Braves history, give or take 90 years

Similar to the issue I have with the Newark Bears' "incorporation" date, I'm a little bit against the patch on the new alternate jerseys the Braves unveiled this week.

The Braves, of course, were established in 1876 (when the National League formed) in Boston. They were known as the Red Stockings, Beaneaters, Doves and Rustlers until 1912, when they adopted the Braves moniker and stuck with it save for a five-year shift to Bees from 1936-40. They moved to Milwaukee in 1953 and stayed for 13 seasons, all as the Braves. Then, in 1966, they relocated to Atlanta, and it's that year that these uniforms are meant to commemorate.

My problem with the patch is that it says 1876 and "Atlanta Braves." But, of course, the team wasn't in Atlanta in 1876. That pairing just isn't accurate to me. (And the 1966 unis had a much different shoulder patch, but that's another issue.) I suppose a solution would be pairing 1876 and "Braves Baseball" or simply "Braves," but the team just didn't see it that way.

From ND to MLB: Billy Burke

One hundred years ago today -- Tuesday, Sept. 26, 1911 -- the Boston Rustlers arrived at Chicago's West Side Grounds for a getaway day doubleheader against the Cubs. It would be the 11th and 12th games in the last nine days on the Rustlers' current road trip, one that would last another 12 games and 13 days through the end of the season.


It was the final pair of games scheduled between two also-rans in the National League. The Cubs (84-57) were in the last days of a pennant race, in second place behind the Giants, 7 1/2 games out with 12 to play. The Rustlers, on the other hand, were the worst team in baseball, 54 games out of first place with a 36-102 record and a .261 winning percentage -- well behind their pythagorian mark of .316 based on their 622 runs scored (12th out of 16 teams) and 948 allowed (last, 188 more than any other team had given up).

The home team sent a 28-year-old right-hander out of the University of Notre Dame, Ed Reulbach, to the mound in the first game. The visitors countered with a 22-year-old southpaw from the same school, Billy Burke. It is, I am pretty certain, the last time two former Irish hurlers squared off on a Major League mound.

And it was the last game of Burke's career. At least at the highest level -- he'd pitch two more years in the International League before giving up the game for good.

William Ignatius Burke was born on July 11, 1889, in Clinton, Mass., a town incorporated 39 years earlier and named (allegedly) for the DeWitt Clinton Hotel in New York for the simple reason that the town's founders were fond of the place. Situated near the Nashua River 13 miles northeast of Worcester, Clinton became an industrial mill town, which in turn attracted the railroads. The building of the Wachusett Dam from 1897-1905 formed the Wachusett Reservoir, which was filled by 1908 and displaced the residents of several towns in the valley that were now under water, including parts of Clinton. While some towns were relocated, Clinton's local ballfield remained in place. Now known as Fuller Field, it is recognized as the world's oldest baseball diamond still in use in its original location and orientation. It's possible that a young Billy Burke first picked up the game on these basepaths in Clinton.

From central Massachusetts, he made his way to St. Charles College and Seton Hall University before landing at Notre Dame in 1909. In one season on campus, he threw five shutouts and compiled a scoreless streak of more than 42 innings. But a year later, not yet 21 years old, Burke found himself vying for a spot with the National League's Boston Doves. It seems his collegiate career was cut short when the Notre Dame administration discovered that he had been playing semi-pro ball under an assumed name -- either "Connolly" or "Conway" -- for two summers in the New England League. Perhaps authorities as St. Charles and/or Seton Hall also made the same discoveries.

Inconsistencies in spelling -- not to mention Burke's attempts at disguise -- make it difficult to pin down a definitive timeline, but archives of Sporting Life show a Connely/Connolly pitching for New Bedford in July 1908 and Lynn on Aug. 4 of that year. Ten days later, a box score shows that Conway came on in relief for Lynn. Conway often came on in relief -- perhaps Burke went so far as to be known as Connolly when he started games and Conway when he didn't. Or maybe he found Conway put up better statistics and decided to stick with that name.

On Sept. 11, 1909, Sporting Life reported that Boston's National League team had drafted Conway from the Lynn club, along with Moran from Providence, Cooney from Haverhill and Wolfgang from Albany. The following month, the paper provided the briefest of scouting reports: "Cooney, the youngester secured from Haverhill, looks as if he had in him the makings of a mighty good player, and Conway, the Lynn kid, also looks good." "Cooney" looks to have been Bill Cooney -- playing under his own name in the New England League -- an outfielder, shortstop and sometimes pitcher from Boston who played at Princeton, but saw action in just 13 games with the Doves in 1909-10, encompassing his entire Major League career.

Manager Fred Lake's Doves were a young squad in 1910, averaging 26.5 years of age. Burke seemed to be among the promising prospects that offseason, according to contemporary newspaper reports. "Good things" were expected of the hurler "destined to become an artist" on the "slab roll," for he had "all the earmarks of a comer." He even handled the bat fairly well, going 3-for-3 in one exhibition game against the University of Tennessee ballclub, and he appears to have played one inning -- the bottom of the eighth -- in right field during a game in Brooklyn later in the season.

But when Lake's club broke camp in April, Burke was shipped off to Montreal in the International League. He wasn't there long, earning a recall to the Doves and making his debut on April 30, 1910, against Brooklyn. In all, he would appear in 19 games for the Boston Nationals that year, starting one of them and mopping up to complete 16 others. He earned one win against no losses, struck out 22 in 64 innings and allowed 68 hits and 29 walks. Twenty-nine earned runs resulted in a 4.08 ERA.

The Doves, though, were horrendous. A 53-100 record in 1910 prompted a change at the helm, and Fred Lake was replaced by Fred Tenney. Burke was reserved by the Boston club over the winter, and a Sporting Life account the following spring cited Tenney in saying that Burke was expected to help the club "a great deal" in 1911. Yet, after a one-inning appearance against Brooklyn in April, Burke was released to Fall River of the New England League and later found himself back in Montreal, where he teamed with fellow Domer Jean Debuc on a formidable staff. Both were chosen by one newspaper as among the best players in the Eastern League that year, and Burke finished with 16 wins. At the end of August, he was recalled to Boston.

Burke's Major League career lasted all of 21 games, just two of them starts. On Dec. 12, 1911, Burke was released again to Montreal, where he pitched in '12 and '13 before giving up the game at 24. Other than a few scattered photographs that have popped up -- whether on his Baseball-Reference profile or in some online archives of the Reach or Spaulding guides -- there is not much to represent Billy Burke's professional career. And so I thought I would piece it together for the record, presenting a game log of his 19 appearances for the Boston National League club.

Boston, Saturday, April 30, 1910. Brooklyn 10, Boston 3: Burke pitches an inning in relief, finishing the game but allowing two runs.

Boston, Sunday, May 15, 1910. Chicago 4, Boston 0: Burke goes four innings to finish off another game, allowing one hit and two walks, striking out two.

Brooklyn, Monday, May 30, 1910. Brooklyn 3, Boston 1 (Game 2): Another one-inning outing to close the game, allowing a run on two hits.

Boston, Friday, June 3, 1910. Chicago 9, Boston 0: Burke goes two innings against the Cubs, yielding three runs on two hits with a walk and a strikeout.

Boston, Saturday, June 18, 1910. St. Louis 8, Boston 2 (Game 2): In the longest outing of his career to date, Burke mops up with seven innings of four-hit ball, allowing two runs, walking four and striking out one.

