GET ALL-ACCESS THIS WEEKEND! SEE BACK PAGE JUL 30 - AUG 5, 2008 ATLANTA’SATLANTA’S WEEKLY SPORTS SPORTS TALK TALK NEWSPAPER NEWSPAPER VOL 4 NO 31 02 I SCORE ATLANTA Get In The Game! WWW.SCOREATL.COM JUL 30 - AUG 5, 2008 SCORE ATLANTA I 03 ™ STARTING LINEUP IN YOUR PUBLISHER/EDITOR I.J. Rosenberg FACE… MANAGING EDITOR Tad Arapoglou DIRECTOR OF SALES/MARKETING John Duke ART/CREATIVE DIRECTOR David Gaudio WEBMASTER Alex Ewalt VIDEO MANAGER Scott Janovitz WWW.SCOREATL.COM BUSINESS MANAGER Marvin Botnick SALES Zander Lentz, Brian Pruett 5 Hawks beat writer Scott Janovitz explains why the Atlanta SALES INTERN Arielle Burks Spirit Group, and not new GM Rick Sund, mismanaged the PHOTOGRAPHER Scott Cunningham OFFICE MANAGER Nakia Washington Josh Childress situation. DESIGN INTERNS DJ Galbiati, Melissa Leonard ______________________________________________________________ BEAT WRITERS Josh Bagriansky (Dream), Stephen Black (Silverbacks), Jason Boral (Thrashers), James Butler 13 Falcons beat writer Erik Horne watched quarterback Matt Ryan (pictured) (UGA), Dave Cohen (Georgia State), Johnny Crosskey and the Birds take the field to kick off training camp last Saturday. (Tech), Alex Ewalt (Preps), Erik Horne (Falcons), Scott ___________________________________________________________________ Janovitz (Hawks/Recruiting), Fletcher Proctor (Braves) STAFF WRITERS Cranston Collier, Glynn McGehee, Jessica Stephen Black had a chance to speak to Dr. John-Charles Bradbury, Parker, Dave Paul, Leighton Savary, Keafer Triplett, Kellie Yood 19 author of The Baseball Economist and baseball blogger. CONTRIBUTORS Dean Zindler, Kevin Dankosky, Mitch Evans, Matt Judy, Tony Schiavone, Richard Diamond, Joe Haines, Brian ___________________________________________________________________ Katrek, Chris Dimino, Mike Bell, Matt Stewart, Fred Kalil, Nick Cellini, Phillip Leopold, Dave Marshall, Greg Smith, Steak Shapiro, 22 Georgia beat writer James Butler believes the Bulldogs have plenty of Mike Cather, Beau Bock, Chuck Oliver, Hal Lamar, Chris Cotter, motivation after being predicted to finish second in the SEC East. Matt Chernoff, Roy Hickman, Dave Cohen, John Olah, Jeff Woolverton, Chris Voss, Bob Rathbun, Courtney Capps, Bill A SCORE UPDATE: Hartman, Chuck Dowdle, Shannon Alderman, Dan Kamal, Dennis Score is looking for graphics interns for the upcoming football Scott, C.C., Hal Lanier, Jeff Batten, Micah Hart, Ben Wright, season to help design and lay out the publications as well as work Alan Vasquez, Andrew Vedlitz, Brian Jones on the Web site. Get college intern credit. For more information, SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS Mitch Albom, Dave Kindred, Barry Bloom contact David Gaudio at [email protected] or 404-256-1572. ™ SCHOOL TEAM PAGES I COLUMNS LISTING BACK IN ACTION: New head CHEROKEE: Cherokee, Creekview, Etowah, Sequoyah, Woodstock COVER DESIGN BY DAVID GAUDIO; COVER PHOTO COURTESY OF SCOTT CUNNINGHAM. COBB: Harrison, Kell, Kennesaw Mountain, Lassiter, Marietta, coach Mike Smith and the Falcons opened training McEachern, N. Cobb, Pope, S. Cobb, Sprayberry, Walton, Wheeler camp last weekend, giving fans their first taste of DEKALB: Decatur, Dunwoody, Marist, Miller Grove, St. Pius X, Southwest DeKalb, Stephenson, Tucker the 2008 season. It only gets better this week, as 4 MEMORY LANE 6 DUE UP-SCORE LIST 7 SPIN-C.C. FULTON: Alpharetta, Blessed Trinity, Centennial, Chattahoochee, the Falcons are holding Allstate All-Access Grady, Lovett, Mays, Milton, North Springs, Northview, Riverwood, Roswell, Tri-Cities Weekend at Mill Creek High School (Friday) and 9 OLIVER 11 DREAM 15 FALCONS 16 BRAVES GWINNETT: Berkmar, Brookwood, C. Gwinnett, Collins Hill, Grayson, Meadowcreek, Mill Creek, Norcross, North Gwinnett, the Georgia Dome (Saturday). Photo courtesy of Jimmy 17 HAWKS-THRASHERS-’BACKS 18 UGA-TECH-STATE Parkview, Peachtree Ridge, South Gwinnett, Wesleyan Cribb/Atlanta Falcons. 19 RECRUITING 20-21 CALENDAR 22 AD INDEX WWW.SCOREATL.COM 04 I SCORE ATLANTA Get In The Game! The best of the not-quite Hall of Famers aseball vs. Football. Baseball had its legend Dale Murphy hits $100 for his auto- BHall of Fame induction ceremonies this graphed baseball. Rounding out this week’s past weekend in Cooperstown and the NFL top five is Andre Dawson, whose signed will have its own ceremony this weekend in baseball brought in $90. Canton. Perhaps just as impressive is the list John Smoltz will be signing autographs of candidates for both sports that didn’t make at Turner Field for the Atlanta Food Bank on it into the hallowed halls. Among all the can- Saturday, Aug. 2 from 2-3 p.m. in Monument didates who fell short this year, who do the Grove. Bring 25 canned food items and the fans think