Ten straight losses would drive anyone to insanity.  Ten straight losses are enough to stir up rumors that the face of the franchise is on the trade block.  Ten straight losses is enough to cause a rift in the clubhouse and high tension between players.  Ten straight losses would be enough to bring me to Paul Vitti mental standards.

But not the Atlanta Braves.  Ten straight losses and there is one positive thing that you can still take from this team.  While they are losing nearly every time they go out onto the field, they are losing together.  They haven’t been in poor spirits, ripping on each other for their poor play.  The team has remained in typical Bobby Cox fashion.  Always be quick to praise and slow to tear down.

When a team is going down in flames as bad as these Braves are, it’s hard to remain positive about anything.  After all, the only thing that has been consistent about the so-called “most consistent team in baseball’s” play has been that is utterly and horribly inconsistent.  A week before I left on my trip to Texas, the team was only four games out of first place, good enough for second in the division.  They had just gotten off of a hot streak but were still playing fairly well.  I come back to find them in dead last, the cellar of the east, a place reserved for the likes of—well—anyone but them.

It would be easy for Cox to pack it in and congratulate himself on a nice career, but sorry guys, it’s time to go.  From what I hear, he has an excellent winter home on his ranch.  That would not be too bad of an exchange for his normal hard seat on the end of the bench.  But if you talk to him, he’s the same old Bobby.  You can’t tell that his team was 13 games below .500 heading into last night’s game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

No, after fourteen years of watching the Braves manage to find any way possible to win the division I have learned that it just wouldn’t be their style to give in and accept a season that would rival the Kansas City Royals.  While the players, coaches and fans alike all know that the chances of a fifteenth consecutive division title followed Leo Mazzone out the door, there is still life in this storied team.

Last night playing the lowly Devil Rays, a team that has never had the opportunity to even lick the dirt off of the Braves’ spikes, an air of thirst for victory visibly filled the Braves’ dugout.

The game seemed to be going in the wrong direction from the get-go.  After jumping to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, John Smoltz allowed two to the Rays in the bottom half.  In the following inning, Smoltz experienced a groin pull and was forced from the game early.  The team later fell behind 3-2 and was short on outs in the eighth inning before Andruw Jones’ fly ball drove in the tying run.  It was then that the players finally realized that they had a shot to put their misfortune to rest, to drive the demons away and finally snap the longest skid in Cox’s 15 years at the helm.

Sure enough, on a freak rundown in extras, the Braves pulled ahead for good and managed a victory.  The team held a 1991-esque atmosphere, sporting rally caps late in the game hoping against all hope that this could finally be the game that the bullpen didn’t let get away.

That has been the bugaboo all year: late leads thrown to the #### by poor relief.  Starting pitchers have pulled their hair out over the late collapses. (Just look at Smoltz, Tim Hudson and John Thomson.)  But not Friday night.

After losing Smoltz in the second, the bullpen gave up only one run the rest of the game, a full nine and a third innings long.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not naïve enough to believe that the Braves will come back, as always, and win this division.  But I’m also not naïve enough to think that they won’t give it their absolute best effort.  This team has been through it all and for fourteen years has come out unscathed.  Perhaps results will change this year, but the effort, the desire and the team chemistry will remain the same.

Ten things I’m looking at on the sidelines…

1.  You know, I may be the only one, but I’m still going to reserve judgment on Ryan Howard.  I know this kid has all the necessary parts to be a great player in this league for a long time, but I heard Jay Mariotti saying something about him upstaging Albert Pujols.  What a ####! (Just kidding, folks.)  He is only a second-year player, here.  So far he has been phenomenal, but I’ll wait until the second half and the dog-days of summer to give my opinion.

2.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I absolutely love Ozzie Guillen.  This guy is great.  On the one hand, he is obviously an excellent manager.  But what I like even more is that he is not intimidated by the pencil pushers at the league office.  He speaks his mind no matter what they say.  This whole sensitivity training thing is a crock.  I know and everyone else knows that the word he used is as commonplace as about any other expletive you can think of.  Now, I’m not saying that it’s a good word.  All I’m saying is that we all know he did not mean anything offensive to ####s.  Unless, of course, comparing Mariotti to a homosexual is offensive.  I may have to agree with that.  I can’t stand Mariotti.  Just wondering, though...who's the ####?  Incriminating picture isn't it Oz?

