That's ... that's not good.

No wonder Chizik seemed a little bit more upset than the circumstances seemed to call for on Friday:

Auburn University tailback Eric Smith will surrender to Auburn police Monday in the wake of additional charges filed by the victim of an alleged, third-degree assault early Friday morning, the Opelika-Auburn News has learned.

A warrant for the arrest of Smith was issued Friday, according to the victim’s mother, Sandra Jenkins, and Assistant Auburn Police Chief Tommy Dawson. Smith’s attorney contacted the court and has made arrangements for Smith to turn himself in Monday, Dawson said ...

According to Alabama code, assault in the third degree is a Class A misdemeanor. The punishment for a Class A misdemeanor is not more than a $6,000 fine and one year in jail.

"Not more than" means neither of those options are realistic on the table (I'm fairly sure), but "third-degree assault" is a hell of a lot more serious charge than "disorderly conduct." I said that if the charges didn't go beyond the original arrest report that Smith wouldn't/shouldn't miss more than the Tech game, but now that they have ... well, we'll see.

I'm guessing, as I said before, that if Chizik had already made his mind up to give Smith the boot we'd know about it. But that's only a guess, and in any case, I don't think we'll be hearing from Smith again until that second-string tailback slot has long since been filled.

Assorted afternoon newslinks

Let's get this out of the way. Here's to hoping Eric Smith's timing in hitting the hole is better than his timing in getting freaking arrested. Eric, some of us are trying to get our holier-than-thou on out here, all right? This isn't helping.

Punishment depends on whether the details go any further beyond a quick round of wrasslin' or fisticuffs or whatever in the bar. If not, he misses the La. Tech game, and we move on.

Worth noting: I believe this to be Auburn's first player arrest of any kind in two years. All good things, I guess.

Running backs on the loose! OK, wait, I should probably change that after the item above ... but ah, screw it, that's the been the theme of a couple of stories this week as Andy Bitter's looked at the way Malzahn's offense will get its many playmakers on the field and Luper's talked up the backs as "a strong point for our football team." It's not a shock, of course, and it would be tough not to be a strong point on this team the way the LBs, secondary, receivers, etc. are shaping up, but if Luper's happy I'm happy.

Your most intriguing Luper quote comes from Bitter here:

"This offense will enable you to put Ben Tate, Mario Fannin, Kodi Burns, Onterio McCalebb all on the field at the same time."

Bitter's skeptical, but as a commenter points out, it's not hard at all in the Wildcat. And if Burns is at WR and McCalebb in the slot--not unimaginable--you could do it in what should be Auburn's base set. In any case, the point is this: for all the hand-wringing over the receivers, Malzahn does have some shiny toys he can play with.

The Low-down. As you've probably seen by now, Chris Low paid Auburn's camp a visit yesterday and today. There's his talk with Zimeba, his two-parter with Chizik, the "depth is a concern" overview, and the Niffer's corn nuggets shout-out.

The "overview" post mentions that Hawthorne and McNeil both aren't expected back until well into the season--it's the closest we've gotten to confirmation of that, I guess, but I wasn't expecting anything different. Low also dropped in that last post that an Auburn coach told him that Rollison is "exactly what you're looking for in this offense." Again: not news, exactly, but good to hear.

As for the Chizik interview, most of it's the same boilerplate we've been getting from Chizik since Day 1. (Which , you know, fine.) But his argument for closing practice is a bit sharper than we've heard before:

Things over the last few years have gotten so out of control with technology. It's changed the whole world. The world right now is different, so I do what I think is in the best interest of our football team at all times. That's our players. That's injuries. That's rumors. That's whatever gets out there. I want to be able to have control of whatever's out there. I still won't always have control, just like no coach has complete control. But to the best of my ability, I'm here to protect and do what I think is best for our players, and that's the bottom line. I don't close practices because I want to close practices. I close practice for a reason, because the people I need to be at practice are the ones I want to know what is going on in depth with Auburn football, and I don't need it in 200 chat rooms 15 minutes later.

Oh, coach ... trying to control the flow of information these days is like trying to hold back a river with a fishing net. But keep trying.

Look, I don't want to read about this. Andy Bitter's piece on John Sullen and his push for playing time is a good read, and if there's any freshman that would be able to handle the mental aspect of all his recent position-switching, I would hope it would be one who's supposedly got a good head on his shoulders.

But it's not really possible to read about your overweight true freshman project offensive lineman and how he's an injury away from starting and not get the heebie-jeebies. I mean, even his weight loss isn't an unambiguous positive:

It’s a balancing act for Grimes, who wants to get Sullen and Bostrom to a weight where they might be able to help Auburn’s depleted line this season. But he’s been informed by the team nutritionist that losing too much weight too fast could lead to pulled muscles and other injuries that would keep a player off the field.

