By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Babe Ruth. Ted Williams. Nolan Ryan. Chipper Jones. Frank Robinson. Rod Carew.

Do any of those names feel out of place with the rest? None should. They are all, as of July 29^th, Hall of Famers. First ballot Hall of Famers, in fact – and all deserving. But seeing Chipper’s name among those legend is a bit surreal.

And to reiterate my point, he absolutely deserves it. Anyone who watched him play knew he was a Hall of Famer years before he hung up his cleats for good. It’s no surprise that he was voted in, or that he was voted in first ballot, or that he got as high as 97% of the vote on that first ballot. The guy was as all-time great, and everyone knew it.

You’ve seen the numbers. You’ve seen the resume. Top ten in this, top ten in this, top ten in this. The numbers he put up in his 19 years as a big leaguer were getting him in.

Plus, he was one of the few (one of the last?) players to retire having played their entire career with one team.

Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter are going to follow him in 2019 and 2020. Chipper was a lifelong Brave and that was just as special as his numbers.

I wonder if watching him play every night for all those years is what makes his induction so strange. Hall of Famers are to be revered and while I have always admired and respected and even been in awe of Chipper’s talent, he never had that ‘legendary’ aura to me.

Maybe it’s because I got to see him interviewed on Braves Live every few days, or because Fox Sports South won’t stop replaying that episode of Driven about him, or maybe even because he laughed at a stupid joke I made when he signed my baseball bat a decade ago; he was a consistent part of my life for years and so it’s surreal to see his name among those greats. He’s just our Chipper, after all.

I wonder as well if kids who just recently started watching baseball will see him go in and it seem completely normal. They’ve heard about how great he was, they can look up his stellar numbers and agree with the consensus that he belongs in the hallowed grounds of the Hall. Anyone who started watching baseball in 2013 and anyone who watches baseball from now on will just think of Chipper Jones as a legendary ballplayer, a Hall of Famer who rightfully went in on his first shot. And they’re right. He is those things.

He’s also our guy, our family member getting a prestigious award. Everyone claps and applauds for the accomplishment because everyone claps and applauds for the accomplishments because they dictate that he is deserving. I will clap and applaud for the guy I spent so much of my time with for more than a decade because I saw him earn it.

Maybe what I’m trying to get at here is that I’m actually proud of him. I’m not proud of Derek Jeter, even though I think he’s one of the great shortstops of all time and will deserve his probably record-breaking vote percentage. Why would I be? He isn’t my guy the way Chipper is.

And Chipper definitely is, more than Maddux or Glavine or Smoltz was, even more than Bobby, I think. Being that, being my guy, being our guy, makes this surreal, and strange and absolutely deserved, and absolutely wonderful.

Congrats Chipper. We knew you could do it.