3.  Tom Glavine became the first to 11 wins and he has the baseball world talking about his seemingly revitalized pitching ability.  I say hold your horses.  Is it just me or is he chasing some kind of milestone?  300 wins, maybe?  I’ll be interested to see how well he does once he hits that point and doesn’t have another number to shoot for.  He’s not dumb enough to think he can make it to 400.  Hell, I’m not even dumb enough to think that.

4.  I went on record earlier as saying the Dallas Cowboys would win the Super Bowl.  I’ll hold true to that prediction, but I’m officially throwing the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Cincinnati Bengals into the mix.  The Jags managed a 12-4 record last year and could conceivably put forth an even better showing this year.  Matt Jones is poised for a breakout sophomore season and Byron Leftwich is hoping for a healthy and productive year.  The Bengals, with a quick return by Carson Palmer, could also conceivably come out as the team to beat in the AFC.

5.  NBA GMs:  Don’t throw your chips in Adam Morrison’s basket.  I don’t care what these supposed experts are saying, he is not, nor will he ever be the next Larry Bird.  Mark my words.  He has bust written all over him.

6.  Sticking to the NBA draft theme, I will confidently say the Atlanta Hawks are closer to being good than most people think.  I think this is the money draft for them.  If they screw it up, all the work they have done in the past three years will be for naught.  They can’t screw this up.  They have talent behind talent on their roster.  Josh Smith, Josh Childress, Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams, Salim Staudamire, all very promising players.  The big problem is that they are all in the mid-range height.  They have no real big guy and no real point guard.  Drafting a point guard in this draft would be a waste of a No. 5 pick.  No PG in the pool is worth that much.  And this so-called promise to Shelden Williams can’t be for real.  He’s just another 6’9 guy.  They need to find anyway possible to either draft Tyrus Thomas or LaMarcus Aldridge.  That would cover the big man slot and leave only PG.  They would have the option of hoping to pick up a player like Daniel Gibson in the second round or a sign-and-trade with Al Harrington in return for a seasoned player.  In my view, doing both is legitimately possible.  That would be the best option.  Fill those holes, and they might just be a decent team.

7.  MJ just can’t stay away can he?  Let’s see how long it takes him to screw up this franchise…

8.  I hope I wasn’t the only one NOT to believe the U.S. soccer team hype.  I mean, let’s be honest with ourselves here.  This team may have been the best U.S. team ever assembled, but we will never be able to compete with these other faster and more seasoned teams.  It is a fact of life.  U.S. is not for soccer.  It’s for football.  Real football.  And baseball.

9.  Is it just me or am I hearing a lot of people calling themselves idiots recently?  Phil Mickelson felt that way about himself after blowing the U.S. Open and, more recently. Bruce Arena said the same about himself.  I guess we’re all idiots.  I just got called that on my last post.  Go figure.

10.  Although I may be an ####, I do urge anyone who can pick up Don West’s radio show on Sportsradio WNSR 560 in Nashville, Tennessee to listen for me in the future this summer.  I have been offered the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with him on the air on his sports call-in show.  I will be sure to let you all know when that will be.

Until then, peace be the journey…cool runnings.

I used to be a pretty decent pitcher back in my heyday.  I was the No. 1 pitcher on the Peachtree City Devil Rays.  So what if I was only 14, the point is that I had some success.

My best season was that year, when I was 14.  I managed a couple one-hitters and late in the year, I crossed the hump and managed to pitch a no-hitter.  Directly after the game I was ecstatic.  I had everyone cheering for me.  It was just my day, I guess.  It was only later that I did a little bubble-bursting to myself.

While I managed to go the entire game without giving up a hit, I did lose my perfect game with two outs left in the final frame.  The third baseman bobbled the ball and overthrew the ball to first allowing the runner to get to second.  I stolen base and a sac fly later, the opposition was on the board.  It was no big deal, though.  I recorded the final out for my no-hitter and we took the game easily by eight runs.

It was the best game I had ever pitched.  I figured it would be the best game I would ever pitch.  That was only the regular season though.  I saved another gem for the playoffs.

I pitched a three-hit shutout while managing seven strikeouts.  I was in control all game long, never allowing a runner past second base.

It never really occurred to me back then to compare the two games.  I have always just figured that they were both excellent games and left it at that.  Who cares which one is a better accomplishment?