“In an ideal world, you’re talking about redshirting and you’re taking that weight off in the course of six months,” Grimes said. “You try to get them into spring ball as quick as they can and take some more off, and you’re talking about them competing a year from now. But with the depth where it is, that’s where we are.”

The season seriously cannot get here fast enough.

Etc. Todd 2: The Toddening answers five quote-baiting questions without offering up anything too juicy ... I'm not sure whether anyone who hasn't worked at the sports desk will appreciate precisely how hysterical this is, but trust me: hysterical.

Paige denied, class of 2009 complete

Via Rivals and Beaver, Taikwon Paige has been denied eligibility by the NCAA Clearinghouse. He hopes to enroll in January.

With Paige's status squared away, you can close the book on Auburn's class of 2009. A few brief data points:

--Not including the late-arriving Aubrey Phillips, Auburn signed 28 players. Six of those players--Terrance Coleman, Josh Jackson, Izauea Lanier, Reggie Taylor, LaVoyd James, and Paige--failed to qualify. Add in baseball-bound signee Brandon Jacobs, and a full quarter of Auburn's class failed to make it to campus.

--Including "athletes" Demond Washington and Lanier, three of Auburn's five signees in the secondary failed to qualify.

--While this class won't do much to repair Tommy Tuberville's (or Auburn's) reputation for recruiting academic risks, the new staff didn't have any better luck--of the six academic failures, three were originally Tubby recruits and three were late additions by the new staff.

--Although still better than the 2007 class (in which more than a third of Tubby's 30 signees failed to enroll), the 7-to-28 ratio still represents a slight step back from the 2008 class, when 6-of-29 failed to qualify. (Several of those players, like Deron Furr and Raven Gray, didn't hang around for too long. But they did make it campus.)

As for the upshot of Paige's failure to qualify, well, at least it's not a surprise by this stage in the process. But obviously every body Auburn could have gotten its hands on in the secondary was a precious body after the rash of injuries, and Paige had enough experience and an endorsement from Roof to have been more than just a body. It's not the end of the world, but it hurts, and it'll hurt even more if Auburn suffers any more setbacks at corner.

Good news, everyone

So this past spring, Trooper Taylor didn't make much of a secret of the fact he wasn't totally enamored with the wideouts he'd been left from the previous regime. With Montez Billings out, Frenchy Pierre-Louis hobbled, Quindarius Carr getting compared to a limo panne d'essence*, and various other nagging injuries limiting Taylor's charges, Tim Hawthorne wound up just about the only wideout to receive consistent praise from their new position coach. It seemed likely that with Billings playing catch-up and DeAngelo Benton and Emory Blake coming in as true freshmen, talented as they might be, the safest bet for Auburn's No. 1 receiver in 2009 would be Hawthorne.

Naturally, Hawthorne broke his foot today and will be out at least four weeks but--knowing the tricky nature of foot injuries--quite possibly more. It seems likely he'll miss the beginning of fall camp at the very least, and if the injury robs him of the deep speed (such as it is) that's his best asset in this offense, possibly more.

It could be worse, as Aairon Savage would be happy to tell you. But it's sure ain't good, either.

*Milles Bornes reference is FTW, right?

Savage isn't coming back this year

Andy Bitter on Tommy Thigpen, Auburn safeties coach, and his evaluation of Savage's injury:

Thigpen did not consider Savage an option. While head coach Gene Chizik did not divulge the severity of the senior’s injury last month, Thigpen said it was a serious tendon injury.

“That’s going to be hard to come back from,” he said.

Bitter also referred to the injury as "likely season-ending." At his blog, he states point-blank that Thigpen "doesn't expect" Savage to return in 2009.

In short: whatever hope you might have been holding out that Savage could return this season, forget it. Maybe he has a miraculous recovery and is in shape for the last few gems of the season ... but even then, why waste what should be an obvious medical redshirt?

So attention T'Sharvan, Taikwon, D'Antoine, etc.: you guys better bring it.

Like flies

Charles Goldberg:

**AuburnSports.com is reporting this Wednesday that Andre Wadley and Da'Shaun Barnes are taking medical hardships and likely won't play college football. Neither played in a game for the Tigers. They both say they will remain in school. They don't count against the 85-player scholarship limit.

And so Auburn's depth chart threatens to reach critical mass, particularly at linebacker. With Marcus Jemison and now Barnes both departed from what was already the second-thinnest unit on the team, the two-deep is perilously thin: between Harris Gaston and Jonathan Evans, one freshman linebacker will step right into the two-deep while the other becomes the only scholarship linebacker left on the third team.

