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Game of My Life: Atlanta Braves
CHAPTER EXCERPT
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| Game of My Life: Atlanta Braves by Jack Wilkinson |
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EXCERPT : David Justice
With one of the sweetest swings baseball had seen in years, David Justice changed everything: the Atlanta Braves’ burgeoning reputation as the Buffalo Bills of baseball; the angry, even livid fan reaction to Justice’s outspoken—if somewhat misconstrued—I-dare-you, incendiary words; the landscape of professional sports in Atlanta; and the enduring legacy of David Justice himself.
“That would have to be Game 6 of the World Series,” Justice said, selecting the game of his life. “That would be No. 1.”
The one and only world championship for the Atlanta Braves—baseball’s dominant team in the first half of the ‘90s—was captured on the cool, crisp Atlanta evening of October 28, 1995. The night David Justice swung sweetly, and for posterity. Justice’s solo home run into the right field stands gave the Braves a 1-0 lead over the Cleveland Indians in the sixth inning. That lone run stood up, too, behind Tom Glavine’s pitching, for the club’s first World Series triumph since 1957.
With that, the Braves became the first franchise to win the world championship while based in three different cities: Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. With that, Justice—as talented as he was talkative, opinionated, and sometimes controversial—guaranteed himself a warm spot in Atlanta’s heart and soul.
“But,” he said in reflection, “there’s so many other games to think of.”
Let’s re-think all this.
* * *
If his two brief stints in Atlanta in 1989 officially constituted a thimble-sized cup of proverbial coffee, then David Justice formally and fully introduced himself in 1990: a 6-foot-3 shot of caffeinated talent and walk-the-walk style that made all of Atlanta—and soon all of baseball—stand up and take notice. How could you not? Smart and sassy and often sensational at the plate and sometimes afield, Justice was clearly a star-in-waiting. After graduating from high school in Cincinnati at the age of 16—he’d skipped the seventh and eighth grades—Justice played three years at Thomas More College in Kentucky and was drafted by Atlanta in 1985. He was only 19.
After working his way up through the organization—and absorbing the invaluable teachings and lessons afforded along the way—Justice arrived in Atlanta for good in 1990 as the Braves’ new first baseman. At least when the season began. But when legend-in-residence Dale Murphy was traded to Philadelphia on August 4 of that year, life changed for David Justice—for good, and for the better.
“It was a combination of things that year,” he said. “A change of position: they put me back in my natural position.” In right field, where the vacancy caused by Murphy’s departure fit Justice like an old worn shoe. “And it was also Clarence Jones, too,” Justice said of the then-Braves hitting coach. “C.J. came to me and said, ‘I want you to try this. David, if you try this, I guarantee your home runs will go up, your average will go up, and you’ll be back in the running for the rookie of the year.’
“I said, ‘You know what? I’ll take my chances,’” Justice remembered. “I
trusted him. He said, ‘I want you to get real close to the plate—I was a
natural pull hitter—and I want you to pull everything. And I want you to
hit nothing but fastballs. Only after they’ve gotten some strikes on you, then you swing.’
The trick worked: Justice crowded the plate, opposing pitchers began pounding him inside, and Justice began to hit—no, smote—all those fastballs. Justice finally gave up smoting for good at season’s end. By then, his earlier struggles—he was batting .243 through 68 games, with 8 homers and 28 RBIs—were but a distant memory. Switched back to right field, and armed with Jones’ hitting insights, Justice relaxed and finished the season as the National League’s hottest hitter. He led the league with 20 homers in the last two months (11 in August, plus nine more in September). His 28 homers and 78 runs batted in led all big-league rookies and tied Tigers’ oversized slugger Cecil Fielder for the most home runs (23) after the All-Star break. “I got every first-place vote except one,” said Justice, who easily won the NL Rookie of the Year voting. Montreal’s Delino DeShields got that wayward first-place vote as Justice became the first Brave since Bob Horner in ‘78 to win the award.
