Beyond "Tonight"

Which Nick Green will we see tonight? The one that twice hit key home runs for the Braves earlier in the week, or the one that made two miscues in Wednesday's defeat.

The question has come up before, albeit in a different fashion. When Green went to Duluth High, not far from Atlanta, he and his twin brother, Kevin, were the star pitchers on the team. In one playoff game, the opposing manager accused Duluth of having Nick and Kevin switch jerseys in the dugout such that Nick could continue pitching after he reached the weekly innings limit (they didn't).

Nick Green's one weakness, even when he hit better than .400 at Duluth, was his inability to hit the curveball consistently, which may explain why his minor league numbers were never overly impressive. But Green's strength has always been his determination, which may explain his arrival in the big leagues, and why he was the only Brave not to strikeout when Ben Sheets whiffed 18 batters a few weeks ago. That goes back to his days as a kid as well, even in non-baseball situations.

"We went off to Nebraska for basketball camp once,'' said Jerry Bradford, one of Green's scholastic coaches. "He didn't know how to make a long distance call because he hadn't been away from home before. He was having trouble with the operator, and finally he just shouted into the phone 'Sir, I wanna talk to my daddy' (and he eventually did).''