deserve to have the moniker of autograph is free (25 cans or $25 for one “Hall of Famer” added to their names? autograph, 50 cans or $50 for two autographs; Check out this week’s online auction report maximum two autographs per person). for the results. FROM THE MAILBAG … • Dale Murphy Autographed Baseball Dear Dean: I have a small white statue • Andre Dawson Autographed Baseball of Willie Mays that I’ve had since I was a • Billy Martin Autographed Baseball kid in the 1950s. It’s about two inches tall. • Ken Stabler Autographed Football Do you know anything about this statue? • Cris Carter Autographed Football Dear Say Hey: Sounds like you have a 1955 Robert Gould All-Star Statue. There And the fan’s choice is … Billy Martin. were 28 different baseball statues issued. The His autographed baseball was top of the statues sold for about a quarter and also came charts, grabbing $850. Billy does have one with a baseball card which was rubber-band- thing on the others in the poll: he’s not longer ed to the statue. Willie Mays was the biggest signing, as he died in a car crash in 1989. name in this set and the statue is worth $200. Still, if the fans did not think he was worthy The baseball cards that came with the statue of Hall of Fame status they certainly would are much tougher to find. If you happen to not shell out this type of money for a “regu- have the Willie Mays card, it can be worth as lar guy.” Hard to believe Ken Stabler hasn’t much as $600 depending upon its condition. made the Hall, but his autographed football Want to know what your item is worth or pulled in $225, followed by one of the top have a question about a particular sports receivers in the game Cris Carter whose item? E-mail me, Dean Zindler, at signed football grabbed $180. Atlanta Braves [email protected]. REMEMBER WHEN… HEAVY HITTER: We’re only weeks away from the start of the NFL season, and the New York Giants will be aiming to repeat as Super Bowl champions. In the 80s and 90s, it was legendary linebacker Lawrence Taylor who was leading the Giants to wins at Super Bowls XXI and XXV. The Hall of Famer was a 10-time Pro-Bowl selection. Photo courtesy of Scott Cunningham. WWW.SCOREATL.COM JUL 30 - AUG 5, 2008 SCORE ATLANTA I 05 Hawks suffer tough loss in Childress; can new signee Evans fill void? s the dust from the Josh Childress sweep- SPIRITED MISMANAGEMENT … new Athens star would love to someday return. Astakes finally begins to settle, now seems So if Sund isn’t to blame, then who is? “No question [I would come back],” as good a time as any to explore exactly what Simply put, an ownership group (the Atlanta Childress said. “It is definitely an option I happened and, more importantly, how the plan on keeping open. Like I’ve said, I love Spirit) that decided to make Josh Childress a pri- R Hawks let it happen. For those of you who ority only once it was already too late. They Atlanta. But I think in my situation I have to don’t already know the details, last week Josh thought they were smart by allowing their free continue to do what’s best for me and, if that E Childress elected to bring his ‘fro and game agents to play the market, thinking they would means playing in Greece or coming back to V to Greece to play for Olympiacos Piraeus. simply match any reasonable offer sheets. Yet this Atlanta, that’s fine.” The deal is for three years and worth an esti- decision and delay offended their free agent and O mated $32.5 million. In addition, the Greek ultimately pushed him overseas; Josh Childress LOOKING AHEAD … club has agreed to pay for all his accommo- would never have been fielding calls from Greece Either way, the team has lost a valuable C dations, including a car and driver and a maid if a deal with the Hawks had already been in place. asset and suffered a PR hit on the heels of final- service, and has given him the option to opt E out of the contract at any time. The loss of Childress for the Hawks is H no doubt meaningful; he scored 11.8 points T per game and played great defense on his way to becoming one of the league’s best sixth men last season. And while Hawks N management has taken nearly all the blame, perhaps new GM Rick Sund, specifically, O should be granted a pass on this one. According to Sund, no team in the NBA pur- The Hawks knew they might have to sued Childress as aggressively as the Hawks, deal with 29 other NBA teams while as their $33 million offer over five years was apparently more than anything else proposed trying to keep restricted free agent by an American team. And, up until now, isn’t Josh Childress … but little did they that really who Sund competes against? know they would have to compete “He started to go to Greece after we had against a Greek team as well.