sorry, non-sports fans...this one's about the braves

(is mark teixeira jesus?)

so, what do you get when your favorite team in any sport (let me qualify this...i am an alabama football freak!!! no doubt about it. but, even in their worst of seasons, alabama will leave me pissed and wanting, at most, six times. with the braves, even in their best of seasons, they will leave me pissed and wanting, at least, sixty some-odd times. and how do i measure my favoritism? that's right... it's measured in angst. so, with all due respect to my favorite football team in crimson, the braves supply me with enough gut-churning, "i've got to find something to destroy" type anguish, that they hold the universal key to my heart above all other teams.) adds a hometown college all-american, two time gold glover (best fielding first baseman), two time silver slugger (best hitting first baseman) all-star to replace the ancient one, julio franco, the atrocious one, scott thorman, and the promising one, salty, and puts him in the clean-up spot of your everyday line-up??? you have one (of many, many) ecstatic braves fan.

tex will fit in beautifully in what now becomes the national league's best line-up. a line-up that includes five all-stars (renteria, chipper, tex, andruw, mccann), one definite future all-star in francouer, fast willie leading off most nights and a solid second base platoon with kelly johnson and yunel escobar. i am sorry, folks, but in the history of being a braves fan, there has never been a line-up this awe-inspiring. with a switch-hitting destroyer to hit behind chipper and to take some pressure off andruw, the braves are going to score runs. lots and lots of runs. there is still a rumor floating around that a close-to-dominant reliever may be heading to atlanta later today as well. if all this happens, the braves will have my undivided attention every day they play a game until they lock up a playoff spot or are eliminated from it (which would be a disaster). in my eyes, there are only three reasons they don't catch the mets/phillies or whoever may be in their way to the wild card. one, their starting pitching after smoltz and hudson is a complete crap shoot. if the three, four and five guys don't get better, teams will still be able to outscore the braves. two, wickman keeps closing games. he may have been good in the past. he is not consistently good any more at anything other than eating. wickman has, single-handedly, kept tim hudson from currently leading the nl in wins, and he could lose the postseason for the braves. three, and this is the one that scares me...

andruw goes in the tank. consensus seems to be saying that andruw is leaving after this season. he is just going to be too expensive for the braves to keep. so, what do the braves do? they pick up tex for this year and next and andruw sees the writing on the wall. "ok. so, you don't plan on paying me next year? then i am quitting on you this year." andruw and his effort have never been in question, and so i don't believe the possibility of this happening is great, but it scares the crap out of me anyway. what if he does? what if he quits and all of a sudden men are left on base even more when he's up? even worse, what if the balls that we are used to seeing him dive and take away from the opposing team start falling in front of him? yikes. i am not going to think about this option anymore. it's making me sick.

my last post, i talked (again) about what a beautiful thing hope was. and my god, it certainly is. teixeira, in my garden of eden, is fucking hope defined right now. here's hoping being a franchise's messiah isn't too much for his broad shoulders to carry.