For Justice and all his mates, 1991 changed everything. Justice was leading the league with 51 RBIs when he hurt his back and had to go on the disabled list for nearly two months in late June. “It was weird,” Justice said. “I remember we were in Montreal and my back was sore. I played that night. Next night? I was so sore, I couldn’t play. The day I couldn’t play, Otis Nixon set a record with six stolen bases.
“I actually had a stress fracture in my back,” he said. “But it didn’t show up on an X-ray and didn’t show up ‘til next spring training.”
By then, Justice and the Braves had begun their run to greatness down the ‘91 stretch in pursuit of Los Angeles. “I raked when I came back,” he recalled. “When I came back, we just took off. That was the year I hit the home run off Dibble in the ninth.”
Upon Justice’s return on August 21, Atlanta closed 31-14 (a .688 winning percentage) with him back in the lineup and in right field. The Dibble game occurred in Cincinnati on October 1, a day in which Justice became the hometown hero in
his old hometown of Cincinnati. With five games left, Atlanta was a game behind L.A. in the NL West standings. With just three innings gone that night in Cincinnati, the Braves were down 3-0 to Jose Rijo, the Reds’ imposing, right-handed, No. 1 starter. By the ninth inning, however, Atlanta had closed to within a run at 6-5. Enter Dibble, Cincinnati’s caveman closer, who walked Mark Lemke to lead off the bottom of the ninth.
“That was one of the best games. I remember that moment vividly,” Justice said. “I remember Rob Dibble would always throw me first-pitch fastballs away. Terry Pendleton had just made an out. He came back by me when I was in the on-deck circle and said, ‘Dave, pick me up.’
“I was trying to hit it up the middle, but I pulled it and it was a home run. That pitch was 101 miles-an-hour. I knew it was gone. We went through Jose Rijo, Norm Charlton, Randy Myers, and Dibble to win that game.”
Back home that weekend, everything changed forever for Justice and the
Braves. “On Saturday, we came out against Houston,” he said. “That’s the
one where I caught the ball, with my [arm raised in celebration]. I put
it up before I even caught it.” Once he caught the fly ball in right
field for the final out, the Braves celebrated clinching at least a tie for the division title. But there was so much more before that.
“I remember all the tomahawks that season,” Justice said. “And a packed house in Atlanta that day. That was unheard of in the past. We were a young team. People were saying we were going to fold. The Dodgers had all the veterans. [Darryl] Strawberry had said they weren’t worried about us. But I thought, ‘If we lose, it won’t be because we’re young. It’ll be because we just lost. We were winning in the minor leagues. In 1989 [at Richmond], we won the Governor’s Cup. I remember hugging Jim Beauchamp then; he was our manager. I said, ‘Beach, we can do this in the big leagues.’ And two years later, we were in the World Series.”
Justice paused, took a breath, then resumed on a roll. “Here’s one thing the Braves don’t get credit for, and still do it—the way they develop players,” he said. “Me, [Ron] Gant, [Jeff] Blauser, Lemke, [John] Smoltz, Glavine. The next generation was Chipper [Jones], Javy [Lopez], [Ryan] Klesko. The big three, all young. Then Andruw [Jones]. Then here comes [Rafael] Furcal, [Marcus] Giles, all young kids. The Braves are the best at developing young kids and getting ’em in the big leagues.
“Why? Our Single-A pitching coach in 1986 at Sumter was Leo Mazzone. LEO MAZZONE!” Justice gushed. “Our hitting coach? Clarence Jones. . . . And we had [Hall of Famer] Willie Stargell floating around. We had quality coaches in the minor leagues. The Braves taught you how to play the game. When we came to the big leagues, we were ready.”
That proper upbringing and tutelage was evident in Justice’s performance in the 1991 World Series versus Minnesota. He homered off Scott Erickson in Game 3, then scored the winning run on Lemke’s two-out single in the bottom of the 11th of that 5-4 triumph. Justice homered again in the 14-5 Game 5 cakewalk, his five RBIs tying the record for runs batted in by a National League player in a World Series game. In Game 6, Justice recalled, “I had Scott Erickson set up for another home run. I pulled it just foul.” Kirby Puckett didn’t, though; his 11th-inning homer off Charlie Leibrandt forced a Game 7.
