New York Nine

Please excuse the blurriness of the picture but I felt this picture perfectly epitomizes Jones' tenure with the dodgers, whining like a fat baby and ultimately coming short and giving them nothing. I mean that will all due respect and reverence of course for this 10 time gold glove winner (hold on sorry, I have to finish laughing, okay I'm good). Jones' fall from grace from being among the all-time greats to being a laughingstock is indeed one of the strangest as well as saddest occurences in the last few years. Indeed, although he's only 31 he has been one of the stars of the game for some time now, seemingly bursting with unassailable talent and grace. I think back to 1996 World Series where he hit two home runs in a game as a 19 YEAR OLD, even then as a young kid I recognized quickly that this guy is going to a star, and possibly one of the all-time greats. But it seems as though now in his 30s Andruw is fat and happy, content with what he has accomplished thus far being one of theyoungest in the history in the game to hit 300 home runs, and famously being the only player ever, not even the great willie mays can say this, with 10 STRAIGHT gold gloves. And yet while showing signs of decline thanks to his increasing weight and subsequent loss of bat speed it wasn't until this last year that Andruw truly reached bottom, hitting a ghastly .158 with three home runs and 14RBIs in 75 games. How does that happen? This the same guy that hit .263 with a career-high 51 homers and 128 RBIs in 2005 and .262 with 41 homers and a career-best 129 RBIs in 2006, where is that guy hiding, beneath his current girth? I don't profess to be a big Jones fan, and in fact I have thought him to be a bit overrated in the past (if Willie freaking Mays can't get ten straight gold gloves, nobody deserves it) but as a baseball fan it saddens me to think a guy who seemed destined for greatness who had accomplished so much already and seemed pre-ordianed to have his name mentioned among the all time greats at the center field position is seemingly out of gas at 31. I have heard that he is training with his friend and former teammate Chipper Jones and he is alledgedly on the Braves' radar again, but time will tell. For sure, he's can't get much worse than how he fared last year, but how much better he can get and how close he can get to approximating his prior glory remians to be seen.