Boston, Monday, July 4, 1910. Philadelphia 6, Boston 5 (Game 2): Another long outing, this one covering 6 2/3, sees Burke allow four runs (though not all earned) on six hits and four walks, with three strikeouts.

St. Louis, Monday, July 11, 1910. Boston 9, St. Louis 6: It's unclear from the box score how many innings Burke pitches, but he allows one walk and a strikeout.

Chicago, Thursday, July 21, 1910. Chicago 3, Boston 0: Burke finishes the game with two hitless innings, allowing a walk.

New York, Monday, Aug. 1, 1910. New York 4, Boston 0: Another solid seven-inning outing in relief. The Giants manage six hits but just one run, drawing two walks and striking out once.

Boston, Saturday, Aug. 6, 1910. Pittsburgh 10, Boston 2: The Pirates collect a run on three hits, striking out once, as Burke pitches the ninth.

Boston, Monday, Aug. 15, 1910. Boston 8, St. Louis 1 (Game 2): In the second game of a doubleheader, Burke gets his first start -- and finishes it, too. The Cardinals manage seven hits but just a single run, walking twice and striking out four times. It is, by far, the best outing in Burke's career and prompts praise in Sporting Life from Boston correspondent J.C. Morse.

Chicago, Monday, Aug. 22, 1910. Chicago 7, Boston 0: Back to the bullpen, Burke pitches six innings in relief, allowing three runs on seven hits and a walk, striking out one.

St. Louis, Sunday, Aug. 28, 1910. St. Louis 6, Boston 5: Mastery of the Cards continues with a scoreless ninth inning, allowing one hit and a walk.

Boston, Friday, Sept. 2, 1919. Brooklyn 8, Boston 0 (Game 2): A rough four innings against the Superbas, yielding four runs on four hits and four walks. Burke records one strikeout.

New York, Saturday, Sept. 10, 1910. New York 6, Boston 1 (Game 1): Some redemption as Burke finishes off the game with four innings of three-hit, one-run ball, walking three and striking out none.

Boston, Wednesday, Sept. 28, 1910. Chicago 11, Boston 0 (Game 2): Burke throws a scoreless ninth, allowing a hit and a walk while recording a strikeout.

Boston, Thursday, Sept. 29, 1910. Chicago 8, Boston 3: Not only does this late-season outing represent the first time Burke pitches on consecutive days, but it's also the first time he faces the same opponent in back-to-back outings. This time, the Cubs touch him for three runs on five hits and two walks in three innings. He strikes out one.

Boston, Saturday, Oct. 1, 1910. New York 12, Boston 4: The Giants score a run on three hits in the ninth against Burke.

Boston, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 1910. New York 17, Boston 9: In his final appearance of the season (though not Boston's last game on the schedule), Burke comes on in the sixth to finish out the game with 3 2/3 innings, giving up four runs on nine hits and three walks, striking out two.

Boston, Thursday, April 13, 1911. Brooklyn 7, Boston 2: A new season and a new nickname bestowed upon the Boston club -- the Rustlers -- but the same results for Burke. He finishes the second game of the year with an inning on the mound, allowing two runs on three hits while walking one and striking out no one. After this, he is shipped out until the end of August.

Chicago, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 1911. Chicago 10, Boston 2 (Game 1): Burke makes just the second start of his career, facing off against a fellow Notre Dame man in Ed Reulbach, and is knocked around for five runs on five hits and four walks in just 2 1/3 innings. He strikes out one batter in what would prove to be his final Major League outing.

Boston went a combined 97-207 (.319) in the two years Burke appeared in a game for the club, so it's not too surprising that of his 21 career games, the team was 2-19 (.095) -- though the gap between the two winning percentages is much wider. But based on how Burke was used, it seems he was thought of as little more than a mop-up reliever in an era when relievers were nothing more than failed starters. Some newspaper reports may have spoken highly of Burke's potential, but either he never realized it, or his managers saw his ability differently.

Billy Burke died on Feb. 8, 1967, in Worcester, having worked for the city's traffic bureau, according to a brief obituary in The Sporting News. He is buried in St. John's Cemetery in Lancaster, Mass., near his hometown of Clinton.

With no tobacco cards made or photographs available to purchase for my collection, I went to visit Billy in Lancaster. My wife and I stopped off at the cemetery last month on our way up to Maine, finding Burke's name engraved on the base of an obelisk topped with a cross in a section near the treeline in the back. After spending some time there on a warm but breezy New England summer evening, we found a tavern in town for dinner. Pennants hanging from the ceiling, with Notre Dame among them, and we wondered the local boy working down in Worcester who once pitched for Boston had ever ducked in for a drink.

From ND to MLB: Ron Reed

I've already profiled a couple of two-sport stars to come out of Notre Dame and make it to the Major Leagues, but Johnny Mohardt's second sport was football and Shaun Fitzmaurice's was track and field. (On this blog, baseball is always No. 1.)

For Ron Reed, the other sport was basketball. In fact, basketball was the first sport, with baseball as the No. 2, which isn't surprising for a guy who stands 6-foot-6.

"I went to Notre Dame on a basketball scholarship, and only played baseball my senior year," Reed told me in an e-mail. "Growing up in LaPorte, Ind., about 30 miles from campus, getting a full scholarship to N.D., even if it was for basketball, was a dream come true. Basketball was always my first love."

In three years (1962-65) with the Irish cagers*, back when freshmen couldn't play on the varsity, Reed scored 1,153 points and pulled down 872 rebounds. He still holds the single-season Irish rebounding average: 17.7 boards per game in 1963-64. His 18.9 points per game rank eighth all-time, his 872 rebounds remain 10th on the list and his 14.3 rebounds per game still stand as the third-highest mark in Irish history. As a senior in '64-65, he was named to the NABC All-Star Game and the Division I All-District Third Team and received an honorable mention on The Sporting News' All-America team, which featured Bill Bradley on the first team and Rick Barry and Jerry Sloan on the second team.

*Basketball players are never referred to as "cagers" anymore, but they were then. Turns out, the term has New Jersey roots -- the first cage around a basketball court was built in Trenton.

My dad arrived at Notre Dame the year after Reed did, so I asked him if he remembered the two-sport talent. "Yeah, he was a tall guy," Dad said. "Very good basketball player, but he was a fireballer, too." (It was 48 years ago; I wasn't expecting a full scouting report.)

Two-sport pro

The Detroit Pistons chose Reed in the third round of the 1965 NBA draft, taking him 20th overall, but he also signed with the Milwaukee Braves as a free agent.

"My first baseball contract was signed in June of 1965, just after I got out of N.D.," Reed recalled, "for $500 a month and a plane ticket to West Palm Beach, Fla., to pitch for the Milwaukee Braves' Class A team in the Florida State League."

Reed compiled a 3-2 record and 1.47 ERA in seven games (five starts) at West Palm, earning that first victory on Aug. 25 in a 1-0 win over the Miami Marlins. The one run was a rout, relatively speaking; Reed had lost his two previous starts by 1-0 and 4-0 scores.

That fall, he reported to the Pistons for his rookie season in the NBA. He played 57 games for coach Dave DeBusschere -- who, in 1962 and '63, pitched in the Majors and played professional basketball himself -- averaging 7.5 points and 5.9 rebounds.

In 1966, Reed opened the season with the Kinston Eagles in the Carolina League, going 5-2 with a 1.76 ERA before a promotion to Austin in the Texas League to take the place of Bob Daniel, who left the team for his two weeks of Army duty. Reed won his debut with the Austin Braves in the second game of a doubleheader against El Paso on June 9. The first game of that twin bill was noteworthy for what Reed and his teammates wore for that one and only game: Red shorts cut from pants the club had worn in previous years. I sent that clip from The Sporting News over to Paul at Uni Watch when I came across it last week, then checked in with Reed again to see what he remembered.