But while relaxing and checking out some baseball tonight, I saw that Giants pitcher Matt Cain was working on a no-hitter through seven innings.  That wasn’t the number that jumped out at me, however.  It was the fact that he had given up a run.  Naturally, I began to think back to those games and to his game tonight and wonder which I think is more fulfilling.

At first glance, one would probably say a no-hitter while giving up a run.  After all, no-hitters are hard to come by, but a pitcher can throw anywhere from five to 10 shutouts in a single season.

True, a no-hitter is less common.  But is it really fulfilling when the other team scores a run?  What that says is that none of the opposing hitters scored what was ruled a hit, but yet they still found a way to score off of you.  After all, isn’t runs what it’s all about?  Hits don’t win ballgames, runs do.  Hits may lead to runs, but it is ultimately the runs that give the team a win or a loss.

When a pitcher pitches a shutout, no matter how many hits they allowed, it says a lot for their pitching ability.  It says a lot for their ability to get out of jams, to make clutch pitches, etc.  It says that they faced some of the world’s most capable baseball players and still managed to keep them from getting anyone across the plate.  It’s a big deal.

A couple of years ago, a young pitcher on the Braves had thrown seven no-hit innings.  Damian Moss was only a rookie in the league and yet he was flirting with pitching’s golden calf.  The problem was, he had walked six batters in the game.  Less than stellar even for a fourth or fifth starter.  By the time the seventh inning rolled around, I, a Braves fan, was rooting for him to lose it just so that it wasn’t such a tarnished accomplishment.

Thinking back, the decision of which I enjoyed more is actually quite simple.

The no-hitter was great.  I was lights out.  My curveball was working to perfection.  I struck out 11 batters leaving the players to shake their heads and wonder how a kid that looked to be lacking any athletic ability and threw barely fast enough for the radar gun managed to control them from start to finish.  But they still managed to score.

I pitched seven shutout innings against one of the best teams in the league in the playoffs, no less.  I had maybe two hard-hit balls and no one even sniffed home plate.  Who cares if three people managed hits?  I managed to fool them enough to not allow a single run.

   Well, I guess it’s true that you just can’t be right all the time.  I mean, I guess batting .900 isn’t too shabby, but even I have to laugh at how wrong I appear on this one.

   I was flipping through the channels Thursday night when I landed on a game that I was actually surprised to see.  I saw Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees pitching to a Boston Red Sox batter in the top half of the eighth inning.

   If you haven’t been reading the blog, you may not realize the problem with this statement.  The fact that I was surprised to see the game completely discounts a point I made in an earlier post.

   Apparently the media doesn’t play up every series as if it were for a world title or perhaps I would have known of this game.  Keeping in mind that I keep my channel tuned in to ESPN 24/7, it is logical to come to the conclusion that they didn’t hype up this series like they did the last one.

   Unfortunately, this isn’t all I got wrong this week.  Let’s take a look in with my hits and misses for this past week.

Hits:

1.  Not often do I praise myself too much, but I think I hit the nail on the head with my article “The game of life”. The more I think about it, the more I decide that baseball really was, in its creation, based off of the life in which we live.

   I think that fact has been lost in translation, but hopefully the gamers of the future will rediscover the true meaning to the game that they play.

2.  Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers is one of the greatest football players of the era.  But I still stand by what I said, that he needs to make a decision and stick to it.

   There can be no leaving the team in limbo again next season because all he does is hurt them.  Eventually, this team will need to move on.  He doubles the difficulty in the transition by clinging to something that he can no longer grasp.

3.  I was right, if no one liked Barry Bonds before his 713^th homerun, than there definitely is not a person in the world who likes him now.

   The bigger deal is that there are probably few who will even respect him or his game anymore.  When you stif####uy of a simple autograph, it goes a long way in creating a wall that it took years for him to break down.

   Apparently you can rebuild Rome in a single day.  Way to defy the laws of physics, Barry.

4.  Obviously I can’t be wrong on something that I have so recently written.  Of course I am right about the state of today’s NBA.

   After reading some of the comments of disagreement, I still stand firm that today’s NBA is not nearly as highly regarded as the NBA of old.

   While people may praise the offense in today’s game, it is only because the millions of fans from years ago no longer watch the games.  The only fans now are the guys who enjoyed the offense.

   Please, bring back some defense.

