90’s, I couldn’t help liking this guy a bit more. He was a power hitter that could hit home runs plenty… but with the finesse and control of an everyday contact hitter that could get you that sorely needed base hit in the clutch. Not only that, but he hit from both sides of the plate! While I had seen switch hitters before, this was the first guy that could hit WELL from both sides. And then there was his name… unhappy being Larry Wayne Jones, Jr., this young man embraced a statement people made about him in his childhood. He was often told he was a “chip of the old block,” and thus Chipper Jones was born. I realized almost as soon as I saw him that this was going to be “my” player for a long time.

And he is a natural righty… {Via}

  Even those who don’t enjoy baseball knows what happened not long after… you had the home run race of 1998 between McGwire and Sosa. Then, we saw McGwire and Sosa testifying along with Barry Bonds about alleged steroid use. Baseball fans had become so hungry to see home runs, that we had created these juiced up monsters in a way… and the sport that was amazing in it’s consistency and comparability across all eras of the game was forever tainted. Not totally, however. Players like Chipper Jones and Derek Jeter were bastions through all of this. Never was the word “steroids” and their names mentioned in the same sentence. They remained consistent. While not the best fielders, they remained strong. While not hitting 60 home runs every season, they were well above average. More importantly, in an era where better paychecks were available elsewhere, they stayed with the team that brought them to the dance.

In my opinion, the best baseball players of my generation {Via}

I have been a Chipper Jones fan for the majority of my 29 years. When he debuted in the 1993 season, I was only ten years old. When he was able to have his full rookie season, beginning in 1995, I was still only eleven. I recall well the number of nights that my father and I would watch the Braves play on TBS. I remember when they finally broke through and won that elusive 1995 World Series, and how my father and I celebrated and screamed and cried. Chipper was big part in that. I remember bragging to my father that Chipper had won the MVP in 1999. After we stopped watching most of the games, first because of the growing steroid scandal and then finally a case of different interests, I could still turn on a game and hear the first notes of “Crazy Train” playing and I would know Chipper was coming to bat and I could smile and think about my father and I.

As I sit typing this, I have tears in my eyes. Not just because my favorite player of all-time (a phrase that is often overused, but true in this case) is retiring. That happens. All players must eventually retire. I know that. Although I haven’t watched a full Braves game in many years, I still loved watching the highlights and being comforted by the fact that Chip was still there. That some things remain the same. Now, as this season winds down… as Chipper’s games are in fact numbered… I feel like a major part of my childhood is disappearing with this season. More importantly, I feel like one more link between my father and I is about to vanish. While everyone will focus on the number 30 next year, just like the Hall of Fame voters will focus on Chipper’s career numbers in six years, to me… some things are more important than numbers.

Goodbye, Chipper.

{Via}