"The shorts were worn in that first game as a trial to see if they would be appropriate for the Atlanta Braves players," Reed told me. "Summers in Georgia are rather hot so some genius figured shorts might be better for the players rather than the wool uniforms they wore at that time. After a couple of our Austin players came back to the dugout with giant 'strawberries' on their knees and thighs from sliding into second, third, and home plate during that first game, the shorts idea was abandoned, thank God. Obviously there is no protection at all when bare skin meets the dirt around all of the bases when sliding."

A month after his Austin debut, Reed picked up his third victory after two weeks away from the team for his own military duty. He defeated the Dallas-Ft. Worth Spurs, 3-1. Mike Lum, who was "married shortly before game-time," according to The Sporting News, opened the game with a 345-foot home run.

That's all the Braves needed to see from Reed at that level. After going 3-1 with a 1.20 ERA in just four starts with Austin, Reed was moved up again, to Triple-A Richmond in the International League, just one step away from Atlanta. In 14 games (11 starts), he went 5-2 with a 3.52 ERA.

With the Braves in the Governor's Cup finals for the International League championship, Reed pitched two noteworthy games over three days in September. On Sept. 12, he was a hard-luck loser in a 2-0 defeat at Toronto, a game in which the R-Braves were held to one hit by the Maple Leafs' Ed Rakow. With Atlanta pitching coach Whitlow Wyatt on hand specifically to see Reed pitch, the 23-year-old right-hander struck out 10 and yielded eight hits. Then on Sept. 15, with just two days' rest and the Braves facing elimination, Reed went the distance to defeat Toronto, 4-1, back in Richmond. He scattered four hits, walked one and struck out five. The lone run allowed was unearned. Reed contributed on both ends, delivering an RBI single that scored Tommie Aaron in the Braves' four-run fifth inning. Alas, the Maple Leafs won the title the next night, four games to one, when Tony Horton's two-run homer in the ninth gave Toronto a 6-5 victory and its second straight Governor's Cup.

Making the Majors

Overall in 1966, Reed went 13-5 with a 2.57 ERA in 26 games (21 starts) across the three levels. Though no one knew it as such in '66, he posted a 1.08 WHIP and, in 168 innings, he struck out 129. (Baseball-Reference's strikeout totals for that year are missing his Kinston total, but through June 3, 1966, according to The Sporting News on June 18, he was among the Carolina League leaders with a 1.76 ERA, 5-2 record and 39 strikeouts in 51 innings -- his total for the year at Kinston before his promotion. Consider that blank filled.) His performance in the bushes earned him a callup to the parent club in September. Reed made his Major League debut on Sept. 26, 1966.

"My Major League debut was as a starting pitcher for the Atlanta Braves against Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal and the San Fransisco Giants," Reed wrote to me. "The third batter that I faced that game was the great Willie Mays. Yes, I got him out. The fourth batter that I faced was the geat Willie McCovey. No, I did not get him out -- he hit a home run over the center-field fence in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. It was a long time ago, but the memory of that night is still with me."

The Giants won that game, 8-2, with Marichal going the distance and striking out 11 Braves. Reed lasted just 2 1/3 innings and took the loss, but only allowed those two runs on four hits and two walks. He struck out two.

He got a second start in the season finale on Oct. 2 at Cincinnati. According to a story in The Sporting News, "Reed trying to mix hill, cage efforts," on Oct. 22, 1966, Braves manager Billy Hitchcock decided to use the last game of the season to evaluate a slew of minor league prospects. The Braves finished fifth that season, 10 games behind the Dodgers. Reed allowed just three hits and walked two in six shutout innings to earn the win.

"I was really nervous that first time I pitched," Reed told The Sporting News. "But not the last time [in Cincinnati]. I guess it was because I looked behind me before the first pitch and saw all those guys from Richmond. After that, it was just like pitching at Richmond against Buffalo."

Both Hitchcock and Wyatt, the pitching coach, praised Reed's potential -- "For a youngster," Wyatt said, "he really knows how to pitch. He's a real prospect." -- and the Braves hoped Reed would give up basketball to focus on his pitching. But Reed wasn't ready to do that.

"Basketball is a tough game," Reed said in the story, "and it will take me at least two weeks to get in shape. But it's something I want to do. I don't think it will affect my baseball."

Reed signed with the Pistons for another season, but decided that this would be his final year playing both sports (The Sporting News, Dec. 31, 1966, right). He said he'd make a choice of which sport to pursue full-time following the 1966-67 NBA season. In 62 games that winter, Reed averaged 8.5 points and 6.8 rebounds, but it was mostly as a backup. The Braves, meanwhile, told Reed they considered him a starting pitcher -- this back in the days when relievers were mostly pitchers who weren't good enough to start. After a meeting in Atlanta with Braves vice president Paul Richards in early February 1967, Reed made the decision to quit the Pistons in time to join the Braves in West Palm Beach for spring training.

But the basketball gods made one final pitch. As described in The Sporting News story from March 4, 1967 (click the article for a larger view), Reed had decided that he'd tell DeBusschere, Detroit's player-coach, of his decision after the Pistons' Feb. 15 game against the 76ers. The Braves were to open camp in Florida the next day. But DeBusschere was sick and pulled himself from the game, inserting Reed in his place. Reed played 36 minutes and scored 22 points in the 127-121 loss, and it was almost enough to make him reconsider.

"It's games like this that make you think about it," Reed is quoted as saying. "Then there are the others when you sit on the bench."

DeBusschere, of course, could understand where Reed was coming from, having made his own decision to quit baseball back in 1965 to play and coach the Pistons. But while maybe DeBusschere the player could sympathize, DeBusschere the coach wasn't happy to be losing 8.5 points and 6.8 rebounds a game.

"My only contention was Reed was to be with us till the end of the season," DeBusschere told The Sporting News. "We needed him fighting for the playoffs and he had signed a contract."

The Pistons finished 30-51 that season, but DeBusschere's comment about the playoffs wasn't just coach-speak. Back then eight out of 10 teams made the postseason in the NBA. Detroit, unfortunately, was one of the two that didn't, finishing three games behind the Chicago Bulls in the Western Division.

Full-time hurler

Reed had an auspicious debut in Florida. Now referred to as "ex-pro basketball player Ron Reed" in The Sporting News, he threw three shutout innings in Atlanta's first intra-squad game. But he didn't do enough that spring to stick with the big club to start the season. (In one box score I found, from March 18 when Reed gave up three runs -- two earned -- on four hits in four innings, fellow Domer Dick Rusteck pitched in relief for the Mets.) In fact, he spent nearly all of '67 in Richmond as Atlanta went with Denny Lemaster, Ken Johnson, Pat Jarvis, Tony Cloninger and Phil Niekro in the rotation. (Niekro started just 20 of his 46 games that year and finished with an interesting stat line that included 207 innings, 20 starts, 20 games finished, 10 complete games and nine saves.)

After starting out 1-4 with Richmond -- again with some feeble run support, yielding just four runs on 12 hits over a three-game span -- Reed began to turn his season around. He two-hit Jacksonville, 3-0, on May 29, and followed that up with a five-hitter, an unearned run and seven strikeouts to beat Rochester, 12-1, on June 3. On June 8, he struck out 10 in a complete-game, 2-1 victory at Syracuse. After a seven-hit shutout of Toronto on June 13, Reed's record stood at 5-4. Two more wins later -- that's six in a row -- he was 7-4 with a 1.91 ERA that stood second in the International League to Tug McGraw's 1.87 at Jacksonville.