Misses:

1.  This is not necessarily a total miss, but I think I may have misrepresented my opinions of Favre.

   If I made it seem as if I had lost all respect for the man, that was not my intention.  Although he has frustrated me of late, I still have the utmost respect for his game and his mentality.

   I think he may have lost a little of both over the last few years, but he has always and will always be one of my favorite players in the game.

2.  The same goes for David Justice.  Justice was the man and in my eyes still is.

   Perhaps he should have given me that autograph, but the point is, he helped win the Atlanta Braves a championship and should therefore be commended.

   In retrospect, he was nowhere near the high caliber player I deemed him to be, but back in the day, to me, he was the best there was and the best there would ever be.

3.  Again, I am not wrong on the NBA.  However, I think I may have come short in my diagnosis of why the NBA’s defense is in the state that it is today.

   I failed to address the addition of the defensive three-second violation and also the increase in illegal defenses.

   Just as in the NFL, the league is making it as difficult as possible for the defenders to do their job:  defend.  When a cornerback can’t touch a receiver after five yards, how are they supposed to cover them for 20 yards down the field?  If a defender can’t stay in the lane for more than three seconds, how are they going to clog it up and keep a point-guard from splitting the defense on an isolation play and scoring without any trouble.

   Maybe one day the NBA will figure it out.

   Until then, I’m going to go pretend that I’m watching hockey.

   If only I had gotten that autograph from David Justice.  How different my life could be if only he didn’t walk away from me.

   I stood there on the field of old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, a short 7 year-old, staring in awe of my favorite player.  In my eyes, there was no one greater to ever step foot on that field.  And there I was, only 3 feet away from him.

   With all the strength that a 7 year-old could muster, I stepped forward.

   “Could I have your autograph, Mr. Justice?”  I asked him holding out the baseball and a brand-new Sharpie.

   He stared down at me with his glove in his hand.

   “Sorry, kid.  I gotta get ready for the game.”

   My heart sank.  My one shot at getting the autograph of my hero, and it was gone.

   If only he had signed that baseball, I wouldn’t have spent three months allowance buying an autographed baseball as opposed to the new baseball glove I really wanted.

   If only I could have bought that glove, who knows where my baseball career could have taken off to.  It could have been me years down the road looking into another little 7 year-old kid’s eyes and making his dream come true.

   If only I could have just gotten that one autograph.

   It must be a rule that once a player signs their first professional contract they lose all touch with the rest of reality.  If that wasn’t the case, perhaps they would interact with fans more, maybe sign a few more autographs.

   Barry Bonds was just an hour or two removed from smashing his 713^th career homerun.  And surprisingly, he got a much warmer reception than most would have expected.  It was a much warmer reception than I would have given him, at least.

   He spends most of his press conference talking about his mom and his dad and making the rest of the world relate to him, as if he was actually a human being.

   Then what does he do?

   When the man who caught his homerun ball asks for an autograph on the ball, Bonds turns him down.

   And he wonders why people don’t respect him.

   Why not just sign the ball for him?  How much effort does it take to lift a pen?  What is it going to hurt Bonds if the man sells the ball on e-Bay for $1,000?  As if Bonds doesn’t get paid enough money anyway.

   If I was in Bonds’ position, I’d be begging people to take my autograph.  He should be thankful that anyone even cares enough to hang on to the baseball.

   After all, Bonds got the man’s autograph anyway.  The man had to sign a waiver agreeing to be shown on Bonds on Bonds.

   Granted, the man probably went home, thought about what happened, but in the end brushed it off and found a good resting place for Bonds’ homerun No. 713.  Mature adults have the ability to do this.

   But what about those kids who pick the wrong player to ask for an autograph.  Things like that can stick with a person for their entire life.

   Kids think the world of athletes.  While adults keep track of everything wrong with Bonds and other players, the kids see only the good in them.  The kids see only what is pure about the game.

   Too often athletes miss this fact and fail to humanize themselves for the cause of a few kids.

   I’ve found that as much as I think I know about sports, that most often what I say ends up getting me into trouble eventually.  Chances are if I something, I’ll be eating crow somewhere down the road.

   I do, at times, however, manage to get a few things right.  So it’s time, right now, to examine what I got right and what I got wrong in my first week blogging at for Fox Sports.

Hits:

   Let’s start out on a positive note and take a look at what I nailed this week.

