Chipper Jones retirement a solace for New York Mets - MLB News
Of all the power Chipper Jones has shown on the plate, the New York Mets have borne the brunt. In his 19 Major League season outings, Jones played a major role in taking the Atlanta Braves and Mets rivalry to new heights.
As soon as he will appear on the plate, Mets’ fans across the stadium will tremble. Nothing short of a nightmare for them, he will thrash the Mets in their home in New York. More than his fantastic batting average and home-run record against the Mets, he
loved taking the Mets down on their ground and for him it was more fun. Even he grew so nostalgic about one of their grounds that he named his son after it.
Braves will definitely miss him after retirement. As part of the side, ever since a start of his career and having contributed so much as a switch-hitter, Braves will see an unbridgeable void with his absence.
Not just against the Mets, he has a terrific overall batting average of .304, along with 454 home-runs and 1561 RBIs he has contributed. He is second only to Eddie Murray in terms of hitting most numbers of RBIs as a switch-hitter in baseball history. So
much so, he is one of the only switch-hitters that baseball has ever produced who has a batting above .300 and at the same time has struck more than 400 home-runs.
Whether his absence will mar a top-notch historic baseball rivalry or will it actually fuel it is something to be seen. Who knows, one of the Mets’ hitters steps up to settle scores with Braves’ fans who have been relishing their miseries throughout the
90’s and early 2000, in turn, leading up to another chapter in the history of their clashes.
Nonetheless, his retirement has spelled a sigh of relief for the Mets in many ways. Bobby Valentine, an erstwhile Mets manager has a better idea of how Chipper had been steamrolling Mets over the years.
“Chipper is one of the great Met killers of all-time,” Valentine said. “He’s one of the great switch hitters of all-time, and one of the great baseball players of all-time.”
While he is set to retire at the end of this season, how it will affect the Braves and in particular whether the Mets will be able to exploit his absence to their advantage are going to be interesting.
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