Reed finished that season 14-10 with a 2.51 ERA and 172 strikeouts in 222 innings. He ranked seventh in ERA and, as best I can tell (because you can't sort columns in PDFs of microfilm scans), he was second only to Jerry Koosman's 183 strikeouts for Jacksonville. Reed completed 17 of his 27 starts, with five shutouts, and posted a 1.05 WHIP. The R-Braves won the International League pennant, but fell in the first round of the Governor's Cup playoffs.

The scan of the team photo below is of terrible quality, but you can still make out Reed in the top row, second from right.

Following the season, Reed was one of three pitchers who earned honors as the best pitching prospects in the International League, based on a vote of the circuit's managers. Syracuse's Stan Bahnsen and Rochester's Mike Adamson were the others, and Reed was tabbed the pitcher most ready for the Majors.

As he was in '66, Reed was called up to Atlanta to finish out the regular season, again going 1-1. In three starts, he compiled a 2.95 ERA over 21 1/3 innings. The Braves finished seventh in the NL that year, 24 1/2 games behind the Cardinals, prompting Hank Aaron to express his frustrations about the heart and desire of some of his teammates. But Aaron was optimistic, according to The Sporting News:

Despite what Aaron called the Braves' lowest morale in years, he sees better times ahead for the club because of youngsters like second baseman Felix Millan and pitchers Ron Reed and Jim Britton.

It seems Reed had caught the eye of more than the Braves' brass.

After the season, Richards, the Braves' vice president, decided to take a page from the book of the third-place Cubs, who finished 87-74 on the strength of four starters under the age of 26: Fergie Jenkins (24), Rich Nye (22), Joe Niekro (22) and Ray Culp (25). Richards laid out a plan to fortify the Braves' lineup and dip into the farm system for pitchers, citing Reed, Jim Britton and George Stone. Atlanta didn't go quite so young in its rotation, but under new manager Lum Harris, and with Reed going 11-10 in 35 games (28 of them starts), the Braves improved to 81-81, good for fifth place. Britton and Stone combined to go 11-10, making 19 starts between them (among 51 appearances).

From then on, Reed was a big leaguer for good and the Braves took another step forward in '69, winning the new NL West division with a 93-69 record. Reed got the start in Game 2 of the NLCS, opposite Koosman and the Mets, but was tagged for four runs on five hits and three walks in 1 2/3 innings. He struck out three but took the loss as the Mets went on to sweep the series before winning the World Series over the Orioles.

A broken collarbone sustained in spring training in 1970 robbed Reed of the first two months of the season, but it could have been worse.

The 6-7 pitcher was going all out, running from home to first, when he got his size 14-AAs tangled and tripped over the bag.

The Braves' skipper was advised that Reed, 18-10 last season and 9-2 down the important stretch, will be out from three to four months.

"But it probably means the season," said [manager Lum] Harris. "Although knowing Ron, if anybody can overcome it, he would be the one."

--The Sporting News, March 28, 1970

Overcome it, he did, returning to the Braves on June 19 and going 7-10 that season.

A part of history

Reed spent 10 seasons in Atlanta, and not only was he there for Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run on April 8, 1974, he was the starting and winning pitcher. Aaron's two-run homer -- this never seems to get mentioned -- tied the game at 3 in the fourth inning. Al Downing faced two more batters, walking them both, before being replaced, and Atlanta scored two more runs to take the lead for good. Reed allowed four runs on seven hits in six innings, but that was enough in a 7-4 Braves win. It's one of Reed's personal top two career highlights. The other would come six years later.

Reed's tenure with the Braves ended in May 1975 when they traded him to the Cardinals for Ray Sadecki and Elias Sosa. Following the '75 season, Reed was dealt to the Phillies, who made him a reliever, in exchange for Mike Anderson. Reed would make only nine more starts in his career, but he also appeared in the postseason six times in an eight-year span from 1976-83, including two World Series (winning in '80 and losing in '83). He also had his seventh and final 10-win season out of the Philadelphia bullpen in 1979.

Between the personal highs of winning the game in which Aaron hit No. 715 and winning the 1980 World Series (his other top personal highlight), Reed cited the '76 postseason as the lowest moment of his career.

"We had a two-run lead in the third game of the playoffs [the NLCS] going into the bottom of the ninth, and I gave up back-to-back home runs to George Foster and Johnny Bench to tie the game," he said. "We lost in extra innings and lost the playoffs."

That would be the game the Reds needed to sweep the series after winning the first two contests in Philadelphia. In what is likely more coincidence than an indication of how Reed performed, his first nine postseason appearances came in games his team lost. From Game 2 of the 1969 NLCS through Game 2 of the 1980 NLCS against the Astros, the Braves and Phillies dropped each one. But then Reed appeared in four straight winners for those '80 Phillies: Games 4 and 5 (the clincher) of the NLCS and Games 2 (which he saved) and 5 of the World Series. Tug McGraw was the Phillies' closer in '80, finishing 48 games and saving 20, but Reed was second in both categories, finishing 29 and saving nine.

Reed stayed with the Phillies through the 1983 season -- a total of eight summers in Philadelphia -- before he was traded to the White Sox that December for a player to be named later. In February 1984, the player sent back to Philly was the former Met Koosman. The White Sox had plucked Tom Seaver from the Mets on Jan. 20, but traded Koosman on Feb. 15, meaning the one-time teammates were just that once again for a little more than three weeks.

Reed was 0-6 but had a solid 3.08 ERA and a team-leading 12 saves in 51 relief appearances for the '84 White Sox. It would be his final season. Chicago released him on April 5, 1985.

After 19 years ...

Among Domers who reached the Majors, Reed's 19 seasons rank third overall and are the most of any pitcher. Outfielder Cy Williams also played 19 seasons, and Hall of Famers Carl Yastrzemski (23) and Cap Anson (27) are the only Domers who played more. Reed is also among the many players between 1947 and '97 who wore No. 42, a number he can now see on the wall at just about every ballpark.

Reed still lives in Atlanta, where he works for an event management company called Marketing Event Partners.

"We put on various types of events, mostly golf tournaments, for organizations that raise money for various charities," he said.

And the Irish are still very much on his radar.

"I 'BLEED' blue and gold," he wrote in his e-mail. "I follow as many of Notre Dame sports that I can, but especially football, basketball and baseball. I've met [football] coach [Brian] Kelly and I have been good friends with [basketbal] coach [Mike] Brey since his arrival on campus. Coach [Dave] Schrage is still a good friend even after his dismissal as baseball coach at N.D."

Because he had such a long career that began in the '60s and ended in the '80s, there is no shortage of Ron Reed baseball cards, photos and autographs, particularly on eBay. So I chose his rookie card, 1968 Topps No. 76, featuring Reed and Jim Britton.





"I was really young then, and had very little Major League experience at that time," Reed told me when asked about it. "No real thoughts concerning this particular card."

As for why I chose the rookie card over all others, I suppose it represents the transition from Notre Dame through the minors to the Majors, the final step (but not the completion) of the journey. It shows the player as a Major Leaguer, but also as close to his Notre Dame years as possible. I could've gone with a later card, a 1984 Topps perhaps, showing Reed in that bright blue Phillies road uniform. That card would represent the longevity of his career and overlap with my own card-collecting past (just barely). But I like the image of a fresh-faced young prospect not far removed from college on the cusp of a career that would last nearly 20 years and include a World Series championship and one of the game's greatest historic moments.

