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PREVIEW (Hou)
PREVIEW
(TB)
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 Recent
Client News |
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Craig Kalb of Duluth comes to
the game to cheer Braves
infielder and longtime friend
Nick Green.
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Green
rises at parents' house, shines at
Turner |
By CARROLL ROGERS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 6/2/04
Another game and another clutch
three-run home run later, the Braves'
Nick Green finally took his first major
league home run ball home to Duluth on
Tuesday night.
He set it next to the ball from his
first major league hit on the dresser in
his boyhood room, where he's living with
his parents while his hometown hero
dream plays out.
He only put it there "so the dog won't
get it," explained Green, who forgot the
ball Monday, leaving it in his locker.
Green is shy by nature and trying his
hardest to keep his feet on the ground.
But balls keep flying off his bat and
out of the ballpark, in the most crucial
situations.
On Monday he drove in the go-ahead runs
in the eighth inning against the Expos
with a three-run shot. He followed it
with another Tuesday, with two outs in
the ninth and the Braves trailing by
three. Green's heroics tied the score
6-6 and set up J.D. Drew's walk-off
homer.
Since being called into emergency second
base duty because of Marcus Giles'
injury, the 25-year-old Green has hit
.277 (18-for-65) with 10 runs and 10
RBIs in 18 games.
His call-up was supposed to last three
days. Instead, Green, who is only the
third Atlantan to come up through the
Braves farm system and play as an
Atlanta Brave (joining Hank Small and
George Lombard), is realizing a big
league dream in front of his family.
"It sort of doesn't seem real," his
mother, Vicki Green, said. "I know it's
him [out there], but it seems like this
can't be."
She was watching on TV in her living
room when he came to the plate in the
ninth inning Tuesday. Like countless
other Braves fans, she was thinking, "He
can't do it again, can he?"
It's the same thought her husband, Mike,
and Nick's twin brother, Kevin, had
watching at Turner Field. By the time
Nick's ball cleared the left-field
fence, they were both jumping up and
down, and Mike was high-fiving all the
family and friends he could find.
After Monday's game, Mike had gone to
bed by the time Nick got home. On
Tuesday, the father went down in the
stadium tunnel to congratulate the son.
"It's really a dream come true for me,"
Mike Green said.
He coached Nick and Kevin from age 6
until they got to Duluth High School. He
and his wife then went to almost every
game the boys played at nearby Georgia
Perimeter College. Though neither was
considered a great major league
prospect, both were drafted by the
Braves: Nick in 1998, and Kevin a year
later.
Nick slowly advanced through the farm
system. Kevin, a catcher, was released
after three years.
"The next best thing is to have your
twin brother play in the big leagues --
at home, too," Kevin said.
The two aren't identical, but it's hard
to tell. Nick's successes mean Kevin,
now a student at Georgia State, is
starting to get recognized.
"[Monday] after the home run, I saw
people looking at me, pointing at me,"
said Kevin, who's missed only a couple
of Nick's games at Turner Field.
The two started playing backyard
baseball at age 4, one pitching, the
other in their father's catcher's gear,
with the shin pads cut down. That his
brother is a major leaguer hit Kevin two
weeks ago when a video of Nick played on
the video board: "Welcome to Turner
Field. Home of your Atlanta Braves."
"It's crazy to see him out there
playing," Kevin said. "It's just wild."
Nick's remarkable run with the Braves
has brought phone calls from friends,
family -- even people the Greens haven't
heard from in years. Most special,
according to their father, was a call
from the boys' former Duluth High
basketball coach, who's in Baltimore
having a bone-marrow transplant for
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"I still don't know how long this will
last," Nick Green said. "The only way I
can look at it is to take every game as
if it's the last I'll be here. I never
know what's going to happen. I don't
want to take anything for granted."
Green took ground balls at third base
and shortstop before batting practice
Tuesday. With the way Mark DeRosa has
struggled until recently, the Braves
might find a regular place for Green
even after Giles returns from a broken
clavicle. But that's at least six weeks
away.
In the meantime, Green just sent a $750
rent check for an apartment he shares
with a teammate in Richmond, where he
was playing with the Braves' AAA team.
He doesn't want to get a place here in
case the Braves send him down, even
though the Braves are covering the cost
of his Richmond rent.
So he's at home for now, where he and
his brother sleep in adjacent rooms.
Late Tuesday night, after their parents
had gone on to bed, Nick and Kevin
stayed up for a post-midnight snack of
Cheerios and Raisin Nut Bran. They
talked about Green's home run and the
mayhem that followed Drew's.
Kevin couldn't resist giving his younger
brother (by 10 minutes) a little grief
for the two strikeouts he had before the
homer.
"We don't want him to get a big head,"
Kevin said Wednesday, smiling. "You
don't know when you're going to get sent
down. But he's thrilled to do what he's
doing." |
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