Fan Favorite Out to Avoid Sophomore Jinx

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West Palm Beach, Florida -- Chipper Jones had this crazy idea in mid-December. He'd go Christmas shopping. In Atlanta.

Went to three malls. Drew bigger crowds than Santa Claus. Signed a few hundred autographs. Answered questions from kids about how to hit curveballs. And how to be a switch-hitter.

Made it into just one store.

"I guess I'll have to be a catalog shopper from now on," he realized.

All of the Atlanta Braves are hot right now. Tom Glavine's hometown in Massachusetts renamed itself "Glavineville" for a day. Word that cops pulled over, but did not ticket, David Justice drew national media interest. Greg Maddux can get any tee time he wants on just about any golf course in the country. Marquis Grissom, lifelong Atlantan, lost his anonymity at the neighborhood gas pumps for the first time. Even Mike Mordecai is recognized all over town.

But no Brave is hotter than the kid on third base.

To watch the Braves work out in spring training is to hear "Chi-purrrr" a zillion times, as fans clamor desperately for his autograph. To get from the locker room to his car, Jones literally must sprint past the mob. To interview him one-on-one, you must all but take a number.

Jones, not Maddux, Glavine or Justice, is on the cover of The Sporting News Baseball Yearbook. He has been given a key to the town of Pierson, Fla., and no one else ever has. Pierson (population: 1,400) is amending its "Fern Capitol of the World" sign to add: "And hometown of Chipper Jones."

And, oh yes, there's also the type of recognition he can spend: a new four-year, $8.2 million contract, by far the most lucrative ever for a second-year major-leaguer.

"I went from living in relative anonymity, living paycheck to paycheck, to this," Jones, at 23 the youngest front-line Brave, says. "Everybody watns a piece of you when you're world champions. And when you win a World Series for a city that's never won a major championship, the house come down." He seems just a bit fatigued. But if there's a down side to such fame and fortune, it's wholly insignificant compared to the up side, and Jones -- unlike many athletes -- grasps that.

He admits it: He likes the spotlight. He asks: Doesn't everyone?

This is what he's sought all of his life. As a young boy, he wanted to grow up to be Mickey Mantle. Not that he ever saw Mantle play, but "my dad filled me with thoughts about him." As a teenager, he wanted to be Cal Ripken Jr. Not just because of Ripken's remarkable talent, but because of his popularity. "Like Cal, I try to talk to fans, interact with fans, as much as I can. I think that's part of why things are going so good for me."

So good, and so fast. When he came to spring training last year, with just three major-league at-bats adn a year's regabilitation from knee surgery behind him, Jones was asked to play a position he hadn't tried since he was 8 years old. Now, after a 23-homer, 86-RBI regular season and a splendid postseason, his stature is such that hardly anyone mentions the dreaded sophomore jinx, long a standard concern about players coming off strong rookie seasons.

Manager Bobby Cox says Jones will be an all-star "forever." His teammate Mark Wohlers says: "It's like he was born to play this game." Jnes says: "There is a sophomore jinx, but it happens only if you let it happen. Guys who are content with their rookie year, who go home and don't work out, who come to camp lackadaisical, it happens to them."

Jones is not one of them. Winter weight training has added 20 pounds of muscle, turning a 188-pound rookie into a 208-pound sophomore. Ask John Schuerholz if he expects more power, more this or that, and the general manager says: "I'd take what he gave us last year." Jones would not.

"I'm not satisfied with being a .265 hitter, I'll tell you that," he says. "I should be a .300 hitter. I should hit a lot better from the right side. And I need to improve my defense, my concentration. Twenty-five errors won't get it."

"He probably will do more," Schuerholz admits. "He always has exceeded expectations."

It no longer is possible to exceed the expectations of his fans, like 11-year-old Hunter Hendricks of Juneau Beach. Hunter got his hero's autograph the other day and told a fellow fan: "He's gonna be better than Ripken."

By Tim Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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