A National Talk Show

The way Chipper Jones sees it, the objective in the National League’s championship series is to “go out, keep our mouth shut and play the game.” Nice idea, but with Bobby Valentine involved, who’s going to keep his mouth shut?

Not Valentine, of course--and probably not Jones, try as he might.

The first pitch in the battle between the Eastern Division rival Atlanta Braves and New York Mets won’t be thrown until tonight, but it’s already dissolved into a tabloid-titillating verbal skirmish, largely involving Valentine, the Mets’ manager, and Jones, Atlanta’s third baseman.

At question is who respects whom, which is enough to make Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox gag.

“That lack-of-respect angle is a joke,” Cox said as his team worked out Monday. “I don’t know where that came from. The Mets have a great team and have our respect. You better respect anybody in the playoffs.”

Where it came from is Valentine’s stated interpretation that Jones and other Braves proclaimed the Mets dead after New York had lost seven in a row during the last two weeks of the season, five of six to Atlanta; that there were flippant remarks by Jones and closer John Rocker regarding their hatred of all things New York, and that Jones, reacting to the taunting of Shea Stadium fans as the Braves won two of three there during the last week of the season, insulted the Met partisans when he suggested that “they go home and put on their Yankee T-shirts.”

“A pretty mature statement,” a sarcastic Valentine said in the aftermath of the Mets’ division series victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks and just one of several digs.

Such as wondering if the Braves had ever played ghosts back from the grave before.

Such as noting of Jones, “I think he was very confident that he wouldn’t have to deal with the [Shea] fans again this year. Guess what, he’s going to have to deal with them again this year.”

Responding to all of that on Monday, Jones said he didn’t take it personally.

“If you’ve got to motivate your club, you’ve got to motivate your club,” he said of Valentine’s probable intent. “He’s doing his job as manager. You always say things in the heat of battle that maybe you don’t mean. I have the upmost respect for their ballclub. At that particular time [during the last week of the season], what I said was more a shot at their fans than their ballclub. Bobby can turn it around any way he wants. The last thing I want to do is get in a newspaper war with Bobby Valentine.”

The war has started, though, and isn’t likely to end easily.

There was Rocker on Monday, lobbing another grenade, citing the Mets’ talent and saying he “was really shocked to see how they had to squeak into the playoffs,” and there was a sarcastic Valentine responding by saying, “Well, I guess he’s a pretty good talent evaluator and feels we underachieved.”

There was Valentine, asked why there’s such animosity between the teams, saying, “Our guys are loving, caring, good fellas who just love to play the game. I don’t think there’s any animosity on our side, nor have we shown them anything but respect. We think they have a great club and we love to compete against them.

“We’ve taken exception to a few of the little things they’ve said and done, but that happens, and I don’t think any of those little things have taken the forefront in the minds of our guys. The competition is what’s at hand. They’ve been the champs and are the champs, and we’re trying to take it away.”

To do that, of course, the Mets have to do a better job on Jones than they did in that three-game Atlanta sweep during the second-last week of the season. Jones hit four home runs to all but wrap up the National League’s award for most valuable player and virtually eliminate the Mets from a division race that the Braves won for an eighth consecutive year.

That was then and this is now. The Houston Astros pitched around Jones in the division series and Brian Jordan made them pay.

Said Valentine, “I always feel that when you have a super talent, and Chipper is a super talent, that one of the great things you want to do is get the guys out in front of him and behind him because it’s almost impossible to shut down a player of his talent.

“I guess what I’m saying is that we’re not just playing against Chipper Jones. I saw the [Houston] series and the series at the end of the year [against the Mets] and I didn’t see Chipper doing all the damage. I saw people pitching to him and getting him out. I don’t think he’s going to be as magical ever again as he was in that one series, but then I don’t think anybody could be.”

The Braves won nine of 12 regular-season games from the Mets, but the Mets believe they are a different team now--looser, more relaxed, having won seven of their last eight under pressure.

“They’ve come back from the dead, and here they are,” Jones said of the Mets’ revival. “We’ve been the two best teams in the National League all year, and this is the way it should be. I mean, both expected the season to end this way and both have got what they wanted.”

The reality, of course, is that there is much more at stake than respect for both Bobby Valentine and Chipper Jones, who can be sure he won’t be getting any when this series moves to Shea Stadium on Friday.

The Met fans, he said, are the rudest, sparing no one--mother, wife, kids.

“I always feed off the crowd,” he said. “If somebody gets behind me, obviously that makes me want to do well for them. If somebody gets on me, it makes me mad and want to do something to shut them up. It works both ways, and if those Met crowds can’t get you up, no one can.”

Jones and the Braves, of course, hope they hear the same passion at Turner Field, but the division series failed to produce sellouts, Atlantans perhaps having become spoiled by success.

“That was awfully disappointing,” Jones said. “We have an exciting team, a blue-collar team, and we deserve to have the support of fans. I know the ticket prices are pretty high and the concession prices are pretty high, but if people are taking it for granted that we’re going to the World Series, the Mets may have something to say about that.”

The Mets’ manager will definitely have something to say. Bulletin board fodder? The Atlanta manager shook his head.

“I don’t put anything up on our board,” Cox said. “I don’t care what anybody says. You either come to play baseball or to talk. You better come to play baseball.”

Let that be the last word.

*

ATLANTA BRAVES

Greg Maddux (19-9, 3.57 ERA)

vs.

NEW YORK METS

Masato Yoshi (12-8, 4.40 ERA)

PIAZZA PROBABLE

With reduced swelling and pain in his left thumb, Met catcher Mike Piazza, who missed the final two games of the division series with Arizona, said he expected to be behind the plate tonight. Page 6

SERIES CAPSULE: Page 6