This is a big one. Chipper Jones needs no introduction; you can simply read his Hall of Fame plaque. Chipper is one of the best switch-hitters of all time. Drafted first overall in 1990, he was the offensive centerpiece of the Braves dynasty in the 90s and early 2000s mainly as the team’s third baseman. Chipper’s first full season was 1995, when the Braves won the World Series and he finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting. His accomplishments are too numerous to list, but Jones was the 1999 NL MVP and received votes in 12 other seasons. He hit 30 home runs in six separate seasons, including 45 in ’99. He also reached the century mark in RBI nine times. Even as he battled injuries later in his career, Jones’ production stayed strong, and he won the 2008 batting title by hitting .364 at age 36.
Jones finished his career with a .303/.401/.529 line, hitting 468 home runs in his 19-year career. He became a first-ballot Hall of Famer in 2018. We were honored to host Chipper today for a live chat. Click here to read the transcript. You can follow Chipper on Twitter @RealCJ10.
If you’re a current or former MLB player who would like to do a chat with MLBTR readers, reach out through our contact form! We’ve also had requests for a chat with a former MLB general manager, if there are any out there who would be interested.
Hi dad!
This is the first day of the rest of your life, Sport.
Dreams do come true!
@chippers kid. Is that you Matthew Jones?
That was great! It would be interesting to get a current/former front office staff member to do a chat for the other side of the contract negotiation and lockout issues.
Current front office members would not be allowed to do it during the lockout, I’m pretty sure. But I’m going to look into getting a former GM on here for a chat.
Dan O’Dowd
DOD would be awesome!!!
Dan Duquette would be great!
Dan Duquette would be better. Not just for the talent he acquired over the years, but his key role in bringing analytics to the game of baseball.
And a Corsi article would be nice too, unless MLBTR has decided to no longer mention the passing of former MLB players. All we ask is consistency.
I am paying attention to this now after our last exchange. I am curious if they have a defined practice on obits.
Let’s just say some people associated with him are profoundly disappointed there was no mention here.
For example, Julio Lugo passed away and there was an article here the same day.
John Coppolella would be a fun interesting one lol.
That was amazing. Well done, MLBTR! I’ve enjoyed all the player chats, but this one really takes the cake. Great job moderating the questions.
Yeah I read through the whole transcript and man I wish I could’ve talked to Chipper.
Yes the moderating of questions was great, much better than past chats.
Funny how Chipper misunderstood the Mets question … or he understood, but didn’t want to comment on the organization. LOL
I had to read the answer twice at the time, but he’s always had tact when dealing with the Mets post-career. He chooses carefully how he really feels about them (naming his child after Shea Stadium).
We haven’t moderated any of these, the chatters choose the questions.
In that case, Chipper Jones is also an HoF chatter.
If only I would’ve known about this!!! Man, Chipper Jones is the reason I even became a diehard Braves fan, and I’m from Los Angeles!!
I’m a Dodgers fan but I always loved watching Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Chipper, and even Andruw Jones play. Those braves teams dominated baseball when I was a kid getting into the sport. My favorite non-dodger hitters are Chipper and Tony Gwynn. I’m lucky to have watched them play the game.
MLBTR, that was incredible. You’re really flexing your strengths in the baseball world right now. Well done.
Was really cool chat, sorry i missed out on the live version, maybe this is something that can be done on the front office chats too?
Thank you Mr Jones!
Damn am I mad I missed this one! That would’ve been AMAZING!
Pretty dang cool!!
Damn I missed this one. That’s a big fish MLBTR. Great job.
Yeah, mlbtr hit a grand salami with this one!
Who is Bmac?
Brian McCann
Brian McCann, I’m guessing.
Tim
10:21 What impressed you the most about the 21 Braves?
Chipper Jones
10:22 I think it was the work ethic and resilience.
I had used the word resilience to describe the Braves as well. It’s an under appreciated team characteristic and often comes through the manager, often an under appreciated leader.
Cool story bro.
after every single walk-off win, a player uses that word, or at least some variation of “this team never quits.”
Hated I missed this one but still awesome to read. Chipper has always been my favorite player. He’s the reason I played 3rd base and strived to be the best hitter I could be. If he were to go into coaching, he’d definitely succeed.
He is coaching if memory serves me right. He is one of the reasons of Austin Riley’s rise. Chipper is a coach behind the scenes. He has a good deal with the team where he coaches before home games and has the option to stay and watch games from the stands. He doesn’t travel with the team for away games. Also seen him do some coaching here or there on YouTube with the USA team I think. You can just tell the dude would be a great coach. Obviously knowledgeable but also has the skills to teach. Take Care
aw cmon why did I have to miss this one.
Ya I did too. I wonder if it was a last minute thing because I got the email notification at 6:37 AM. I work nights so I had close to zero chance noticing the email on time.
These players chats are far and away the best thing to come to MLBTR in a long time!! Thanks Tim and thanks to all the staff for making this happen!!
What’s it like having had seven wives?
I imagine you’d be broke and unable to walk…
As a Jays fan, Chipper was my favorite non Jays player growing up. Influenced me to also start to switch hit and followed him until his retirement
Thank you for doing this chat for us Mr Jones and to MBLTR for getting a hall of famer to talk to us.
He was my favorite non-Yankee. I mailed his rookie card to the Braves with a letter asking him to sign it and it came back signed. I still have it. I know it could just be a clubhouse guy signing it, but it was still awesome. This was early in his career too.