“I remember the Lonnie Smith thing, vividly,” Justice said. “I remember him on first, and when Terry hit it, we just started screaming. That’s an automatic double and an automatic run.” Not exactly. In the eighth inning of that scoreless, dramatic, climactic Game 7, even when Smith hesitated on Pendleton’s double to left-center and only advanced to third base, “I thought, ‘Okay, it’s second and third, Ronnie [Gant] is up. We’re okay,” Justice said. “Ronnie swings at the first pitch, hits a little dribbler to first. Kent Hrbek fields it, looks the runners back, and steps on the bag.
“They walk me, then [Sid] Bream hits into a 3-2-3 doubleplay,” he said. “I’ve only thrown a helmet maybe twice in my career. That night was the first time. I threw it down at second.”
Two innings later, the Twins prevailed 1-0 to win the World Series.
“That World Series hurt,” Justice said. “It really hurt. I didn’t know
if we were going to be back in the World Series. The next year, Toronto was really good. I can live with that.”
To have the chance to return to the ’92 World Series against Toronto, the Braves first had to defeat the Pirates. In the bottom of the ninth inning, with the Braves trailing Pittsburgh 2-1 and two out, Justice was on third base when pinch-hitter Francisco Cabrera came to bat against Pittsburgh reliever Stan Belinda. “That moment in time, I still remember exactly what I was thinking,” Justice said. “When Cabrera had two balls and one strike, I was thinking, ‘He’s going to hit a home run right here.’ He was one of the best fastball hitters ever.
“I remember it being sold out and very loud,” he said. “So loud that Jimy Williams [Atlanta’s third base coach] had to walk up and almost kiss my ear to tell me what he was saying. He wasn’t really saying anything. Just pretending, where they might think a squeeze [play] was on.”
The squeeze play wasn’t on, and Cabrera didn’t homer. After ripping a foul ball down the third base line, Cabrera instead singled to left and into history. “I score,” Justice said, “and I turn around, and I see Barry.” Barry Bonds, the Pirates’ left fielder who would win his first National League MVP award that year, was now in desperate pursuit of Cabrera’s hit. “He’s going toward left-center field, took a little angle,” said Justice, who’d scored easily and was watching the play develop from behind home plate. “I’m thinking, ‘Sid’s got this easy.’ I’m not even waving my arms [down]. All of a sudden, I see Sid coming and the ball coming, and Sid’s got like a monkey on his back. I start jumping up and down, yelling, ‘Get down! Get down!’”
Bream followed those frantic Justice instructions and scored fine, thank you. “I remember jumping on Sid, and I roll over and my feet are straight up in the air,” he said. “Everybody’s jumping up in the air and my feet are straight up in the air in the pile. But it was a great moment.
“Oh, my God, it was pandemonium,” he said. “Unbelievable!”
Right then, amidst a pile-up of epic proportions, a memory flashed inside Justice’s mind: The 1991 NLCS, Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, just before before the start of Game 6. “Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, and I are standing on the left field line,” Justice said. “We’ve got to win two games. Barry’s telling me, ‘Hey, man, you guys had a good run.’ He’s like, ‘It’s over.’”
Barry Bonds, wrong again. Fast forward to 1993. To the All-Star Game at Camden Yards in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. “Barry’s with San Francisco,” said Justice, a first-time NL All-Star that summer. “We’re down nine games to the Giants at the break. He says to me, ‘We got it.’” Barry Bonds, wrong yet again. Imagine that. The Braves’ remarkable second-half run enabled them to edge the Giants by one scant game. The last great pennant race—before the strike ended the ’94 season prematurely, and the wild card debuted in ’95—concluded with Atlanta’s heroic, but oh-so-draining, chase. “It killed us,” Justice said of that fateful race. “And the Phillies were the only team that gave us trouble that year. It took so much out of us just to catch the Giants, we were spent.”