When the magic number is an illusion

I'm a bit surprised at how many tweets and posts I've seen that say the Mets were eliminated from the postseason after last night's loss to the Marlins. They weren't -- it happened over the weekend against the Braves.

I'll admit, I didn't realize that the Mets' technical tragic number of one was inaccurate, but I also admit that I wasn't paying attention to what it was. In my mind, they were eliminated when they were swept in Arizona coming out of the All-Star break (if not the previous series, when they dropped three of four and were lucky to win that one in San Francisco). If you can't beat a last-place team -- nevermind a contender -- on the road, you're not going to be playing meaningful games in August, let alone September.

But when Mets Police directed me to Adam Rubin's post on ESPNNY, it made sense. I guess I figured that if it was on Mets Police and ESPN, it would be more widely known. It's a revealing article, but here's the gist: Yes, the Mets' elimination number was technically one, because after Sunday there were 14 games left to play and they were less than that behind the Phillies, which would lead one to believe that if the Mets won out and the Phillies never won again, the Mets would catch them. The only problem is that the Phillies still had six games with the Braves, meaning if Philadelphia lost every remaining game, Atlanta would pick up six wins -- and just one of those wins would eliminate New York. The Mets could catch the Phillies, but not the Braves.

So what it all means is that doing the math on won-lost records and games remaining can get you the magic number in a vacuum, but then you have to look at who the contenders have left to play.

We can only hope we're dealing with this issue from the other side next September, but somehow I doubt that.

Where it all began for Chipper

This isn't a piece of trivia that I had tucked away in my brain, but if you'd asked me which team surrendered Chipper Jones' first Major League home run, I'd have said something along the lines of, "It would have to be the Mets."

And it was. It came, naturally, at Shea Stadium, where he hit 19 long balls in his career. The only places where he hit more were his home ballparks. He has one at Citi Field, hit last September, in 11 career games there to this point. The Marlins' home ballpark (the name keeps changing, so why bother putting one in when it could be obsolete in another year?) has yielded 16 homers to Chipper, a native Floridian, so he's got a chance to hit three or four more there in, presumably, 18 games this year and next before the team moves into its new home in 2012.

It might be worth noting, too, that Chipper's seven homers off of Steve Trachsel are the most he's hit against any pitcher, but three of those came when Trachs was a Cub. The four Trachsel allowed as a Met equal the four Bobby Jones, wearing orange and blue, allowed to Chipper. Rick Reed also allowed four homers, but one was with the Reds.

Photo flashback: Enjoying the meat of the sweep

Frenchy's follow-through

A busy weekend has made this look back at Saturday's win over the Braves a little outdated by now, but it's still fun to look back on the middle of a sweep sandwich involving one of the Mets' biggest division rivals -- especially when one Larry Wayne Jones Jr. played such a big part in two of the losses.

We had a friend visiting from California for the weekend and four free tickets from my wife's dad, so we invited a fourth who was also making her Citi Field debut (more for Shake Shack and the company than the baseball, but I always enjoy explaining the game to others) and were treated to a gorgeous day and dozens of pooches for Bark in the Park. I couldn't help but think of the fans' criticisms of all the nods to the Dodgers while bringing Lauren, a UCLA grad like Jackie and Dodgers fan, in through the rotunda and snapping her picture in front of the big No. 42. To top it off, Steve Garvey -- who works with the Bark in the Park sponsor, Natural Balance Pet Foods -- threw out the first pitch.

This team sure isn't perfect and this run of six wins in seven games -- coinciding with Ike Davis' arrival -- could be little more than the yang to the yin of the first two weeks to put this team one game over .500, but it is nice to be one game on the good side than one on the bad. Another series win against L.A. would be a nice springboard into a weekend in Philadelphia and a Sunday night series finale with Roy Halladay on the hill.

And, hey, look at this: Monday's rainout, which pushed Oliver Perez back to the second game of today's doubleheader, means that both Ollie and Johan Santana will have four days of rest between now and Sunday. So it's Jerry Manuel's choice of who goes up against Halladay and the Phillies on Sunday night on ESPN. Had Ollie pitched on Monday, it would've been his turn in the rotation and Johan would've been left to open the series in Cincinnati on May 3. Hmm, which would you choose for Sunday night? [2:51 p.m. update: YES!]

Here's hoping the good fortune keeps coming.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Photo Friday: Braves vs. Mets, 1991

Out at first

This week's slideshow is another set taken before I got my first SLR (and, therefore, first telephoto lens), so the photos tend to be more of the wide-view variety. I cropped closer where I could, but for the most part, the view is what I saw 18 years ago.

A few highlights about this game. On a personal level, it was my first field-level game at Shea Stadium. We got a thrill out of being so close to the field, particularly during pregame warmups, when the players were so close. This collection of images also includes some personal favorites in terms of players: Howard Johnson, Gregg Jefferies and Todd Hundley. I also like how you can see the blue-and-orange racing stripe down the side of the uniforms, even at a distance. And one photo that's a particular favorite -- and I nealy used for the image at the top -- shows the outfield wall in left-center, with the old logos of the National League teams along the blue background. Those were so much more attractive to me than advertisements, which I prefer for the minor leagues, not the Majors.

Key stretch for the Mets

A coworker and Mets fan IMed me last night as the Braves finished off their sweep of the listless Mets.

"So the next 17 games -- 3 in COL, 3 vs. FLA, 4 vs. LA, 3 in SF, 4 in SD ... What do we need? That's 10 games against three of the worst teams, record-wise in the NL."

I thought about it for a moment, and we agreed:

Two out of three in Colorado, with an average of eight or nine runs a game. I'd be able to stomach a 13-11 loss.

Two out of three against Florida. Yeah, they're in first place, but they're the Marlins. And it's at Shea.

A split against the Dodgers. They've struggled at times, but they still have some decent pitching (perhaps Clayton Kershaw in those four games) and some nice young hitters.

And they need to take six out of seven in San Diego and San Francisco, home to two of the NL's worst teams at the moment.

That's a 12-5 run through what should be some pretty easy competition.

It remains to be seen ...

Shea Goodbye: 70 to go

I'm always wary when going to Shea Stadium with the Braves in town. I tend to get my hopes up -- This is the day. Today, they'll turn it around and bury those punks. -- only to have Tim Hudson throw a one-hitter through seven, or some such dominance. Had I attended last night's game, I probably would've felt the tide turning during the three-run-on-four-straight-walks third inning ... only to have Mike Pelfrey piss it all away in one at-bat to Kelly Johnson.

And so as I dragged myself out of bed this morning to check the weather and the ticket situation, I half-hoped for an ominous forecast of rain, or a single ticket in the far reaches of the upper reserved, indicating very little chance of using the courtesy pass this afternoon. But the Weather Channel told me that any precipitation for the day had already passed through, and Mets.com told me that I could have two tickets in the orange field-level seats if I wanted to pay $167.

But things started looking up as we made our way from the house. Casey and I went our separate ways at Secaucus, where she took the Northeast Corridor line to Trenton and I awaited the next Penn Station-bound train. Mine happened to be a train of the new double-decker cars -- a first for me heading into the city, or on a weekend -- and as I sat down on the left-hand side of the train, facing the platform on which Casey had been standing, I saw she too had the luxury of two-story cars, and would get to enjoy it five times as long as I would for my 10-minute trans-Hudson traverse.