1.  In my first article, I talked about Barry Bonds being driven not by the need for attention, but for the desire for a bigger fortune.

   While there is no obvious proof, and never will be, that this is the case, I stand by it.  I still think that baseball’s drive to regain the national attention that it had before the strike in 1994 forced the high ranking officials to turn a blind eye to things like steroids or other performance enhancers.  They saw the national craze for #### ball and they ran with it.

   In the end however, it has obviously hurt the game and they have little room to make up for their error.

2.  You have no idea how good it feels to scoop the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  If any AJC guys are out there reading this, I would just like to rub it in that my Julio Franco post came out a day before your article did.

   I had a head start by attending the game and being able to see firsthand the effect that the standing ovation had on Franco, but I was somewhat surprised to see how perfectly I hit it on the nose.

   According to Franco, that standing ovation that he received at Turner Field ranks as the top moment in his long career.  According to him, only a World Series title could top that moment.

   You’re welcome, Julio, and we all still love you.

3.  There’s no way to prove that I’m right about the Yankees and Red Sox rivalry, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say I’m right anyway.

   If anyone sees a highly publicized series not involving one of the two teams, feel free to tell me and I’ll switch this to something that I got wrong.

4.  I was right.  Earl Woods is still an icon that too many fail to recognize.  Live on, Earl.  We’ll miss your smiling face at the 18^th green at Augusta.

5.  Newsflash:  Paris Hilton is still a head case.  I would advise Matt Leinart to drop her like a bad habit—now.

Misses:

   So, let’s be honest.  I was pretty much on my A-game this week, so it was tough to find many things that I didn’t get right.  I did find a few, however.

1.  I was wrong.  Money can buy love.  When I grow up, I’m thinking I may marry rich just so that I can sit at home and write blogs everyday.  How does the other half live?

2.  I’m really reaching for some things here, but I did miss Franco’s age.  I kept saying that he was 48 years old, when he is actually only 47.  As if it makes much difference.  He’s still the oldest player to hit a homerun.

3.  The jury is still out on this one, but it appears I may have written the Braves off too soon.  Surprise, surprise.  Never seen that happen before.

   Starting the next game after I made that post, they reeled off three straight convincing wins, filled with great pitching and a few flashes of brilliance at the plate.

   If they can somehow combine their early season hitting with the way they are pitching right now, there is no doubt that they’ll be in the hunt all season long.

   This one is hard to call, because as I’ve written this post, they have gone from a 6-2 lead over the Mets, to a 6-6 tie, to a 7-6 lead in the 11^th, to a blown save and a 7-7 tie where they stand right now.  The bases are loaded as I speak, and it is becoming more and more obvious that there must be another option at closer than Chris Reitsma.

   That, I am sure of.

   Chances are that most of what I have said will be proven wrong at some point in the future.  But for now, I’m just going to consider these as my hits and misses for this week.

   If you haven’t built your bomb shelter or transferred your files from your computer to a hard disk, now may be the time to do it.  In fact, you may want to consider storing a few jugs of water and some nonperishables as well.  Those will be important while you wait out the firestorm in October this year.

   This isn’t Y2K I’m talking about.  Compared to this, Y2K would have been a walk in the park.  This isn’t even God’s judgment of man.

   No, I’m talking about the end of the Atlanta Braves reign in the National League East.  Not only that, I’m talking about the Braves missing the playoffs altogether.

   Experts have researched this possibility for the last few years, years in which the event seemed inevitable.  From what I’ve read in the reports, they say that the earth’s center of gravity resides in the city of Atlanta and that the mass of people that congregate there every October enables the planet to remain balanced.  In losing the playoffs at this location, it is quite possible that the earth could spin off its orbit and float aimlessly through space.

   Perhaps I am slightly exaggerating the possible outcomes, but you must admit, a playoff without Atlanta seems strangely empty.

   There will be no sea of red tomahawks oscillating in unison to that same annoying battle cry.  There will be no experts predicting this to be the year the Braves finally get back to the World Series and there will be no monumental letdown as the team fails to escape the first round.

   As big of a fan as I am, I will always have a special place in my heart for those late-season collapses.

   I know experts have been predicting this for years.  For the past four years, I have seen every team projected to win the division before the season with the only exception being Atlanta.  And every year when I see these experts, I laugh in their face.

