Jones Has Matured Over the Winter

Jones Has Matured Over the Winter Jones Has Matured Over the Winter

No Braves' stock fell like Chipper Jones last October. Though he hit .344 in the postseason and drove in seven runs in nine games without committing an error, his careless base-running and backhanded nonchalance in Game 1 of the NLCS came to define the sort of postseason Atlanta will be remembered for in 1997. For the first time, Jones was a goat.

"They were ripping my base-running. They were ripping my fielding, saying that I was one of the reasons we lost," said Jones. "And that was kind of hard to swallow. I know that I contributed to our losing. But I like to think that I contributed, especially in the games we won, an awful lot."

Uncharacteristically silent over the winter, Jones has hit Orlando owning up to his shortcomings of last fall and pledging his renewal. In his first full major-league season, the Braves won the World Series. In the second, the Braves lost in the World Series. In his third year, the Braves failed to get out of the NLCS. If the Braves received their comeuppance in 1997, a special measure went to Jones.

"My patience has never been tested, as long as I've been in the big leagues," he said. "I've been lucky, up until that point, that I've never picked up the paper in Atlanta and had to read negative print about me. That part of it hit me kind of hard."

Jones came to Florida three weeks early with two areas of emphasis. He wanted to work on his defense (despite a 15-error season in 1997) and to work on his right-handed swing after his right-handed average dipped to .250 last year. But with veterans Mark Lemke, Jeff Blauser and Fred McGriff gone, Jones also finds himself a senior citizen in the Braves clubhouse after just three seasons.

Jones' pride can easily be taken for arrogance. The 1997 postseason cut deeply into that. And it could be that at 25 -- he turns 26 on April 24 -- that Jones is ready to just shut up and play this year. There are many -- some of them in the Atlanta clubhouse -- that have been waiting for such a day.

"Once you sit back and say to yourself, man, I'm doing pretty good, it's just a matter of time before you go through an 0-for-25 and three errors in a week," Jones said. "Nobody, I don't think to this date, has mastered this game. And I think it's pretty safe to say that in the years after I've shuffled off, I don't think anybody will either."

But then again, maybe Jones hasn't matured all that much. When it was pointed out to him that Bill James' defensive ratings in the current STATS Inc. Player Guide determined Jones to be No. 28 of 28 major-league third basemen, Jones replied, "He's going to feel like an idiot when I come out and win the Gold Glove this year."

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