Justice was magnificent in 1993. He belted 40 home runs, had 120 RBIs, and 24 steals. He won the first of his two Silver Sluggers, started in the All-Star Game, and finished third in the MVP voting. The 1995 season, of course, was decided by Justice’s sweet swing. More, much more on that to follow. For now, consider 1996, and what might have been for Justice and the reigning world champion Braves.
“I was hurt,” said Justice, who played just 40 games in ’96 due to assorted injuries. “In August, I started taking batting practice. I was crushing the ball. Guys were, like, ‘Dude, are you coming back?’ When the playoffs started, they asked me if I could play. I thought, ‘Maybe the World Series.’” But Justice never played that post-season. He couldn’t. Not that he was needed in the first round. Even with rookie Jermaine Dye struggling terribly at the plate while playing right field in Justice’s stead, the Braves swept away the Dodgers 3-0 in the NL Division Series. After winning the opener of the NLCS against St. Louis, the Braves dropped three straight games and were on the cusp of extinction. By then, Justice felt healthy physically and ready to return to the lineup. “But they didn’t ask me,” he said. “That told me two things. One, that they felt they could win without me. And two, if I play and we win, and I do well, then how can they trade me the next year?”
Down 3-1 to the Cardinals, the Braves responded with an emphatic “BOOM!” They crushed Todd Stottlemyre 14-0 in Game 5, Javy Lopez and Mark Lemke and Fred McGriff fueling an LCS-record 22 hits that sent the series back to Atlanta. Greg Maddux was vintage Maddux in a 3-1 equalizer in Game 6. When Tom Glavine got a 6-run cushion in the bottom of the first inning in Game 7, he coasted to a 15-0 rout. The Braves’ new LCS record for runs in a game propelled them into their fourth World Series in five played.
Come the World Series, however, after the Braves surged to a 2-0 lead over the Yankees, outscoring them 16-1, and then led 6-0 after five innings of Game 4, Atlanta self-imploded. Jim Leyritz’s pinch-hit, three-run homer of closer Mark Wohlers’ woebegone splitter tied it in the eighth. New York won it in the 10th, then captured one-run affairs in Games 5 and 6 to launch the latest Yankee dynasty. Justice watched it all from the dugout. He wasn’t on the roster. Dye was in right field the night of Game 5, and he crossed in front of center fielder Marquis Grissom on Cecil Fielder’s fourth-inning drive in the right-center gap. The ball glanced off Grissom’s glove—Dye having impeded his vision—and the night’s only run scored.
“And I went to spring training the next year,” Justice recalled, “and there were rumors that Freddie [McGriff] or I was going to be traded. Freddie’s a great guy. He’s not going to say anything. I asked [general manager John] Schuerholz, and he said, ‘I’d bet my family and my home that you will not be traded.’ You can’t get a better confirmation than that. So I go into the clubhouse and say, ‘Fellas, I’m still here!’”
Not for long. On the day the Braves were breaking camp in West Palm Beach, coach Ned Yost told Justice, “DJ, Bobby wants to see you.” Bobby Cox was waiting in his office, along with Schuerholz. “I saw them,” Justice said, “and I said, ‘Okay, where am I going?” Destination: Cleveland. Heading along with him was Grissom, in exchange for Kenny Lofton and Alan Embree.
“That tore my heart out,” Justice recalled. “But they really tore out Marquis’ heart. He was from Atlanta. Still lives south of Atlanta. I came out of Bobby’s office, and guys are hugging me. After the third guy, I said, ‘Guys, I can’t take it. I’m gonna be crying.’ And I left.
“All I ever wanted to be was a Brave,” Justice said. “That’s the team that brought me up. Every trade after that was pure business. But that one really hurt me. The Braves were family.”
Cleveland, however, proved revelatory. “Life in Cleveland was GREAT,” said Justice. “I always tell people, ‘It’s like going from living with your family to living with your cousins.’ I’m back in my home state, three hours from Cincinnati.
“And those fans?” he said. “We sold out every single night. Man, shoot, those fans were great. There’s a team that deserves to win a championship. I hope the Tribe wins another World Series someday.”