   “Wait ‘til September,” I say.  “Wait until the season’s over, and we’ll see who sits atop the division.”

   So far, I have been right.  And as much as I hate to say it, I will be right yet again.

   It’s not that I don’t think the Braves will put it together.  They go through the same thing every April.  Their hitting is on fire, but their pitching is all over the place.  The pitching heats up just in time for the batters to experience an outbreak of a slump epidemic.  But every year in late June and July, when the other teams hit that invisible wall, the Braves always heat up.  I still think that could happen this year.

   No, the problem resides in the team above them.  The New York Mets have assembled a team that appears to have what it takes to end the Braves streak.  This team is so strong from top to bottom, that it could go down as one of the biggest flops of all time if this team did not win the division.

   In the position players, they have a bit of everything.  As a unit, they can be as strong as anyone on defense.  They have speed at the top of the order, good power and run-producing players in the middle, and at the bottom they have guys that can do just enough to swing it back to the top of the order.  Having former San Diego Padre Xavier Nady hitting seventh should be the first clue of how strong this batting order is.  Nady showed a lot of promise in limited playing time during three injury-riddled seasons with the club.

   But the question was their pitching.

   “How’s Pedro’s toe?”  “Isn’t Glavine retired yet?”

   The answers: fine and apparently not.

   Pedro Martinez has been lights out on his way to a 5-0 start.  He can’t blow a fuse in the radar gun anymore, topping out usually at around 91 or 92 mph, but he has become a much smarter pitcher.  He knows what to throw and where and when to throw it.  He has learned how to outsmart the batter instead of overpowering him.

   Tom Glavine is still a mystery to me.  He struggled every year in New York.  He struggled so bad that many began to question his abilities as a pitcher out of the Leo Mazzone system.  It appeared his career was done, and just when you least expect it, he becomes one of the most dominant pitchers in the league.

   Whatever the case, the Mets are loaded and out of the gates with a fast start.  Heading into Sunday’s finale between the Mets and Braves, they hold a seven game lead.  The mountain for the Braves to climb is bigger than ever, and with the young team that they have, it’s hard to believe that they can pull off another late-season surge to take the division crown again.

   It was bound to happen sometime.  They can’t win them all.  Sure, I may be a little upset if they do fall short.

   But hey, it’s not the end of the world.

   It’s not everyday that a Hall of Fame caliber pitching match-up is upstaged by a 48 year-old backup.  Yet, that is exactly what happened Friday night in the National League East showdown between the Braves and the Mets.

   It’s not that the hyped duel between John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez did not pan out as advertised.  Quite the contrary, the teams took a 3-2 score into the ninth inning.

   Martinez was lights out, sporting only a minor blemish, a two-run homerun by Chipper Jones, in his otherwise spotless pitching line.  Smoltz scattered six hits and four walks over seven innings, giving up only three runs.  He also managed to fan 10 Mets batters.

   But as a baseball purist, the highlight of the game came in the eighth inning when former Brave Julio Franco pinch-hit for Martinez.

   Sitting in the eleventh row behind the visitors’ dugout at Turner Field, I expected a decent applause for the man who spent five seasons with the Atlanta club.  He had been well loved for his attitude both on and off the field.

   However, I was very surprised to hear the deafening cheers continue on for two or three minutes, prompting Franco first to pay a quick wave to the 45,389 in attendance.  When the cheering did not end, he then stepped out of the batter’s box and tipped his helmet to the crowd, presumably with a tear in his eye.

   He quickly grounded into an inning-ending double-play, holding the Mets at bay for at least one more frame.

   But for that one moment before he took his cuts, I felt a warmth in my heart that at once explained to me why I love the game of baseball so much.

   Franco was not a lifelong Brave.  His career started in Philadelphia in 1982.  He didn’t spend his prime with the team.  Those years were split between the Cleveland Indians and the Texas Rangers, where he won his lone MVP award in 1991.  His career won’t end in Atlanta.  That distinction looks to go to the New York Mets.

   All the Braves did was give a so-called wash-out a second chance in the Show.  All they got in return was a winning attitude and a few winning hits to boot.

   Franco may amaze people with his age-defying antics such as batting .292 in his five years wearing a tomahawk.  But the thing that fans appreciate more than that is the fact that he never spoke ill of his club or teammates.  He never asked for an ungodly raise.  He never even got into spats with the umpires.