My train luck didn't transfer with me to the E, which went local through Queens instead of the much more efficient express, but I got to Roosevelt Ave. with enough time to walk from the back of the platform to the front to ride the first car of the 7 the final six stops to Shea, getting some nice photos of the blue ballpark as we approached.

My comped seat, as usual, was way up in the upper reserved, but row B, which does make a difference. And once there, I scanned the starting lineups for each team -- my smile growing ever wider as I went through the Braves' lineup and over to the Mets. No Yunel Escobar, the talented young Atlanta shortstop. No Chipper Jones, the long-time villain in the Mets' battle against evil. And on the Mets' side, no Luis Castillo, the 32-year-old slap-hitting second baseman with two bad knees and a fat, four-year contract that the Mets should already be regretting with every downward chop at a fastball and each four-hopper to second base with runners in scoring position. Carlos Delgado was still in the lineup, but at least he drove in a run in this game ... albeit on a dribbler up the first-base line that Mark Teixeira probably should've let roll foul, or charged harder for a play at the plate. (And later, on the throw Tex did make home, he was given an out by the home-plate umpire, even though it looked like Angel Pagan slid in safely before Brian McCann got the tag down.)

It was nice to see the Mets bunch their hits together in the third inning for a four-run rally, but some insurance would've been nicer. On Friday night, when Jair Jurrjens lost his cool with the umpire's strike zone and walked four in a row, he provided all the Mets' runs in a 6-3 loss. They had two hits at that point, too, and I later found out that that's all they'd get for the game. Though they managed a few more hits after their only run-scoring frame today, they're going to have to put up more crooked numbers on the scoreboard if they want to put together any kind of winning streak.

Hopefully, they'll find some magic against John Smoltz tomorrow. The chances aren't good, but perhaps they're due. They're due for a six- or seven-game winning streak (the Pirates arrive for three beginning Monday, and then the Mets head to Arizona, where they've had great success the past three years; though with the D-backs' solid pitching staff, I'd be happy starting off with one win and going from there). The Phillies have been fattening up on weak pitching (the Pirates) and child-like ballparks (particularly their own), and the Marlins are playing over their heads. If the Mets can keep the Braves down and start another four-game winning streak on Philadelphia when the next series starts, the division lead will come back to them. But first they've got to start hitting.

2008 preview: NL East

NEW YORK METS

In general

Last year is over. It is. So is the time to talk about it. That time was February, when players reported to Port St. Lucie. A slow start isn't a reason to talk about it again, nor is losing two out of three to the Phillies in the second week. But neither of those will happen, so it shouldn't be a problem. Final standings aside, there's still a case to be made that the Mets were the best team in the division in 2007. They led for 140 days; Philadelphia was on top just four days. The Phillies certainly played better down the stretch and showed they wanted it more. The Mets tried to act calm and collected, like they'd been there before, but this group really hadn't. They were in a pennant race, something they didn't really experience in 2006, when they had a comfortable lead that even a three-game sweep in Pittsburgh didn't threaten. That September, they clinched the next day. This year, you can be sure, the Mets won't take anything for granted.

The Mets' biggest concern -- their biggest rival, in a way -- will be age. Moises Alou is already out until May (I'm not believing any April projections with that guy), two key starting pitchers are in the twilights of their careers and coming off injuries or rehab in 2006, and they not only signed a 32-year-old second baseman with 42-year-old knees to a four-year deal, but they had about a dozen second base candidates miss time in Spring Training with injuries. But every team has injury issues. Hopefully, the Mets have the depth -- or go out and get it -- to get through the lean times this season.

This is still a lineup that can contend with any in the league. Jose Reyes will continue to mature, Carlos Beltran has put his rough first season in New York behind him and David Wright had as good a season as any in the NL. Carlos Delgado's '07 campaign was a big concern, but he's playing for one last contract this year, so here's hoping he has the same good fortune that so many players in that situation have had of late.

Where this division will be won is on the mound. There's no doubt that the acquisition of Johan Santana was the coup the Mets needed this offseason. He's the best pitcher in the game and a perennial Cy Young candidate. Bringing him in pushes everyone else back into a more suitable rotation slot, particularly Pedro Martinez, whose age and recent injuries made him a risky ace. And the young and impressive Oliver Perez (also in a contract year) and John Maine have the potential to make this the best top four in the league. I just hope Mike Pelfrey can get it together in '08; he has too much potential to start off 0-7 and not stick in the rotation.

So many discount the Mets' bullpen, but who outside of San Diego and Chicago really has a slam-dunk bullpen? Starting at the back, Billy Wagner remains one of the best closers in the league, Aaron Heilman has proven so valuable as a setup man that the Mets have refused to move him into the rotation even when he could've helped there, Duaner Sanchez looked good in spring ball and will work to get his arm strength and stamina back up before joining the team, and even Jorge Sosa has been a strong long man. The issue will be more Willie Randolph's use of his relievers than their execution. Perhaps taking the wrong page from Joe Torre's managerial handbook, Randolph overused his bullpen to the point that it struggled in September. Fresher arms through the first five months should mean better results in the final one.

What I'm looking forward to seeing

Jose Reyes may very well be the best shortstop in the game, but his detractors are finding fewer and fewer things to criticize. His plate discipline is no longer an issue after he brought his walks up to a nearly 1:1 ratio with his strikeouts. The only thing left is his maturity and makeup -- as energetic and fun-loving as he is, he found himself in the dog house a couple of times in '07 when Randolph benched him for not running out popups that landed fair. He shouldn't be making those mistakes anymore, and more rest in '08 should keep him fresh for the stretch run. Put him in Citizens Bank Park, and he'll hit 25 home runs too. In 2008, the average, runs and steals will be there. I expect the power and discipline will be, too.

Other fun things to look for: Santana's dominance, Pedro's perseverance, Pelfrey's potential realized, Ollie and Maine taking the next step, and Wright winning that MVP that slipped from his grasp last year when his team crumbled around him.

ATLANTA BRAVES

In general

After so many years of Atlanta dominance, I wasn't quite sure I could believe that it was the third-place team yet again in 2007. For a while, it looked like the Braves wouldn't be. They took two out of three from the Mets in every series before the All-Star break and led the division for 29 days, but none after May 15. But they faded through August, including a home sweep to the Mets at the end of the month. I still think they're counting on too much from Chipper Jones, Mike Hampton and even John Smoltz, all of whom have age and/or injury issues. Plus, Andruw Jones is gone, and Mark Kotsay cannot fill those shoes, even after Andruw's down year in '07.

Atlanta does get a full season from Mark Teixeira, who's 27 and in his contract year. He's next winter's top free agent, with what figures to be no fewer than four teams seriously chasing him. First, there's the Braves, who will be going after the Georgia Tech product and may take advantage of a year without Andruw's salary to make a competitive offer. Second is his hometown Orioles, who will need a veteran cornerstone after a year of development from just about every other player in their lineup. Third and fourth, you'll have the two New York teams with first-base openings and some big contracts coming off the books -- more for the Yankees, who won't have Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Andy Pettitte or Mike Mussina in 2009.

I'm not as sold on the pitching. Smoltz is now on the DL, though he should be back to face the Mets in the season's second series. Hampton -- please. Tim Hudson remains a big-game pitcher for them, but as good a guy as Tom Glavine is and what he did for the Mets for the better part of his five years in New York, his final start at Shea was nothing short of disastrous. Was it the beginning of the end? Too soon to tell, because in the end, it was just one start. I love Rafael Soriano as the closer, but the middle relief in recent years has not been as good as that of past Braves championship teams.

What I'm looking forward to seeing

Not much, because despite two years of third-place finishes, I still don't like the Braves. I've always been a fan of Teixeira, so hopefully he has a down year and the Mets sign him at a relative discount (relative to what he should make). I'm not sure what kind of reaction Glavine will get at Shea, but my guess would be an unfavorable one. I can see the fans remembering the final day against the Marlins more than any near-no-hitters or Opening Day wins he had. The final line on Glavine's Mets career: 61-56, 3.97 ERA, 1.38 WHIP. His first start, a 15-2 Opening Day loss to the Cubs in 2003: 3 2/3 8 hits, 5 earned runs, 4 walk, 2 strikeouts. His last one:
1/3, 5 hits, 7 earned runs, 2 walks, 0 strikeouts.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES

In general

The Mets' rivalry with the Braves never seemed to be that heated to me, except when they played. Perhaps it was distance, but more likely it was the fact that it was so one-sided. The Mets were the younger brother trying to knock the older brother off the couch, similar to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry ... until 2004. But now, New York has a rivalry with Philadelphia in baseball. In some ways, the Mets-Phillies rivalry was similar to Mets-Braves, with the Mets in the Braves' position of superiority (they've had more winning seasons and more playoff appearances than the Phillies in the past decade) and the Phillies playing the part of the young upstarts. Now, it's a true, full-blown face-off, with many picking the clubs as the top two in the division.

I don't buy it, for one reason: Pitching. The Phillies, as I said before, led the division for just four days and won by one game. Yet they did it with 11 starts from Kyle Lohse down the stretch and 12 from Jon Leiber over the season -- and didn't feel a need to re-sign either one. They did it with a 6.29 ERA over 30 starts from Adam Eaton, one of the worst ERAs for a full-time starter in baseball history. And they did it with a magical 10-4 performance over 20 starts from rookie Kyle Kendrick, despite his 3.64 K/9 ratio.

Brett Myers returns to the front of the rotation, which helps, and Cole Hamels may be the best No. 2 starter outside of Arizona, but after that they're relying on 45-year-old Jamie Moyer (5.01 ERA in '07), Kendrick and Eaton. Myers is back in the rotation because of the acquisition of closer Brad Lidge, but he had knee surgery in the spring and starts on the DL -- meaning shaky 38-year-old Tom Gordon begins the season closing games. When he returns, Lidge has to adjust to another homer-heavy ballpark, recover from his surgery and overcome blown saves in front of the tough Philly fans. If I were a Phillies fan, the bullpen would concern me, but the rotation would terrify me.

Luckily for them, the Phillies play in a glorified minor league park. Well, a big league park with a minor league left field wall. Jimmy Rollins, free-agent-to-be Pat Burrell and free-agent gone Aaron Rowand have all taken advantage of it. Rollins and Burrell will again, as will new third baseman Pedro Feliz. But there are holes now in center and right fields, where I'm not sure Shane Victorino (center) is an everyday player (I know he played a lot in 2007, but we'll have to see if he can adjust to pitchers exposing his weaknesses on a regular basis) and the combo of Jayson Werth and Geoff Jenkins in right isn't any worse than what the Mets are going with in Ryan Church. When you're counting on Burrell to be the anchor in the outfield, the best hitter of the bunch, you'd better be pretty sure of what you're getting from him.

What I'm looking forward to seeing

A collapse, a plunge, a slow start followed by a long summer and a double-digit deficit and barely-.500 record in September. What can I say? I've got my team, and this isn't it. Look, there are some good players and better guys, particularly Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Utley is the MVP of this team, regardless of the last two writers' votes, and he probably would've won it last year if he hadn't been out for a month. Howard will have to avoid 200 strikeouts or risk seeing his batting average plummet for a second straight season (.313 in 2006, .268 in '07) and his homers take another dip (58 to 47), but he should reach 40 again, easily. And Hamels will have to put his unhappiness with his contract behind him for one more season. Look, kid, I know you're confident in your abilities and all, but you've had one full, healthy season as a big leaguer. You've shown you can do it, now show you can do it again. Then you'll have earned your payday. There's nothing wrong with making $500,000.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS

In general

The Nationals signed Odalis Perez to a minor league deal on Feb. 19. He was seen as insurance in case oft-injured John Patterson or Shawn Hill was not ready to start the season. Patterson has since been released, Hill is indeed injured, and Perez will be the Opening Day starter on Sunday night as the team opens Nationals Park. Wow. I've often chuckled at the pie-in-the-sky expectations some with this team have had this offseason, but how do you say those things when your rotation is Perez, Matt Chico, Tim Redding, Jason Bergmann and Hill?

There's a lot to like with Ryan Zimmerman, Lastings Milledge and Elijah Dukes, but the team will have to watch Dukes -- and, to a lesser extent, Milledge -- as he adjusts to a new team and new city, considering his history. I'm all for second chances and I hope Dukes can turn his life and career around the way Josh Hamilton did, though Dukes' transgressions didn't involve hard-core drugs and life-threatening choices. But 100 RBIs from each of them, including Zimmerman, who should reach that mark? (There are those expectations again.) To do that, you need to have guys on base, and if Cristian Guzman is going to be the leadoff hitter with his projected .310 OBP, there's no way Milledge gets to 100, especially if he's hitting second. And Dukes will have to play enough to do so, but when Wily Mo Pena returns, Dukes may return to fourth-outfielder status, unless he starts off on a tear. Zimmerman had 91 RBIs last year and no one else had more than 74. The new ballpark should increase scoring, but I don't think it will be by that much to get three 100-RBI guys.

What I'm looking forward to seeing

I'd like to see this team take another step forward, though I would prefer they do that mostly against the Braves and Phillies. They need pitching, and that will come, but by 2010, we could be seeing a four-deep division with the Mets, Phillies, Braves and Nationals competing like the D-backs, Rockies, Padres and Dodgers will be in the West this year. And I'm looking forward to my as-yet-undetermined trip to D.C. to see the new ballpark. Plus, I'm anticipating Opening Night, when the Braves and Nats start the season in earnest on ESPN.

FLORIDA MARLINS

In general

This certainly is Hanley Ramirez's team now, isn't it? Gone are Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, leaving Ramirez as the lone star, the face of the franchise, and the clear Marlins representative in New York in July for the All-Star Game. Ramirez and Dan Uggla ... and what? There's Mike Jacobs and Josh Willingham, who are slowly but surely rounding into solid players. There's Jeremy Hermida, an outfielder who came up with a bang (a grand slam in his first at-bat) but struggled with injuries last year. And there's a hothead in Scott Olsen as the only recognizable face in the rotation, with the possible exception of Ricky Nolasco. I mean, this team's Opening Day starter is Mark Hendrickson! Even among basketball big men in the league, he's still only No. 2, behind San Diego's Chris Young.

I really don't know what else there is to say about a team that dumps its best players every four years -- is this a college program? -- leaving its fans to wait another year or two for the prospects to mature. The two biggest pieces of the Cabrera/Willis deal are outfielder Cameron Maybin, who's starting the season in the minors, and pitcher Andrew Miller, who struggled mightily in the start I saw him pitch against the Dodgers in Vero Beach.

What I'm looking forward to seeing

How will losing Cabrera affect Ramirez's production? And will he run less, as manager Fredi Gonzalez would like? And when will they start building that new stadium? In 2009, Dolphin Stadium will be the oldest ballpark in the NL East. Amazing.

Baseball in the mouse's house

At one time, the acres of land southwest of Orlando, Florida, were undeveloped or consisted mainly of orange groves. But ever since Walt Disney established his World, the area has continued to grow. There are the theme parks -- internationally based, water-based, animal-based and movie-based -- a Downtown, a suburb (Celebration) and a whole Wide World of Sports.

After exiting the highway, you follow the signs -- in a cartoonish Disney font -- to your destination, turning this way and that, circling around it seems, disorienting yourself. Though I took the exit before 1 p.m., it wasn't until 1:05 that I stepped out of my car and made my way across the parking lot to Champion Stadium, named, I realized once inside, for the apparel company, and not any kind of run of success by its spring tennant, the Atlanta Braves.

The ballpark sits among a collection of other attractions situated, in true Disney fashion, as a sort of Main Street microcosm. It's nothing more than a wide concourse, an open-air mall of sorts, but with the paths intersecting outside the gates behind home plate and the nearby stores and restaurants having full-on facades, it still has the feeling of theme-park-as-neighborhood.

By the time I emerged from the tunnel and saw the field, Brian McCann was batting for the Braves in the bottom of the first inning. He singled in the first two runs in what became a 3-1 Atlanta victory. A healthy crowd -- sprinkled liberally with fans in Cardinals red supporting the visiting team -- sat in the sun, and though I walked out to my section of metal bleachers along the right-field line and found my seat in the back row, I never made my way across the legs of the half-dozen people already there. I stood the whole game, exploring the various angles of the ballpark. It's a Disneyfied setup -- the cartoonish font returns to mark the sections, and there are hardly any permanent Braves logos to be seen, because once April comes, this ballpark is home to the Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays, the Orlando Rays.

The best part of the experience, of this first moment at a Spring Training exhibition game, is watching a Major League game -- even with a healthy dose of prospects and scrubs taking the place of the starts we'll see come the regular season -- in a minor league park. The little details that aren't noticed from any Major League loge or mezzanine section are enhanced here: Adam Wainwright's lanky height, Albert Pujols' chin resting on his front shoulder in his batting stance, Mark Teixeira's distinctive swing, Phil Niekro's chalk-line-white hair.

Among other things, I noticed that the Cardinals are wearing their red caps with their road gray uniforms, a change from recent (regular) seasons, when they'd wear a navy blue cap with red "STL" logo. And in a fun example of lawn art, the outfield grass had a silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head mowed into it.

As it is with players' performance or rookies' emergence, Spring Training can provide a hint of what's to come when the season begins in earnest. Maybe the Cards are doing away with the blue road caps (a shame, if it's true). And maybe Pujols' elbow injury won't take away from his game that much, after all, because he's still hitting the ball this spring the way we'd expect him to.

As I leave the ballpark and make my way across the sea of cars, I'm glad I made the Disney complex my first stop, because it's the most anticeptic, generic, corporatized ballpark of the three I'll see on this trip. I chose it over the Astros' camp in Kissimmee, and I probably would've enjoyed that a little more for the atmosphere (and gotten to see Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay take on the Astros' No. 1, Roy Oswalt), but Orlando proved to be a good choice because of the stars who played in this game -- not just Pujols, McCann and Teixeira, but Troy Glaus, Jeff Francoeur, probable Cards Opening Day pitcher Wainwright and Braves pitching prospect Jair Jurrjens. Plus, I found out his first name is pronounced "J-air," the sound of simply putting a "J" in front of the word "air."

I follow the line of cars snaking its way out of the labyrinth of the Disney complex -- parking here is free, something unique for me on this three-camp tour, but I hear later that the Braves charge fans to watch workouts, so in the end, it's not as great a deal when you're paying for each person individually, rather than by the carfull -- and hit the overpriced toll road east to Titusville. I've got a little space detour before I continue the baseball portion of this trip.

Vroom me out to the ballgame

So Pedro is back and the Mets are in good shape. What a nice, comforting win last night. So long as the Mets can take two out of three this series -- and continue to win two out of three more often than they lose that ratio -- I'll relax more and more each day. For the past few years now, I've been hoping for someone to knock the Braves from the top of the National League East. ABB was my motto -- Anybody But the Braves. I thought last year might be it; then I really thought this year was it, but I didn't know if the Mets would be the ones to do it.

I think we're getting closer to that.

But how about last night? The largest crowd -- well, regular-season crowd, they say -- to see a game in the 40 years the Braves have been in Atlanta? Damn. What could have brought them out to The Ted?

Oh. NASCAR Night.

Yep, some real baseball fans they have down there in Atlanta. Not that it doesn't surprise me. There have been repeated signs, but unless the team reaches the NLCS, the fans don't pay much attention. The die-hards are there, as they are in every city (how do you think the Royals and Marlins claim even 10,000 per game?), but if Jimmy Carter's seat is empty, you can bet there aren't many filled in the upper deck, either.

The Mets are Wright on the Braves

Back in 1999 -- as much as I hate to admit it -- Chipper Jones won the National League MVP award with what he did against the Mets in September. Atlanta beat New York by 6 1/2 games that year, but on Sept. 21, the teams began a three-game series at Turner Field with the Braves holding a two-game lead. They played six times in the next nine days, and Atlanta won five of them.

Chipper batted .300 with four home runs, six runs and nine RBI in those six games. He hit .556 in the three-game sweep of the first series in Atlanta and homered in each of the games, going deep twice in the first one.

In his career, Chipper has played the Mets 160 times and has the following stats: .330 average. 422 OBP, .574 SLG, .996 OPS, 116 runs, 29 doubles, 35 homers, 107 RBI, 94 walks, 88 strikeouts and 19 stolen bases. That's an MVP year in itself. He's enjoyed Shea Stadium, too, hitting 17 of those 35 homers in Queens. No wonder he named one of his children Shea.

But the Mets may now have their answer to Chipper. While Atlanta's third baseman may never again get through a season without a nagging injury or a disabled-list stint, the Mets have David Wright only beginning to emerge. OK, he's probably emerged, but he's still developing, still getting better.

The best part, however, is that he's turning into the Mets' version of Chipper, not just overall, but in this NL East rivalry as well. He's off to a good start. In his 41 career games against Atlanta, Wright is batting .301 with a .385 OBP, .589 SLG, .974 OPS, 19 runs, nine doubles, 11 homers, 24 RBI, 18 walks, 27 strikeouts and four stolen bases without being caught. And, like Chipper, he's doing slightly better on Atlanta's home turf -- six homers and 12 of his 24 RBI have come at Turner Field. All those women who show up to Shea with "Mrs. Wright" t-shirts had better get used to the thought of a son named Turner Wright.

Conveniently, Wright's 41 games against Atlanta are just about one-fourth of Chipper's 160 against the Mets. Extrapolating Wright's career numbers against the Braves gives you: .301 average, .385 OBP, .589 SLG, .974 OPS (the averages won't change when you simply multiply the numbers that make them up), 76 runs, 36 doubles, 44 homers, 96 RBI, 72 walks, 108 strikeouts and 16 stolen bases. With a 44-homer pace, you have to figure the runs and RBI will come up, particularly if the Mets can keep a strong lineup in front of Wright over the next 10 years. He's also got a few years to truly settle in and cut down on the strikeouts and bring up his walks -- plus, you figure the Braves will walk him intentionally more often. The point is, I have a feeling that once Wright hits the 160-game mark against Atlanta, his numbers will be very similar to those Chipper has put up against New York.

Here's hoping Wright continues the trend this weekend in Atlanta.