The real first day of spring

It's all very well to say that spring began earlier this week; but the truth is, for me, spring won't really begin until 7:35pm on April 6th.

Now, if you're wondering how I can be so precise, then you're probably not a fan of hardball.

Friday April 6th marks the home opener for the Atlanta Braves and it comes against perennial rivals, the New York Mets. This will be my sixth season of paying attention to the Bravos, and there have been some really great teams in that time, even if none of them have made it to the World Series.

So here is my tribute to three guys who've worn the jersey and made us proud to have them on the team - and who've gone elsewhere.

Tom Glavine.
Glavine left at the end of my first season, when I was just trying to figure out what was going on. He became the fifth picher to get to 2000 strike-outs with the same team - one of the others was team-mate, John Smoltz. When he went to the Mets, he was really on top of his game, but he's 33-41 since he got to New York which is a little deceptive: he's getting better, even at 41.

Marcus Giles.
I remember seeing Marcus for the first time in May 2003 - the year he became our every-game second base-man. He had this goofy grin and looked like a kid who was just having the best time anyone has ever had. In the 8th with the game tied at 1-1 and Rafael Furcal standing on first, Marcus fouls the first pitch away, but the second one he sends over the fence sending Furcal past home plate and giving the Braves a 3-1 lead which Smoltz defends in the sixten pitches of the final inning. Giles hails from San Diego, and this year he went back home where he'll be playing alongside his brother, Brian, at the Padres.

Rafael Furcal.
Rafy had these huge, Popeye-esque forearms, but that's not why I remember him. There's a feat in baseball that's even rarer than pitching a perfect game, and it's called an "unassisted triple play", which means that the same guy is responsible for three outs in the same play. And that's what Rafy did in the bottom of the fifth against the Cardinals on August 10th, 2003.
Busch Stadium, St. Louis, is beautiful - it looks a lot like Turner Field but with a lower terrace in the outfield. No matter, though, because you can see the Arc out past center field, and the outside looks like the Collosseum.
Mike Methany singles to center-field which brings Orlando Palmeiro to the plate.
Palmeiro bunts the second pitch back to Horacio Ramirez, and that's enough to get runners on first and second. Now, a bunt is a puzzling choice when it brings the pitcher up to bat.

Woody Williams hit the third pitch hard to short where, Furcal jumped, twisted and, amazingly, caught it. Methany and Palmeiro had both started their run for the next base, but Furcal killed the play and both runners had to tag up the bases they had come from. Methany was already at third and could never have made it back to second before Furcal stepped on the bag. Seeing that he had almost reached second and needed to tag up, Palmeiro began to sprint back to first.

But Rafy is one of the fastest in the game: he stole a base on his debut, and currently has 226 SBs in 976 games. He easily caught up with Palmeiro and showed us the first ever televised unassisted triple play. It didn't stop the Cards going on to win 3-2.
Then he headed West to play for the Dodgers.