One was one of the best defensive wizards in baseball and a feared slugger during his prime, the other is one of the best at his position and is one of the faces of the franchise but both were easily two of the most entertaining players in Atlanta Braves history.
The city of Atlanta was at the center stage when it hosted Super Bowl LIII on Sunday and with it came all the festivities and celebration. To contribute, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith dropped a list of the “Top 5 All-Time Atlanta Athletes” and it’s tough to argue against the names he chose: all good, valid choices. In it includes someone who most would agree is the GREATEST Atlanta athlete of all time, Atlanta Braves hall-of-famer Hank Aaron.
The “Hammer” (Happy 85th Birthday!) is a living legend and rightfully sits atop the list. He is followed by the 2-sport man Deion Sanders who at one point appeared in uniform for both the Atlanta Falcons AND the Atlanta Braves in the same day!
To finish off the list, Smith listed boxing legend Evander Holyfield, former Hawks and dunking G.O.A.T. Dominique Wilkins, with former Falcons and game changing QB Michael Vick at #5.
Hank Aaron tops my list of BEST Atlanta athletes of all-time. pic.twitter.com/xP1vc6xvPP
— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) January 30, 2019
While there is a good pool of players for him to pull from, the 5 names mentioned would be a solid 5 for anyone and would look perfect on a poster of Atlanta sports legends. However, there’s just a feeling two certain person got overlooked (for a couple reasons): Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones.
Can’t Keep Up with these Joneses
Each of the players Smith lists are some of the best in their respective sports but Jones’es were absolute superstars. Andruw is even considered one of the top sluggers in MLB to many like Ken Harrelson when he hit his 400th career home run.
Chipper also reached the 400 Club and then did so much more. Being a switch-hitter, he is the only one to have a career batting average of at least .300 and 400 or more home runs and only switch-hitter to have a slash line of at least .300/.400/.500 with 5,000 at-bats.
Chipper and Andruw were something special during their prime and luckily it was with the Braves. But why aren’t they getting acknowledged?
In the comments for Smith’s tweets, Chipper had a lot of petitioning for him but after a fair length of scrolling, I saw Andruw mentioned ONCE. Maybe he’s mentioned more but I’m not scrolling the whole thing.
A Question of Criteria
However, cases could even be made for other names like Julio Jones…(wait a minute), Tony Gonzalez, and even Matt Ryan or the late Tommy “Mr. Falcon” Nobis. Heck, even anyone of the trio of John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux could take Vick’s spot.
And that brings up the question: what defines an all-time Atlanta athlete? Is it the player’s pure athleticism? Is it the player’s contribution to the city? Is it the accomplishments in their career? Or is it a combo of all 3?
No doubt, Vick is more athletic than Matt Ryan, but at the end of the day when you list off accomplishments, Matty Ice has done more for the city and franchise than Vick did.
Then if it comes to athleticism, how does the 5-tool powerhouse that was Andruw compare to the athleticism of Sanders or Vick?
So let’s take a look at the definition of an athlete and the cases for Chipper and Andruw Jones to be in Top 5 Atlanta Athlete.