Cleveland should have won the Series in Justice’s first season playing on the shores of Lake Erie. But closer Jose Mesa blew Game 7 and the upstart Florida Marlins won the first of their two World Series. Justice—who was spectacular that season, with an AL-leading .329 average, 33 homers, 101 RBIs, and a career-best .596 slugging percentage—was disappointed, but not crushed. “I thought, ‘I’ve already won one World Series. I can’t be greedy. God can’t smile on me every day. He’s gotta smile on the pitcher sometime,’” Justice said, laughing. “I’d already ripped the heart out of Jim Leyland twice with Pittsburgh [where Leyland was managing the Pirates in the ’91 and ‘92 NLCS, before taking over the expansion Marlins]. He’s a great man. And down in Florida, the Lord shined on him.”
For Justice, who drew six walks and had four RBIs against Florida but batted just .185, the consolation was the road to the World Series. “My best year was ’97. Easily,” he said. “I only had two bad weeks. I felt like I got a hit every day. It was my best year as far as consistency. Just daily. Oh, man.”
Justice and the Indians won AL Central Division titles again in 1998 and ’99, but their World Series days were over. Justice would have to leave town once again to return to baseball’s grandest stage. He did so, in baseball’s grandest setting: Yankee Stadium, as a New York Yankee. He was traded in late-June of 2000 to the Yanks for Ricky Ledee, Jake Westbrook, and Zach Day. In the Bronx, Justice continued his hot hitting. “In 2000, that was my best year from beginning to end,” he said. “I had 21 homers with Cleveland; then I hit 20 with the Yankees.” He finished with a career-high 41 and, once again, savored baseball’s ultimate high: Another world championship.
“The one thing about the Yankees—it’s a whole different thing coming out of that home dugout than the visitors dugout,” he said. “The Yankees expect to win every day. They got history. They’ve got great fans. I came in hot; I was swinging well. And I just exploded. That was a great year.”
The Yankees barely survived Oakland in the AL Division Series before Justice homered twice in the six-game ouster of Seattle that clinched the Yanks’ third straight AL pennant. In New York City’s first Subway Series since 1956, the Yankees easily beat the Mets in five games. “The wildest thing,” Justice recalled, laughing, “was that you didn’t have to get on a plane.”
He did the next season, when the Yankees—in their post-9/11 sorrow—started the World Series in Arizona. “I thought we had that one,” Justice said of a dramatic Game 7. “You’ve got Mariano Rivera on the mound in the ninth inning, you think, ‘We’ve got it won.’” Yet even Rivera, the game’s greatest closer, proved human that night. Once Rivera gave up the tying run, once Luis Gonzalez later looped a single to deny the Yankees a fourth consecutive world championship, Justice’s World Series days were finally done.
“In Game 7, I got a hit, and they pinch-ran for me,” he remembered. “When it was over, I looked up and thought, ‘Let’s put this on a larger scale.’ Okay, Arizona had never won a championship. Curt Schilling had never won a championship. Randy Johnson had never won a championship. Why shouldn’t those guys win a championship, too? They’re two of the greatest pitchers of our time.
“So, I just went home.”
His home away from home, however, would surely change yet again. This, Justice knew. “I knew I was going to be traded after that year,” he said. “I was hurt, had an up and down year. I knew they’d make a change. But by that time, it was all business.” A month later, the Yankees were open for business when they traded Justice to another borough: to Queens, and the Mets. A week later, however, the Mets dealt Justice to Oakland for Mark Guthrie and Tyler Yates.
“[Playing for Oakland] was a lot of fun,” said Justice, who hit 11 home runs that 14th and final season to not only help the A’s advance to another post-season, but to also finish his career with 305 homers and 1,017 RBIs. When Oakland lost the Division Series to Minnesota in five games, Justice thought, “Well, this is it for me. Time to go home.”
