Posts tagged chipper jones

Chipper Jones just had the final regular season at-bat of his 19-year career.

He got a hit. Then scored a run.

He is finishing out what has turned out to be the most remarkable, successful final season in history. No player has ever announced his retirement before a season, and then gone on to post such incredible, consistently good numbers. No player in history. No player over 40 has ever put up the kinds of numbers Chipper Jones has in 2012.

Basically, there’s still baseball left in Chipper. Good baseball. All-Star, playoff baseball. He could keep playing. He could keep playing for years. He could go to the American League and DH for five more years and pad his numbers, reach 3,000 hits, up his career batting average. But he refuses to wear anything but a tomahawk oh his chest.

Most baseball players end their careers on an injury, or to loss of ability, or in a quiet off-season, or hanging on by their fingernails until finally no team wants them and they fade into obscurity, forever doomed to miss the game they love and wish for one more day.

Most players go until the game of baseball tells them they are done. Chipper Jones, though, he told baseball when he was done.

Today was Rookie Day in Major League Baseball. Basically, the veterans get to make the rookies dress up and pay their rookie dues by embarrassing the hell out of them. These are the Braves rookies + a Chipper in a pimp jacket.

I’m hazy on the details of whether Chipper dressed up with them or if that’s just what he wears on off-days.

This is Chipper Jones’s last year. I don’t need to list all the reasons that I love the Braves, or all the reasons that I love Chipper Jones, other than to say that the Braves and Chipper represent to me everything that is important in life. My childhood, hope, loyalty, honor, hard work, talent, sacrifice, team, love.

And Chipper has been at the center of the team almost since the beginning of his career. I was 13 his rookie year. He has been one of he most spectacular players of any generation, battling through injuries, personal demons, and position switches with class and respect, all while playing his entire career for one of the most consistently successful teams of the last century. The only reason he’s retiring this year is because his knees won’t take him any further.

He could have refused to switch positions, but he did so for the good of his team and damaged his knees in the process. He could have gone to another team for more money at any point in free agency, but he chose to stay with the Braves, all because he wanted to make his manager proud of him.

I know all of you are reading this all:

But fuck you. My goal in life right now is to take my daughter to Atlanta to see Chipper play in person once before the end of the season. We were at Opening ay, but Chipper didn’t play. And though she’s only 3, she knew chipper wasn’t there and was heartbroken. She knows baseball, she knows how to do the Tomahawk Chop, and she knows Chipper Jones.

All of these legitimate, deeply seated feelings make what happened to me last night even funnier.

I sat for a week of deliberating and wondering if my knee was capable of attending a ballgame, staring at the Braves schedule.

I decided I didn’t give a fuck if my knee couldn’t handle it, I was going and taking Little Roux with me even if it was just the two of us going. So I chose the only series left that we could go to, which happens to be against the Nationals, who happen to be leading us in the NL East pennant race, which happens to make these some of the most exciting games left in the year.

So I sat down to order tickets. I checked the official Braves tickets first for prices and availability, then I checked StubHub, because sometimes you can get either great deals or great seats (but rarely both.) I checked all three games, and decided to do one night of great seats, one night of outfield seats, and one day game of seats in the shade. Because Little Roux has only ever been to one game, and variety is the spice of life.

I got the first night’s tickets off StubHub, because they are SECOND ROW BABY and I couldn’t pass those up. We’ll be able to smell Chipper’s glove leather.

So then I went to order the cheap outfield seats. Got that done, no big deal, move along. Ordered the last set of seats (with a discount from Delta because I’m awesome like that) and then moved on to the hotel.

Getting a hotel room in Atlanta is a little like dropping your pants and bending over, especially if you want to be near Turner Field. It’s worth it, though, so you don’t have to fight traffic. Even if your knee is incapable of walking. So I checked all the different sites for the best price, and after about fifteen minutes of comparing, I went back to the very first site and booked us a room.

And then I saw the bill.

I had just booked an overpriced room in Atlanta for A SOLID MONTH.

A MONTH.

As I was panicking, Little Roux asked me what was wrong.

“I made a very big mistake, ” I said.

“Did you order our baseball tickets?”

“Yes, I did that.”

“Then you didn’t make a mistake, Mommy!”

I nodded as I desperately tried to fix my reservation.

Then she added, “If you made a big mistake, Mommy, you would have ordered soccer tickets!”

Then she started laughing and ran off saying, “I made a joke.” And I went back to panicking.

I fixed the hotel thing, then started adding my tickets to my travel app. I noticed, after it was all said and done, that I had no tickets for the middle game. But the outfield tickets I had ordered were showing on the first day.

Yeah. I had ordered two sets of tickets for the same day.

At this point in time Little Roux was all:

And my mom was sitting there going:

So I went back and ordered more tickets for the right day. Added it all to my travel app. And closed the computer in case there was something else I might screw up. Thank Christ we weren’t flying!

And you know what? I don’t care. Because every time someone says ”Chipper Jones is retiring’ or ‘Chipper’s last year’ or ‘next year’ and I know Chipper won’t be a Brave, it feels like my heart is breaking.

I’m going to be sitting there with my baby girl, watching the Braves play, sobbing and all: