Читать книгу Trust the Grind - Jeremy Bhandari - Страница 9

“The goal that kept me motivated throughout my baseball career was getting to the big leagues and playing with the best players in the world.”

As a kid, Chipper Jones certainly set small goals like making the high school team as an eighth grader, but reaching the MLB was always his main focus.

Growing up in Pierson, Florida, the renowned Fern Capital of the World, Jones knew at a very young age that growing and selling fancy greenery was not as fun as hitting fastballs. His father, Larry Jones, was the head coach of the baseball team at Pierson Taylor High School, which allowed Chipper to be introduced to the game before he could even swing a bat. No, seriously. As a young boy, Chipper would stand in front of the family’s wooden garage, holding a thirty-three-inch piece of PVC pipe about two inches thick and would hack away at the tennis balls his dad would pitch to him.

Although Larry grew up in Virginia, his favorite player was New York Yankees superstar Mickey Mantle. Mantle, a National Baseball Hall of Famer who won three MVP Awards and was named to the American League All-Star team twenty times, is arguably the greatest switch-hitter in MLB history. Once Chipper started crushing the ball onto the saran covering the ferns on the family farm, his father had him start practicing from the other side of the plate in hopes of developing the next Mickey Mantle.

Even when his dad wasn’t around, Chipper was focused on his lofty goal of playing in the Show. Those who lived within the neighborhood would often see Chipper throwing tennis balls against a wall by himself, eager to perfect his fielding skills. Overly invested and on a mission, baseball was always on Chipper’s mind. “When you grow up in a baseball family,” Chipper said in a 1997 interview with The Atlanta Constitution, “It’s all you’re talking about at the dinner table, on the ride to school. It was always baseball.”

As Chipper grew older, Larry and Lynne Jones, Larry’s wife and Chipper’s mother, saw something special brewing with their only child. In a Little League district playoff game, squaring off against one of the top teams in the nation, Altamont Springs, Chipper hit three home runs.

When he was in eighth grade, Chipper participated in a baseball clinic at Valencia Community College, an event where young players had the opportunity to showcase their talent in front of MLB scouts. After the clinic, George Zuraw, who at the time was a scout for the Cincinnati Reds, informed Chipper’s dad that “Your son has a baseball future—a real future.”

Larry worked closely with Chipper on the physical part of the game, while Lynne put an emphasis on the psychology aspect of being a competitor. In the same 1997 interview with The Atlanta Constitution, Chipper said, “She was always like, ‘Don’t you ever let any pitcher know that he’s got you. Even if he strikes you out, you walk back to the dugout, and if you’ve got to talk a little smack to him, talk a little smack.’ My mom’s a tough little lady.”

After his freshman year at Pierson Taylor, Chipper’s parents decided to send their son off to The Bolles School, an esteemed private school that was two hours away from home. Not only would Bolles provide him with a better education, but the athletics were far superior to those of a public school. While, at the time, sending their son to a boarding school that was two hours away from home was a tough transition for the family, it was exactly what the young headliner needed. In our interview, Chipper said, “Sending me to Bolles in tenth grade was something that was critical in my development because I got to step on the bigger stage and they knew I needed that challenge.”

As an upperclassman, Chipper’s play on the diamond had MLB scouts and college recruiters in awe.

During his senior year, Chipper led the baseball team to the state championship game. That season, the Bolles star batted .488 with 10 doubles, 5 home runs, 25 RBI (or Runs Batted In), and 14 steals.

In the summer of 1990, Chipper put on more than just a graduation cap. In June, he became one step closer to reaching his childhood goal of playing with the best baseball players in the world. With the first pick in the 1990 MLB Draft, the Atlanta Braves selected Chipper Jones, making him the first Floridian to be chosen as the number one overall selection. He also became the thirteenth high school player to go first overall in the history of the MLB Draft. Following his selection, Atlanta Braves assistant vice president Paul Snyder, said, “Chipper is a blue-chip high school talent. The fact that he can switch-hit is a definite bonus, as is his tremendous speed.” The term “blue-chip” is often used when referring to the stock market, or, when one alludes to someone, particularly an athlete, who has been touted as an elite prospect. The switch-hitting infielder quickly proved to the Braves franchise that they invested in the right player.

In 1991, Chipper, as a nineteen-year-old playing Class-A ball for the Macon Braves, hit .326 with 15 home runs and 40 steals in just 136 games. For those unfamiliar with how Minor League Baseball works, each professional baseball team has its own system of teams that span from AAA (triple A), all the way down to rookie ball teams. The more “As” in the class name, the higher the level of competition. Essentially every player that you see in the MLB started his professional career in the minors. Anyways, Chipper was named the South Atlantic League’s number one prospect and was promoted to the Durham Bulls the following year. In Durham, Jones collected 73 hits in seventy games. Seventy games were enough for Atlanta’s front office to advance Chipper to AA, where he would finish out the 1992 season with the Greenville Braves. To no surprise, Chipper tore it up, batting .346 with 9 home runs. Although he played in just sixty-seven games, Chipper led the team in triples with 11. In 1993, Chipper’s childhood dream came to fruition. After starting the season with the Richmond Braves and leading the team in runs, hits, doubles, triples, RBI, steals, and total bases, Atlanta called Chipper up to the Major Leagues. On September 14, 1993, Jones collected his first MLB hit, a single in the bottom of the seventh inning against the Cincinnati Reds. He appeared in eight games at the end of the regular season, recording 2 hits and 1 walk in four plate appearances.

Since his sky-scraping objective of reaching the MLB had come true, I was curious as to what kind of goals Chipper was setting for himself at this point in his career. Once he became a full-time starter in the Bigs, Chipper said, “I always wanted to be considered a true and complete hitter. I wanted to hit .300, hit 30 tanks and drive in 100 runs, all while walking more than I struck out. If I was doing those things, I knew I was helping my team win.” He also informed me that, when it came to goal-setting, the Atlanta Braves legend “Focused on the immediate. I knew that if I prepared from game to game and keep my goal of being a ‘tough at-bat’ and not giving away at-bats, then I would reach my goals at the end of the year.” The idea of setting daily objectives allowed Chipper to stay “ultra-focused on the now to produce the results [he] wanted long term.”

An ACL injury caused Jones to miss the strike-shortened 1994 season, but in 1995, Chipper Jones had arrived.

In his first full season with the Braves, Jones led all MLB rookies in RBI (86) and runs scored (87). He was the first National League rookie since Dick Allen in 1964 to hit 20 home runs, 20 doubles, and score at least 85 runs.

In October, Jones helped the Atlanta Braves win their first World Series Championship since 1957, when the team was still in Milwaukee. Throughout the postseason, Chipper racked up 20 hits, which was good for second on the team. After the season, Atlanta Braves general manager John Schuerholtz was quoted saying that Jones is “more focused and serious than any young player I’ve ever been around.”

At twenty-three years old, Jones was a World Series Champion and living out his childhood dream. Despite the immediate success, Jones raised the bar, setting even more exorbitant goals than before.

Following a solid 1996 campaign, Jones was interviewed in January 1997 by The Atlanta Constitution. During his conversation, he was asked by a reporter what his goals would be for the upcoming season. Jones responded by saying, “Hit .320, .330, with 40 homers and 130 or 140 RBI.”

Let’s put some perspective on this. Since 1876, the first year of existence for the Braves franchise, only one player, Hank Aaron, had ever finished a season hitting .315 with 45 home runs and 100 RBI. The twenty-four-year-old Jones, using that confidence that his parents instilled in him, went on record to inform everyone he planned on putting up numbers, in the ballpark, that only one player in franchise history had ever achieved. Getting to the MLB was a lofty goal, but now aspiring to accomplish a feat that only one man in Braves history had done in the franchise’s hundred plus years of existence? Impossible, right?

In 1999, Chipper Jones went on to win the NL MVP Award, hitting .319, with 45 home runs and 110 RBI. He became the first player in MLB history to hit .300 with 100 runs, 40 doubles, 100 RBI, 100 walks, and 20 steals, a stat line that has yet to be duplicated. In November of 1999, Hank Aaron told The Atlanta Constitution, “I don’t think anyone was close to Chipper, as far as I was concerned, putting together a complete year in all categories.” There are now two players in the Braves’s storied franchise who finished a year batting at least .315, with 45 jacks, and 100 RBI: Hank Aaron and the sweet-swinging, switch-hitter from Pierson, Florida, Chipper Jones.

Following that season, Chipper, when asked about his remarkable ’99 year, was quoted in the Asheville Citizen Times as saying, “It was an amazing year, but that was last year; this is this year.” Appreciating the success, but always moving forward.

Remember that end-of-the-year goal of hitting .300 with 30 “tanks,” 100 RBIs, and walking more than he struck out? Chipper fulfilled this objective in four straight seasons from 1998 to 2001.

After ten seasons in the MLB, Chipper Jones had shown he could do it all. His career average stood over .305, he had over 250 home runs, over 100 stolen bases, a career on-base percentage north of .400, and he even legged out over 25 triples. The only other player in MLB history to amass those gaudy statistics in their first ten seasons was Larry Jones’s favorite player, Mickey Mantle.

As he entered his thirties, Jones continued to perform, even when others doubted. In a February 2004 interview with The Atlanta Constitution, Jones admitted he reads the papers and listens to the radio hosts, who had claimed Jones’s career was headed downwards. Luckily for Chipper, the doubt was just fuel to the fire. Highly successful people like Chipper Jones don’t let negative energy get in the way of pursuing their own goals. Later in that interview, Jones, who had just reached his target of bench pressing 320 pounds, spoke about the people who were uncertain he would be able to sustain the success he was having: “It’s what motivates me to get in here [the weight room] and say okay, I’m going to show you.”

In 2006, Chipper put together a stretch of fourteen straight games with at least one extra-base hit, a record that is tied with Paul Waner, who accomplished this feat in 1927. Brian McCann, Jones’s teammate on the Braves, was asked about Chipper’s magical streak. The catcher was quoted in The Atlanta Constitution saying, “What Chipper’s doing right now is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The ensuing season, as a thirty-five-year-old, Jones batted .337 with 29 home runs and 102 RBI, while also leading the league in on-base and slugging percentage.

As we all know, Father Time is undefeated, especially when it comes to professional athletes, which was why I asked Chipper how his goals shifted, knowing he was in his mid-thirties. “As I grew older, I knew the power was going to decline a bit, so it made it easier to hit for a higher average and to take a different approach at the plate. I dedicated myself to using the whole field even more than I usually did and never gave away at-bats.” Understanding that his body was getting older, instead of trying to crush 40 home runs, Chipper’s goal was now to hit for a higher average.

At thirty-six years old, Chipper Jones hit a career-high .364 and won his first National League Batting Title while also leading the league in on-base percentage. To this date, only three players in MLB history, age thirty-six or older, posted a season with at least 150 hits, 20 home runs, and a batting average north of .360: Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Chipper Jones.

In 2012, Chipper retired from the game of baseball. He finished with 2,726 hits, 468 home runs, a .303 batting average, and a career on-base percentage of .401. Only three other players in the history of the sport have assembled those numbers: Babe Ruth, Mel Ott, and Stan Musial. Jones is one of two switch hitters (Mickey Mantle is of course the other) who hit at least 450 home runs while also getting on-base at least 40 percent of the time.

When I was digging through his statistics, I also noticed Chipper fared extremely well against some of the top pitchers in baseball history. He gave National Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson absolute fits, hitting .349 with 6 home runs against the tall lefty. Against Curt Schilling, a 216-game winner in the MLB, Jones hit .303 with 4 long balls. In our interview, he told me, “I always loved facing the best. It made me work that much harder and focus that much more. Those types of guys always brought out the best of everything in me.”

On January 24, 2018, Jones received the news that he would be getting inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. While all of his personal success was remarkable, Jones made sure to never forget the two people who helped him accomplish his goals: his mom and dad. When I asked Chipper about the importance of having a good support system when one is pursuing their goals, he went into great detail explaining the positive effect his parents have had on him. “They are your foundation and give you unconditional love and support through the good and the bad. They keep you grounded, having you mow the lawn or get in the fernery no matter what successes or failures I had on the field. They ultimately shape you into the person you become.”

Only two switch hitters in MLB history have hit at least 450 home runs while posting an on-base percentage better than .400: Chipper Jones and Mickey Mantle.

Nowadays, Chipper can be found spending time with family or hunting outside in the woods. He takes what he learned as a ballplayer and easily transitioned it to the outdoors. When I asked about the differences between baseball and hunting, Jones said “Honestly, there are a lot of similarities. You have to scout, work hard at staying committed, have discipline, and accept a lot of defeat in order to have success. You will certainly get lucky from time to time, as in baseball, but ultimately, you need to be dedicated to your goal and pursue it diligently.”

As a parent, Chipper instills the same lessons that his mother and father taught him. “I simply want them to know that I will support them in whatever they do, as long as they commit to it and show me that they are going to work hard at whatever it might be. I try to simply teach them that hard work will always pay off, whether or not you get the desired results.”