Balancing act

Is Chipper Jones going to have to offer an apology too?

In a Major League Baseball landscape where everything is supposed to be hunky-dory (see Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds) the Atlanta Brave third baseman was scathing in his criticism yesterday over having to play the Red Sox in this weekend’s annual “who cares” initial bout of interleague action.

“I don’t think there’s any question it’s not fair, but I don’t think major league baseball is concerned with fair,” Jones said. “We play Boston six times, and they’ve got the best record in the American League. We play the top three teams in the toughest division in baseball (the AL Central). We, without a doubt, have the toughest schedule in baseball, bar none. You don’t play in our division and play the interleague schedule we play and not say we don’t have the toughest schedule.

“This split-it-up and we have to play our rival in the American League East stuff, I don’t get it. It’s unfair for us and the Mets on a year-in, year-out basis to have to play the Yankees and Red Sox when other teams don’t.

“This is no disrespect to the rest of the teams in the American League East, because Tampa is up and coming, and in two or three years, Tampa might be the class of the American League East and the Florida Marlins are going to have to deal with it.”

Speaking of the Braves, be sure to check out Mike Milliard’s Phoenix piece this week, which asks if the wrong team left Boston when the Braves took off in 1953. Initial answer: What are you kidding? Post-read answer: Hmm.