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HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL
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John ClarK/NASCAR This Week
Ken Schrader, currently one of NASCAR’s elder statesmen, came up with his second top-10 finish of the season at Richmond. With Dover
approaching this week, Schrader is sticking with his tested method of racing for the track - turn good and come down on the throttle.
Tried and true
Busy Missourian keeping it simple as Cup season wraps up
By Monte Dutton
NASCAR This Week
LOUDON, N.H. - Ken Schrader has
been around a while. At age 51, he is
the oldest driver still competing full
time in the Nextel Cup Series. He may
also be the busiest man in racing.
Like only a handful of his contempo
raries, Schrader, from Fenton, Mo., is
a throwback to an earlier era when
drivers showed up at almost every
possible opportunity. Schrader won at
the dirt track in DuQuoin, 111., on La
bor Day. He owns his own track in
Pevely, Mo.
And he drives the No. 21 Ford field
fed by the famed Wood Brothers team,
Which has been racing in NASCAR
longer than Schrader has. On Sept. 9,
Loss eliminates Braves from playoffs
By R. Travis Haney
Morris News Service
DENVER - Postseason
baseball will press on with
out fail, but October won’t
lbok the same without
them.
It’s official. The Atlanta
Braves will not be a part of
the playoffs in 2006, their
fifst season without a payoff
since 1990.
With the whimper of yet
another one-run loss, this
tiine at the hands of one
of the league’s worst teams,
Atlanta was eliminated from
National League wild card
contention here Sunday.
l’he Braves sputtered
aWay an early five-run lead
throughout the course of the
afternoon at Coors Field,
Colorado’s comeback capped
by Brad Hawpe’s two-run,
pihch-hit home run in the
eighth that lifted the Rockies
to a 9-8 victory before a spir
ited bunch of 30,216 fans.
“We’ve done just about
everything you can do wrong
in one season,” said veteran
John Smoltz, the only guy to
have played with the Braves
when they perennially had
losing seasons. “It was kind
of a torturing process.”
Perhaps some filed into
the venue on a gloriously
bright, crisp day to pay their
final respects to a run that
might not be duplicated in
baseball lore for some time.
The curtain on the Braves’
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Schrader finished seventh in the
Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond.
It was his second top-10 finish of the
season.
Schrader is also a throwback in that
he places a lot of stock in loyalty and
personal considerations. New Hamp
shire International Speedway has
been an important stop for Schrader
because of his regard for Bob Bahre,
the track’s owner, and his family.
“They come by and talk to you,”
said Schrader, “and they just care.
Some of the others, you don’t ever see.
They built a family room when they
first built the track. Ann (Schrader’s
wife) actually went out there and
helped buy toys for it. The Bahres just
actually care.”
In an age in which racing seems
run of 14 consecutive divi
sion titles came down a cou
ple of weeks back, when the
New York Mets pushed them
from the East pedestal.
But flickering hopes of
reaching the playoffs via
the wild card remained. No
one team had staked seri
ous claim to the berth, the
Braves explained. Why, they
wondered aloud, couldn’t it
be them?
The answer, it turns out,
was that it couldn’t for a
wide-ranging number of rea
sons - all of which presented
themselves over the course
of this weekend here.
Colorado took the final
three games of the four-game
series, each in a different
manner. Each representing
the glaring woes of a doomed
Braves ballclub.
Friday, Tim Hudson per
sonified the struggles of the
starting staff, his own mind
boggling plight in particular.
Riddled by four walks, he
gave up six runs in 5 1/3
innings in a 6-3 loss.
Saturday, young starter
Kyle Davies was crushed
in the early innings, but
Atlanta rallied from six runs
down to ... come up one run
short in a 10-9 loss. With the
tying run on second in the
ninth, Adam Laßoche and
Todd Pratt struck out.
And Sunday, the first five
Braves that batted scored
and Atlanta held a 5-0 lead
before Colorado even hit.
The Braves still led 7-2 in
the fifth until Matt Holliday
uncorked a grand slam off
starter Chuck James to dead
center field that made it 7-
6.
Holliday, who has 32 hom
ers this season, homered
three times in four games
this weekend against Atlanta
pitching. He also tripled and
scored in the seventh.
The Braves stayed a step
ahead, though, until Hawpe,
after Jamey Carroll had sin
gled, homered off Tyler Yates
to put the Rockies ahead for
the first time all day.
Atlanta’s late collapse
wasted a career day for
catcher Brian McCann, who
had a first-inning grand slam
off Rockies starter Juan
Morillo, who was making his
major league debut.
The 22-year-old McCann
added a solo shot in the
fourth off Morillo for his
first career multi-home run
game.
McCann also singled and,
after his three-hit day, is
batting .333 in his first full
big league season.
Chipper Jones, in his first
start since Tuesday because
of a sore foot, went 3-for-3
with a solo homer, two dou
bles and a pair of walks.
But none of that was
enough.
“These last couple of
games are indicative of our
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SPORTS
increasingly complex, Schrader keeps
it simple.
“It doesn’t make any difference if
it’s Loudon or any place,” he said. “It’s
all the same thing. The cars have got
to be able to turn and be able to get on
the throttle. You’ve got to be able to
turn good and come down on the throt
tle. That’s the two things we fight for
Loudon and everywhere else.
“You watch what people are doing,
and people move from team to team.
When you hire somebody, you learn
stuff. Everybody talks. You just find
out what everybody is doing.”
Simple as that, huh?
“Yep,” said Schrader.
Contact Monte Dutton
at hmduttonso@aoi.com.
whole season,” Jones said.
“Either we’d dig a big hole
early and fight all the way
back to come up one run
short. Or we’d get out to
a big lead and just can’t
get outs late in the game.
... It’s the same thing hap
pening.”
At one point this season,
Hudson called that the
Braves’ “Groundshogs Day,”
even adding in that super
fluous OS’.
See, the Braves (75-81) - 7
1/2 games behind wild card
leading Philadelphia with
six to play - never could get
it right.
“It’s been one thing or
another all year,” Jones
said, and then spelled out
the various issues. “We’ve
gone through streaks all
year where we just haven’t
put all the facets of the game
together consistently to be
anything better than a .500
team.”
Oh, but the Braves will
have to work feverishly to
even reach mediocrity.
A 6-0 finish against the
Mets and Astros, beginning
Tuesday, is required to get
to 81-81. Manager Bobby
Cox’s run of 15 consecutive
winning seasons also died
Sunday.
And they’ll watch October
unfold on TV if at all.
“We tried hard to make it,”
Cox said. “We just couldn’t
do it.”
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Smoltz copes with reality;
Liberty Media pep visits
DENVER - John Smoltz
will take the same Turner
Field mound Tuesday that
he has hun
dreds of
times in the
past decade
or so.
But it’ll be
an entirely
different
place for
Atlanta’s
39-year-old
B>m
NOTEBOOK
R. Travis Haney
Morris News
Service
veteran starter because
there’s ultimately nothing
on the line.
“That’s going to be a
little difficult, different,”
said Smoltz, who will pitch
against the New York Mets
club that’s already secured
the National League East
title that Atlanta had won
every year since 1995.
The Braves won the NL
West from 1991-93, and
the league was on strike
in 1994. Smoltz joined the
team in the late 1980 s,
just before the franchise’s
ascension.
This year, he’s been wit
ness to its coming back to
earth.
“It’s kind of odd to put
into words,” said Smoltz,
14-9 with a 3.72 ERA on
a starting rotation that he
said has been in “disarray”
because of injuries, youth
and inconsistency.
One thing Smoltz has
had difficulty coming to
terms with is the fact that
the wild card winner will
finish with somewhere in
the neighborhood of 85-87
wins. That’s something
that feels so irritatingly
attainable to Smoltz, he
said, because of the num
ber of close games through
out the season that Atlanta
lost. Take one-run deci
sions here both Saturday
and Sunday.
Philadelphia (82-73), the
East’s second-place team,
leads the way right now.
“Every year, the other
teams gave us a chance
to win, we did,” he said,
referring especially to the
past two seasons. “And
guess what? Teams gave
us another chance to win
this year. ... It’s hard to
deal with the fact that no
one ran away with the wild
card. To me, that makes it
more gut-wrenching.”
Georgia Tech to put national
ranking on line against Hokies
By Adam Van Brimmer
Morris News Service
ATLANTA - Georgia
Tech is back in the national
rankings.
The challenge will be to
stay there.
The Yellow Jackets
moved into the Associated
Press media poll at No. 24
Sunday. They travel to face
No. 11 Virginia Tech on
Saturday, though, and will
need a victory to hang on
to their AP ranking and to
impress the coaches panel
that votes in the USA
Today poll.
The Jackets remained
unranked by the coaches,
with five teams receiving
more votes in the listing
of other unranked teams
receiving votes.
The polls are a second
ary consideration, at best,
for Georgia Tech this
week. The winner of the
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
CUPPER BUR MUUM):
Maligned as he often is for
how much he’s out of the
lineup, you’ve got to hand
it to Chipper Jones for the
fact that he always resur
faces with a bang.
For the third time in
two seasons, Jones has
missed multiple games and
returned to the starting
lineup with a homer.
A solo shot in the fourth,
his 24th of this injury-rid
dled season, was a part of
a 3-for-3 Sunday against
the Rockies that included
a pair of doubles and a pair
of walks. He was on base all
five times he stepped into
the batter’s box.
“He’s swinging great.
He’s swinging as good as
I’ve ever seen him,” Cox
said. “He’s just on every
thing.”
Jones had to leave in the
eighth, after his second
walk, because of continu
ing soreness in his right
foot. He hadn’t started
since Tuesday because of
lingering pain in the foot.
He’s also missed extended
time this season because of
side and knee iiyuries.
Still, the 34-year-old
Jones is hitting .323 with
24 homers and 80 RBIs in
105 games.
LIBERTY MEETS WITH BRAVES
BIRRS: Braves president
Terry McGuirk visited
Coors Field on Sunday to
meet with representatives
from the Liberty Media
group that is close to final
izing its purchase of the
team.
The Denver-based Liberty
might nail down the param
eters of the purchase as
soon as its November own
ers’ meeting. The company,
which would take over the
club from Time Warner, has
said it doesn’t plan to make
any immediate or sweeping
changes once it’s under its
control. That’s the theory
that GM John Schuerholz
has said he’s been going by
all along.
The Braves have oper
ated the past few seasons
with an SBO million payroll
- middle of the road rela
tive to the rest of the major
league personnel budgets.
Contact R. Travis Haney
at travis.haney@morris.
com.
3:30 p.m. game at Virginia
Tech’s Lane Stadium
takes sole possession of
first place in the Atlantic
Coast Conference Coastal
Division and becomes an
early favorite to reach the
ACC Championship game.
“I think they understand
what’s really at stake with
this ballgame and we’ll pre
pare accordingly,” Georgia
Tech coach Chan Gailey
said. “Rankings only mat
ter at the end” of the sea
son.
The Virginia Tech game
is also a chance for atone
ment. The Yellow Jackets
to a 3-0 record and a No.
16 ranking to Blacksburg,
Va., last September only to
be humbled, 51-7, by the
Hokies.
Virginia Tech held
the Jackets to six first
downs and scored two
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