Braves hitters went a collective 0-for-5 in last night’s All-Star game. Raisel Iglesias threw a scoreless sixth inning in his long-awaited first appearance, but Chris Sale didn’t see the mound.
Relatively uneventful festivities, as far as Atlanta’s concerned … but there is one local angle worth revisiting.
DIFFERENT THEN, DIFFERENT NOW
Credit: AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Credit: AP Photo/Matt Rourke
It’s 2020. The LakePoint Sports complex in Cartersville.
Decatur High’s Jordan Walker is up to bat … and he just whiffed on an opening fastball.
The sweet, innocent child on the mound thinks he’s got something sorted and, two pitches later, returns to that initial offering.
Just above the belt, just like before.
Slightly different result.
“Jordan proceeded to hit it about three-quarters of the way up the light pole,” then-Decatur coach Robby Gilbert told me Tuesday. “And you sit there and go, ‘All right, that’s just different.’ Not every kid has that ability.
“You may fool him once, but he’s gonna make an adjustment and he’s gonna make you pay.”
Walker — now a 24-year-old St. Louis Cardinal — became a legend Monday night in Philadelphia, finishing off hometown he-man Kyle Schwarber with six straight dingers to win MLB’s home run derby.
He was already in the middle of a breakout big league season (a fact to which Braves fans can attest; six of Walker’s league-leading 74 RBIs came in recent contests against Atlanta).
Credit: Courtesy photo/GHSA
Credit: Courtesy photo/GHSA
But the lore begins in Decatur.
Gilbert, currently coaching over at Gwinnett County’s Brookwood High, said Walker played in his early high school years. His junior season, though, is when that lanky frame finally filled out.
The resulting stat line, off the top of Gilbert’s head: .487 average, 18 home runs and “60-something” RBIs.
“I tell people all the time, he just wants to be one of the guys,” Gilbert said. “Even throughout his career in high school and all the notoriety he was getting, he was always his teammates’ biggest cheerleader. He wanted them to have as much success as he was having and he never put himself above anybody else.”
Loved helping coach up the young guys, too.
COVID-19 cut Walker’s senior campaign short, but he’d done enough (see: LakePoint light pole) for the Cardinals to make him a first-round draft pick.
Now, some six years later, here he is: Calm, cool and backward-capped, sending new satellites into the Pennsylvania stratosphere while his family (“great people”) and a former coach soak it all in.
“There were boos every time he hit a home run or took a pitch, and then every time he popped up or got out there was a bunch of cheers,” Gilbert said. “So for his composure in that moment, it just speaks volumes about him and how he was able to slow it down.”
Surreal? Absolutely.
Surprising? Nah.
Not to Gilbert.
This — all of it — was “just a matter of time.”
📬 Stumbled across the Win Column? Sign up here to get it straight to your inbox … for free.
QUICK, SOME OTHER NEWS!
💪 A panel of reporters from The Associated Press crowned Falcons star Bijan Robinson the NFL’s top running back. Duh.
🫶 When the Hawks drafted Houston point guard Kingston Flemings, I wrote about loving him immediately. Now lots of other people do too, thanks to this viral video of him being all leaderlike during Summer League action.
- Veteran CJ McCollum is here to help too: “We had dinner the other night and he asked a lot of questions, and I have a lot of information.”
🤨 Atlanta United signed two experienced South American defenders named Paulo Díaz and Júnior Alonso. Fun! Let’s work on scoring goals now.
🏆 Do we care about the ESPYs? Not really, but it starts tonight at 8. Former Bulldog and reigning Super Bowl champ Matthew Stafford is up for a couple awards, while the Dream’s Allisha Gray netted Atlanta’s only nomination.
🤞 The Braves return to regular season action on Friday, when the Rangers help kick off a seven-game home stand at Truist Park. Read this nice story about Drake Baldwin to prepare.
WORLD CUP FISTICUFFS(?)
Credit: Underground Atlanta
Credit: Underground Atlanta
This is it, folks. England. Argentina. Atlanta. A chance to play for all the FIFA marbles.
Annnnd hopefully the fans don’t fight each other.
As we touched on Monday, the fan bases for these two teams don’t like each other. The disdain goes back decades and, as some Argentina fans evidently proved Tuesday, rowdiness does not require international provocation.
Despite all that — and English tabloid suggestions to the contrary — law enforcement leaders say they won’t be going out of their way to separate supporters.
- “Things have gone very well so far,” a deputy Atlanta police chief told the City Council this week. “We’re happy with where things are, we’re happy with our deployment, and we’re going to finish this thing out strong.”
Good luck … and please behave yourselves, folks.
Kickoff arrives at 3 p.m.
🔴 Also: We’ve got live updates running before, during and after the match.
🎉 Also also: It’s not too late to crash the AJC watch party at Monday Night Brewing.
🤫 Also also also: Our pal Ken Sugiura is correct about European soccer language. Subjects and verbs must agree, man.
PREDICTING THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL FUTURE
Please pardon my parlance but: College football ain’t that far away no more, y’all.
Let’s get nerdy about it.
Here’s the deal: ESPN just dropped the preseason edition of its FPI, or Football Power Index, which is a fancy computer model that ballparks how many points better or worse a given team is compared to the average squad. You can use it to try and predict things.
- During and after the season, FPI factors in scores, strength of schedule, etc.
- In the preseason, it relies on returning starters, recent seasons, quarterback experience, recruiting and so on and so forth.
The new numbers are interesting all by themselves, but Win Column data man Rahul Deshpande dug deeper to compare several local programs year-over-year.
Credit: Rahul Deshpande
Credit: Rahul Deshpande
Purty … and purty informative, too.
A few takeaways:
- Georgia leads the Peach State pack, even if it’s seen a slight drop off in dominance since those back-to-back natties. It’s preseason FPI of 24.8 ranks fifth in the country, behind Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame and Oregon.
- Lots of questions heading into this season, but Tech flipped the script under head coach Brent Key, going from slightly worse than the average team to a bit better. (The FPI’s predicted 2026 win total of six-ish does feel a bit harsh.)
- Kennesaw State, your reigning Conference USA champs, have burst onto the Division I scene, while Georgia Southern stagnates and Georgia State rides the struggle bus.
Key and Co. take the stage at ACC media days on Thursday. SEC media days start next week.
And, more importantly, the first honest-to-goodness college football game of the season arrives in just 45 days.
Giddy up.
ONE MORE QUESTION …
How long until a professional athlete (soccer? baseball? WNBA?) gets the produce-induced super-duper bubble guts and misses a game or three?
Has anyone else thought about this?
Really?
Just me?
OK, well … enjoy your lunch.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of the Win Column. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at tyler.estep@ajc.com.
Until next time.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
