"Will,
I’m going to have detach myself from all this. I agree with you completely, I think. I get this feeling from the wave-after-wave I am subjected to about this one trade and nothing else. I am superstitiously feeling that this will happen. No evidence except just like the news from Iraq, that is repeated on the hour every hour, things are happening (and even some of the on the hour news is comparable to sports trade-rumors, fiction by the way, as far as ultimate effect on us.
I grew up not far from Atlanta and endured doubling with Floyd Farless and his dad, in their car, for 1 and a half hrs, talking about the moral and physical superiority of the St. Louis Cardnials over the Braves, there and back when “our” team came to Atlanta in the first few years of the relocation.
It seemed back then that our farm system, (what farm system?) wasn’t worth crap. It hasn’t been but in the last 7 years or so that I have really paid attention to what they are trying to develop and now my hometown has an A level team.
So, I am extremely reluctant to see JS do this time after time, I have read an excellent analysis a while back, over at minorleagueball.com of JS record. and It wasn’t so great. THere are better judges of talent and trade value, JS is up there I think in the top 5. but even so the outcomes were suprisingly close to the .500 mark. Of course we remember the smashing successes, but when you put them ALL together and measure the outcome after a few years, He isn’t that impressive, well he is in comparsion to the really lousy GM’s and owners who deal, but I think we should give ourselves alot more credit when we taking what we can gather from the Internet and discuss the issues dispassionately and realistically, by
for example sitting in the other person’s shoes and trying to imagine what they would willingly give up, and want to get in return. See, this is what most of these hairbrain common tators don’t seem to think about. They wish for Miss America, and their willing to offer only a meal at McDonalds and a ticket to the drive-in. Why don’t they go and play fantasy baseball with their little 10 yr old brother, for pete’s sake? A 10 year old, and a slow one at that, is the only one who would agree to some of the suggestions I have read in the past few days over what they would do.
As I have mentioned, we all thought in spring training of ‘96 just like Smoltz did. And it didn’t work out that way, never again. never again, yet. So, As I also mentioned there are just too many holes I can see matching up against the Red Sox, esp with Chipper’s decline and Andruw’s disappearance at the plate.
I enjoy watching the growth of the Baby Braves that we hav e brought up, that my parents’ neighbors have seen play A ball years ago. That other friends of friends have seen Chipper in A ball, Andruw in A ball, and I am a hopeless romantic about Willie Harris. Why? because his success is an escape from worrying about Salty’s disappearance, Andruw’s percipitous decline, Chipper’s ankles, wrists, shoulder, Smoltz’s shoulder, Our bull pen. our #4 and #5 starters. our closer. Our First base batting average.
Most of all. Most of all I feel for Chipper and John Smoltz, and I have a little left over for Bobby Cox, JS and the other coaches, I met several at Orlando a few years ago (my parents now live in Tampa). I know from being around those guys and watching them up close why they attract such loyalty.
So its just a game. It isn’t Iraq. It is an escape from Iraq. I am a volunteer online English teacher for some kids in Iran, who are banned from schools there. there is no way out for them. Sometimes I have to compare my anguish over trading or not trading Salty to their situation, and I feel ashamed. I’m getting too caught up in this! lol. I feel this trade is going down. but as you say, the referee may not see it that way, we may be out 
"
Thank you Edo for putting it better than I ever could.
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