This time it was for good. He was 36, happily remarried, and a father of three young children. It was time. “My whole thing was, I’d played long enough, had won a championship,” Justice said. “I’d won a lot of personal rewards. And I didn’t want to miss any of those things fathers can miss.” So David Justice walked away with his health, happiness, family, and legacy intact. He’s now a broadcaster for the Yankees’ YES network, and resides in San Diego where the weather never varies and life is very, very good.
THE GAME OF MY LIFE
BY DAVID JUSTICE
OCTOBER 28, 1995
“In 1995, there was pressure. We HAVE to win this World Series. They’re starting to compare us to the Buffalo Bills. That’s not sitting well with us at all.
“Games 1 and 2 of the Series are at our place. It’s almost like a tennis match. So quiet. Our fans are spoiled. In Cleveland for Games 3, 4, and 5, the crowd was wild, like our fans were in ’91.
“The day before Game 6, we’re back in Atlanta for a workout day. Some reporters come to me and say, ‘Orel Hershiser said all the pressure’s on them.’ On us—the Braves. I’m thinking he’s playing mind games. So I said, ‘You tell Orel Hershiser I said ‘F-him, and if he wants some of me, come get some of me.’
“Then Omar Vizquel says, ‘The Braves can’t win a World Series. They’ve already lost two.’ I said, ‘Oh no-no-no-no-no.’
“I don’t know how I got in this fuss, but my point was, our fans need to root for us. In Cleveland, they were doing all this stuff, going wild. And I NEVER said our fans were horrible. Never. I said, ‘They’ll burn our houses down if we don’t win’? Come on. And, ‘If we get down 1-0, they’ll probably boo us out of the stadium.’
“The next morning, I see the headlines. I said, ‘Oh, man. Now the Atlanta Journal-Constitution can play that up. They can get me.’ So it’s not me against Hershiser. Or me versus Vizquel. No, [the Journal-Constitution] tried to put me against the fans. It’s my fault that I said it, but the paper played it up.
“I come out on the field before the game, people are booing. They’ve all come out that night to watch me fail. I’m in the on-deck circle and I remember thinking, ‘God, you’ve put me in a lot of tough positions and you’ve always brought me out of them. Please bring me out of this.’
“The next pitch, they announce my name—and the crowd’s booing me. But I heard a few people cheering. And I said to myself, ‘Okay, I’m playing for them.’ I didn’t make an out that night. I walked, got a double, a homer, and walked again. From that day on, I’ve seen God’s power or God’s hand on me as I walked through life.
“In the bottom of the fifth, Fred McGriff swings at three straight curveballs that all would’ve been balls. He struck out. When I got up in the sixth inning, I’m thinking, ‘I’m gonna make this guy throw curves for strikes.’ I didn’t know [reliever] Jim Poole [who came on in the fifth inning]. But all pitchers throw fastballs.
“I started off 0-1, a fastball away, called a strike. Then it was 1-1; he tried to go fastball outside again, but this one was a ball. On the 1-1, I thought, ‘Okay, this is a curveball count, but I’m gonna stay on the fastball. The next pitch was a fastball inside. Home run. As soon as I hit it, I knew it was a home run.
“I’m rounding the bases, I’m thinking, ‘We’re about to blow open this game.’ I hear all those people cheering. I let out the emotion. But my emotion is, ‘Shut up. I don’t want you cheering me. Keep on booing. This is about me and my teammates, our manager and coaches. And those few people who were cheering me at the start.’
“We go to the ninth inning. Glavine’s pitched great; only gave up one hit. Now Wohlers is on in the ninth. We’ve lost two World Series. I’m thinking, ‘Oh, if we get Kenny Lofton out, we’re gonna win the World Series.’ If Kenny gets on base, he’s gonna steal second and just might steal third. What happens? Kenny fouls out to Pac Man [shortstop Rafael Belliard]. Omar Vizquel makes an out. And when [Carlos] Baerga hit it, I thought, ‘Oh my God!’ I thought it was out. But then I watched Marquis circle and catch that ball! I knew it was over. Oh, man!
“It was like the weight of the world was off of our shoulders. We’d finally won the World Series! And it was the first championship ever in Atlanta. You dream about winning the World Series. There’s just not a better feeling.”
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