Despite Chipper Retiring, Braves Future Still Looks Bright

This entire baseball season as an Atlanta Braves fan has been dedicated to the farewell tour of future hall of fame third baseman and Braves legend Chipper Jones, who is going to be sorely missed following his retirement.

However, while watching Sunday night’s game between the Braves and the San Francisco Giants, which Chipper did not start in, but did receive a pinch hit farewell appearance late in the game I was struck by the realization that even though Chipper is going to be missed that the Braves still have a very, very bright future.

This realization came to me late in the game when the Braves young sluggers right fielder Jason Heyward and first baseman Freddie Freeman connected on back-to-back home runs off of Giants reliever Clay Hensley.

As long as the Braves can keep all of their young talent together for years to come (including perennial all star catcher Brian McCann and their very talented pitching staff) this Braves team shouldn’t miss a beat heading into the future without Chipper Jones (as hard as that may be to fathom). I’m very grateful that these young guys like Heyward and Freeman have now had a few seasons under Jones’ tutelage to teach them the right way to play the game: the Chipper Jones way.

I honestly can’t think of too many teams with a young duo as talented as or more talented than the Braves have with Heyward and Freeman. The Angels with Mike Trout (possibly just the third player to ever win rookie of the year and MVP in the same season this year) and Mark Trumbo are the only other team that I can think of.

I’ve had a blast watching Chipper play the game ever since I became a fan of his, the Braves and baseball in general in Jones’ rookie season of 1995. I look forward to developing this kind of relationship with Heyward and Freeman going into the future. If these two kids play up to their potential we might be watching two more future hall of famers in the making.  

Chipper Hits Two Homers on Own Bobblehead Night

I apologize for this blog entry being so old.

Last Thursday night was Chipper Jones Bobblehead Night at Turner Field in Atlanta when the Atlanta Braves took on the San Diego Padres.

33,157 fans showed up at the Ted to celebrate Jones’ career and receive the nice souvenir, but they got a little extra treat that they probably weren’t expecting.

The 40-year old future hall of fame third baseman had his 40^th career multi-homer game and his first of the 2012 season, his final year in Major League Baseball. The two blasts by Jones led the Braves to a 6-0 win over the Padres behind a stellar complete game shutout by starting pitcher Kris Medlen, the first complete game shutout of his career.

Jones received a curtain call and standing ovation from the crowd of Bravos fans for his exploits during the game. After the game he told the media: ''If we have to make some silly bobblehead things to get people in the stands, so be it. Keep doing it. We get motivated to play every night, but there are certain nights when it's special, whether certain family members are in the seats, or it's your birthday, or it's bobblehead night.'' (From Yahoo Sports)

If a Chipper Jones bobblehead is what gets butts into the seats at Turner Field (a place that’s often seen lackluster attendance) and drives Chipper to hitting multiple homers every game that the Braves franchise should produce CJ bobbleheads every night of the season.

Chipper Jones’ season stats as of tonight (August 22) are a .311 average with 13 homers and 54 RBI. Jones has an outside chance of hitting 20 homers this season for the 15^th time in his career. He hasn’t had a 20-homer season since 2008 when he hit 22 homers and also won the National League batting title. 

 

Chipper Doesn't Recommend New York's Grand Hyatt

Who knew you should stretch before sleeping at the Grand Hyatt?

In addition to introducing the world to his own baseball language on Twitter, Atlanta Braves slugger Chipper Jones has also adapted to what really is one of the biggest things to do on the social media platform … bitching about life.

Come on you know everybody does it. Isn’t that one of the primary functions of social media to bitch about life’s problems? Bitching had never been so easy before social media sites like Facebook and Twitter were created where you can let hundreds, if not thousands or millions of people know that you have a migraine or that your girlfriend did something to piss you off with just one click of a button.

Chipper has mostly used his Twitter account for baseball speak, remarking about Braves wins and losses and bragging about every time a teammate went yicketty, but on Thursday night he finally used it for one of its main intentions … to bitch.

Apparently Chipper Jones was less than thrilled with the Braves hotel in New York City where they were in town to play the New York Mets and sent out the next three tweets:  

*“If anyone was thinkin about stayin at the Grand Hyatt in NY,dont! My AC is set on 65 and its north of 80 in here. Like a freaken sauna!”

*”The movie channels dont work and the beds make my back spasm up! Am i complaining too much? Im sorry, gotta vent to someone. Love yall!!!”

*”Ahh the power of social media. TV guy just showed up at my door. Didnt even have to call the front desk. See what happens when u vent a tad?”

There are some out there that might see these tweets and think that Jones is being a spoiled, rich athlete, but honestly it just helps to remind us that even though we’ve been watching him on TV for close to 20 years hitting home runs and winning ballgames that he’s just an average guy with typical everyday problems like me and you. Sure, we may never have stayed at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, but we’ve all had uncomfortable hotel stays.

Chances are that Braves fans are likely going to hate the Grand Hyatt just as much as Chipper does as the third baseman had to be scratched from the Braves lineup against the Mets on Friday night thanks to a bad back received from the hotel’s poor bed. Luckily the Braves didn’t need the old man to shutout the Mets 4-0, behind a stellar pitching performance by the newest Brave and trade deadline acquisition Paul Maholm.  

Jones Introduces Twitter World to "Chipperish"

When Atlanta Braves superstar third baseman Chipper Jones joined the social media world of Twitter a few weeks ago few probably could’ve foreseen that the slugger would actually introduce the world to a brand new language. A language that an MLB.com article has dubbed “Chipperish.”

In his early tweets Chipper would use strange words such as “yicketty” and “mammo” when describing his team’s play.

For example this early tweet from July 25: “Mike b and jhey go yicketty! The roadrunner went mammo! And the Bravos have a winning road trip. My kind of day off, no action!!!”

Jones would later explain to confused Twitter followers that “yicketty” was slang for home run and “mammo” slang for a “big bomb”, which is actually slang in itself.   

Baseball is certainly no stranger to slang terms and likely has more slang than any other sport, maybe even most other sports combined. Among my favorite baseball lingo terms are Uncle Charlie and yakker, which are both references for a curveball.

There are more terms for a home run than any other statistic or play in baseball like: dinger, blast, four-bagger, moon shot, tater and on and on, but it seems “yicketty” and “mammo”, likely created by Chipper Jones, that great linguist himself, are the ones that he prefers to use. It’ll be interesting to see if those terms catch on around the game, it already appears that they have among Chipper’s teammates with multiple Braves players also using the terms on Twitter and Braves announcers even using the terms during broadcasts.

It shall be interesting to see if “Chipperish” ever becomes as popular in the baseball or even pop culture lexicon as legendary New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra’s “Yogisms”.

Which leads me to a few of my favorite “Yogisms” …

*"Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical."

*"The future ain't what it used to be"

*"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

*"I didn't really say everything I said." … Which is probably very true.