Larry Brown Sports

The general consensus regarding former Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice has been that he deserved to be fired. Many who saw the clips of Rice chucking basketballs at players’ heads and screaming gay slurs at them feel that he should never be allowed to coach college basketball again. Then there are people like Chipper Jones.

The former Atlanta Braves star took to Twitter on Wednesday to basically defend Rice, saying that he dealt with some rough treatment from coaches growing up and that it is not a big deal.

I got cursed at and called names by a ton of people growing up. Were they fired? Nope! Do I care? Nope! What’s the big deal? Toughen up!

— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) April 3, 2013

Yeah, been hit w/ bball equipment on purpose, been dragged around a football field by my facemask and ran suicides til I puked! I ain’t mad.

— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) April 3, 2013

We know at least one ex-Rutgers player has a similar opinion to Chipper’s, although he didn’t express it quite as bluntly.

Aware that his comments were taken negatively by most people, the former NL MVP elaborated Thursday:

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Chipper Jones is retired, freshly divorced, and apparently dating a Playboy model.

The folks at Busted Coverage put it together that Larry Wayne is dating a woman named Taylor Higgins, whose stage name is Lexi Ray Taylor.

Lexi Ray posed nude for Playboy Cyber and was their Coed of the Week for March 4 2010. She was listed as a nursing student at the University of Kentucky. Per Busted Coverage’s research, she also has a profile on a webcam site, though she has not logged on to that page since August.

Higgins maintains two Twitter profiles. She has one in her performing name Lexi Ray Taylor, but she hasn’t updated that one since July 25 (the account was deleted shortly after this story was published). She also has a personal account where she has been freely tweeting about her dates with Chipper. She lists her location as Georgia for both accounts.

Chipper tweeted on Nov. 16 to say that his divorce from ex-wife Sharon Logonov was finalized.

Divorce finalized….had great time with ex-teammates and friends last nite. Happy 18th anny, Tongue and Groove! Keep doing your thang!

— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) November 16, 2012

Per Higgins’ Twitter account, the two have celebrated Halloween together and gone hunting.

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Back in May, Chipper Jones spent a short time on the disabled list after he took a B.J. Upton one-hopper directly to the lower leg. The injury was described as a “left leg contusion,” which is a fancy phrase for a bruise. If you criticized Chipper at the time for missing games because of a bruise, you take it back. You take it back right now.

Jones tweeted the photo you see above on Tuesday with the following caption:

“Y’all remember that line drive from B.J. Upton I took off the ankle this year? Be glad I left the bandage on!!! Yuck!”

Any points Chipper lost for wearing an Affliction shirt during an interview in the playoffs have officially been earned back. We have shown you some horrible leg bruises in the past, but this one is easily the most gnarly we have ever featured. Injuries like this one will likely make Chipper glad he has decided to call it a career.

H/T Eye on Baseball

All the goodwill Chipper Jones built through his 19 years in the game went to crap with one single action. The former NL MVP and future Hall of Famer was seen wearing an Affliction shirt after the Braves were eliminated from the playoffs by the Cardinals on Friday.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the stigma of Affliction clothing, let me turn this one over to the always reliable Urban Dictionary:

Extremely overpriced brand of Graphic tee-shirts. Typically known as a status symbol among chads. If it’s a graphic tee you’re after, there are many FAR cheaper options that not only look better, but are less likely to cause others to associate you with douchebag status. It’s recommended that you avoid Affliction if you have any self respect whatsoever.

468 career home runs, .303 lifetime average, one MVP, a batting title, eight All-Star games, and one Affliction shirt. That’s the inscription that needs to go on his Hall of Fame plaque in Cooperstown.

Photo via @CJZero

How big of a deal was Chipper Jones’ last weekend for regular-season action at Turner Field in Atlanta? Enough to make one Braves fan claim she skipped a chemotherapy session to watch the franchise legend play his last regular-season game at home for the Braves.

Chipper Jones’ retirement tour has been a huge deal all season with the former MVP receiving gifts at nearly every stop. His impending retirement was enough to pack the house at Turner Field all weekend — no small feat.

Even though he went hitless the first two games of the series, Chipper went 1-for-2 with two walks in a 6-2 win on Sunday. Hopefully he made the fan’s missed session worthwhile.

UPDATE: A few people emailed in to inform us that the fan in question is Laura Stallings. You can read more about her story at this Facebook page.

Side note: What’s up with all the cancer-related signs at baseball games lately?

Photo via @hgielatan/Twitter

On one hand, the new one-game playoff system in baseball gives an additional team an opportunity to play for a World Series title. That certainly builds drama and suspense, but it also means two teams have only one chance to keep their championship hopes alive in a sport that is structured around series. This is the only year Chipper Jones will have to deal with the new format, but he’s not thrilled about it.

“I think it’s stupid, to be honest with you,” Jones said according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But Major Lague Baseball wants a bunch of teams in the playoffs. There’s nothing like cut-throat baseball for the fans. And people love that 163rd regular-season game. They’ve loved it in the past. I’m sure that’s probably what’s promoted a second wild-card team. I wish they would’ve done it a year earlier so we would have had a chance last year. But it is what it is.”

The Braves currently hold a six-game lead over the Cardinals in the wild card with 11 games remaining. They have a 7.5-game lead over the third-place Brewers, so it’s safe to say Atlanta is a lock for one of the spots. I tend to agree with Chipper that deciding a team’s fate based on one game after such an incredibly long season filled with series is unfortunate.

“That doesn’t seem fair because anything can happen (in one game),” he said. “Now if you were to say the two wild-card teams will play a best two-out-of-three (series), I’d be OK with that. We play three-game series all the time, and we concentrate on winning those series all the time. I think it’s more fair from a standpoint that anything can happen in one game – a blown call by an umpire, a bad day at the office … at least in a two-of-three-game series you have some sort of leeway.”

At the end of the day, the team who plays better will win. There are no second chances, which will make for great television ratings. For Major League Baseball, that’s all that matters.

Chipper Jones is trying to squeeze every last inch out of the final season of his 18-year MLB career. If that means joining the rookies and dressing up like a moron, so be it.  As you can see from the photo above that Braves pitcher Peter Moylan shared on Twitter, the Braves made their rookies dress up in dumb Halloween costumes recently and Chipper joined them.

Chipper is likely going to miss having fun with the young guys, so you can understand why he wanted to partake before he officially hangs up the spikes. I’m sure it helped that the Atlanta rookies got to wear fun “Dumb and Dumber”suits and dress up like Scooby Doo rather than being restricted by a leotard or parading around Times Square in a speedo.

H/T FairWeather Report