My family and I were there for that last homerun off of Papelborn. Awesome experience!
Was there really a 30 minute gap between the intro and the first response?
Awesome chat, Freddie needs to walk that same path. Don’t Leave Atlanta!!
100% agree!!!
I was hoping you’d pull in Chipper for a chat, but didn’t dare to offer a suggestion.
Can’t wait to read it.
Really appreciated all the questions, especially one about what current player he sees a lot of his approach in (C. Seager) and one of the best hitters now (Soto). Would have loved to hear him speak about his work with Austin Riley and his breakout. Would love to see Chipper one day be a hitting coach, if it didn’t limit him. Really appreciate that he still wants/loves to be a part of the team, similar to Henry Aaron.
I asked a question about his and Austin’s hard work, but it didn’t get answered. I thought with my screen name and all I was a shoo-in. Lol
@Tim Dierkes- can we please get some heads up when these are happening? I get notifications from the app yet none of these player chats are posted when they will be and never get a notification. I’m sure more ppl would love to participate in these chats.
If you have notifications set up for the MLBTR chats category, or if you just follow us on Twitter, you should be able to get in within a few minutes of it starting.
There’s a couple reasons I don’t post advance notice. One, I’d hate to do that and have the player cancel or reschedule. They don’t work for me, so I can’t guarantee they’ll show up. Two, the person is already getting way more questions than they can possibly answer, so adding more isn’t really going to help anything. Chipper was able to answer less than 5% of the questions.
Damn bummed I missed this one!!!! Chipper you have always been one of my favorites! Almost named my son after you bud! Loved watching you play ball and now love watching your hunting shows! Cheers on one hell of a career!
My mom would have loved this. A huge Braves fan, who sadly went home to the Lord in November.
Sorry for your loss
Thank you. At least she got to enjoy another Braves WS victory, which made her extremely happy.
I am disappointed that no one asked if it was really true that Mike Piazza only addressed Chipper as “Larry” (his given name) because in Mike’s own words he “refused to call a grown man Chipper”
Haha, I never heard about that before but found this quote from Chipper in a 2018 NY Daily News Article:
“Piazza said he’d never call another grown man Chipper, so whenever I’d step to the plate the first time, every game against the Mets, I would always be digging in and I’d say, ‘Michael.’ And he’d go, ‘Larry.’ And we would go about our business.”
@rsox. Here’s some conversations I imagined between Chipper and Piazza. “Hi Larry” then “Hi Mikey Likes it”. “Quit that Larry I’m gonna tell my mom”. “I love hitting here at Shea and destroying your Mets Mikey likes it”. “I’m telling my godfather on you (Lasorda). “Hey Mikey likes it did I just see a trash panda in the dugout?” “You better quit it I’m about to roid rage on you Larry!”. “Hey Mikey likes it what it’s like to win a World Series?”. “Grr that’s it I hate you should we wrestle this out?”. “No thanks Mikey like it everyone knows I only wrestle with the ladies!”.
THANK YOU CHIPPER!! That was awesome. Best chat EVER!! Thank you to Tim/MLBTR for making it happen. So appreciative!!!
As if Chipper wasn’t enough of a legend, he was able to get advice from Hank Aaron… What a career!!!
Man, I missed this?!?! I need to pay attention to my emails.
chipper jones is a prime example of why it’s best not to know what your favorite athlete thinks about topics other than their sport
@dasit: That’s a good rule of thumb for every athlete/actor/celebrity.
True story: We were watching the Braves, and when Chipper came up to bat, my daughter (who was in her bouncy seat) said “baseball”. It was her first word. I got chills.
I am consistently blown away by the quality of content on here during the lockout. Thanks for all of the great work during baseballs darkest days!
Tim, thank you so much for this discussion. Read the site info every day and really enjoyed this talk. Chipper was a special guy and it was great hearing his perspective on the game. Sounds like a HOF guy in life, too.”
Good player. Trash human being.
So, mentioning a tweeted statement, made by Chipper Jones, leads to the respective comment’s deletion in order to protect someone’s supremacist icon?
https://i.imgur.com/084V1Tj.jpg
This blog never disappoints.
Yup, the dude is trash, and MLBTR must protect their white supremacist dollars!
excellent read, thanks MLBTR and Chipper!
Chipper is legitimately a bad human being, and is about as intelligent as a stalk of broccoli. He’s a racist antivaxxer and right wing nutjob.
those are all your opinions, and keep in mind there are dedicated political webspaces out there, whereas MLBTR isnt the place for it
The questions were excellent, and these two answers stood out especially:
“What was the best advice you received as a minor leaguer that helped you take it to the next level?”
“Willie Stargell always told me that if you have slow feet, you will have quick hands. If you have quick feet, you will have slow hands. That always resonated with me offensively.”
and this:
“Awesome to talk to you, Chipper. How do you feel about the new rule changes in baseball? Do you like the extra innings rule and the NL DH?”
“Big fan of the universal DH. Good for baseball and we need to let pitchers concentrate on that. On the fence about the extra innings things, but I get it to speed up the game and protect bullpen arms and health.”
There’s a National League lifer who’s all for the universal DH.
What teams are left that would spend $330-350m?
Most of the big spender already have larger contracts on the books or don’t need to upgrade at SS.
Nats, cubs have been big spender and have the room.
Teams that would but need to move some salary’s: Phi, Angels, Bos,
NYY sounds like they want to upgrade but not with a big contract.