That's right, Auburn will have only seven scholarship linebackers this fall, eight if Dee Ford lands there rather than defensive end. I would say that qualifies as "likely" these days, but of course the loss of Wadley--while not surprising--means Auburn is a bit short at end as well. The guess here is that Ford is a linebacker for now, at least until he bulks up a bit into a size more defensive end-like.

Overall, the attrition level is getting downright uncomfortable. That's nine players now off the roster since the end of last season, not including the two guys who departed for the NFL or the still-in-news-limbo Aairon Savage. So it's not surprising there's some position'-switchin' going on: Goldberg's also reporting that T'Sharvan Bell has switched over to safety from corner. Not entirely surprising given that with D'Antoine Hood and Taikwon Paige (likely) at corner and McNeil and Etheridge both coming off of injuries, depth at safety is at even more of a premium right now than at corner. Still, here's a quick wager that poor Harry Adams finds himself back in the secondary by the end of fall camp.

One last thought: man, it would be nice if Auburn could avoid any surprises with the NCAA Clearinghouse. Gaston and Evans are already in, so that's comforting, but we're still waiting for a final word on (drum roll please) Daren Bates, Terrence Coleman, Josh Jackson, LaVoyd James, Izauea Lanier, Paige, and Demond Washington (who now also seems more likely to play corner rather than running back). James is widely believed to going JUCO and Lanier might be in trouble, but nothing's definite and the other five kids are (as far as I know) expected to make it across the finish line. Still, it's going to be a little tense until they do--particularly in the cases of Paige, Washington, and Coleman, whose purported ability to play immediately would be a boon.

Blecch: Savage (apparently) (may not be) done for the season

UPDATE: Hmmm, there may have been some gun-jumping involved there yesterday afternoon (and if that's the case, a bushelful of apologies). Paul Gattis caught up with Chizik last night before a speaking engagement and was told Savage's injury was "slight" and "not a big concern."

Now, I wouldn't put it past Chizik to soft-peddle things until there's some sort of 100-percent confirmed "he's not coming back" diagnosis--clearly, out of all the topics he hates to discuss with the press, injuries are the on he hates most of all--but certainly that's much more encouraging than the "news" we were hearing yesterday. Savage coming back (or barely being injured) won't do much for my credibility after the post below, but of course I'll gladly sacrifice that if it means Savage won't have to skip the bulk of the 2009 season.

UPDATE THE SECOND: AuburnUndercover reports that the injury is indeed to Savage's Achilles, but that it may not be a tear. Fingers crossed.

----------------

Way to harsh my summer mellow, Track 'Em:

Aairon Savage is out for the season, and maybe his career with a torn Achilles Tendon.

Auburn by Beaver posted something similar last night and just wrote the injury "has been confirmed." There's no link provided at either site, but I'm guessing there's something semi-official behind a paywall somewhere. In any case, both bloggers posting the same thing at almost the exact same time seems like waaaaaaaaay too much of a coincidence for thing not to have legs. And hey, as I type this, here comes Evan Woodbery with an official-official confirmation of "an injury," but no specifics.

Still, I think it's relatively safe to assume Savage is, unfortunately, done for the year. This has to be a terrible, terrible blow for Savage himself, who looked like a future first-day draft pick and the cornerstone of the AU secondary two seasons ago, and now faces an uphill battle to ever play again (assuming the torn Achilles report is accurate). Just an awful, awful bit of luck.

As for Auburn ... well, there are worse places on the team for this type of injury to strike. Walt McFadden and Neiko Thorpe had already become a solid pair of corners by the time last season ended, and between Taikwon Paige, T'Sharvan Bell, D'Antoine Hood, and maybe even Demond Washington, Auburn should be able to cobble together some measure of depth. Safety looks pretty similar--Etheridge and McNeil (assuming they're healthy) are entrenched as the starters, and Mike Slade and Christian Thompson showed in the spring that they might be ready for some extended burn.

However: the secondary as described above is good. A secondary where Aairon Savage is a third corner (or where he's bumped Thorpe to the third corner) and stands ready to move to safety is necessary has a chance to be great. This is a team that earned its 5-7 bona fides last year and can't really afford to lose All-SEC-caliber players at any position, regardless of the potential depth behind them. It's a tough, tough bit of news to swallow.

Profiles in Courage

I'm very, very sorry to have to post such a thing on this blog ... but we do all remember this, right?



That's the sort of thing we'd like to do, right? Not just the runaway beatdown part, the whole thing: a nationally televised, nationally-covered nonconference matchup in a neutral stadium in the middle of a recruiting hotbed only 120 minutes away from Auburn? Seems like about the most fun-n'-exciting possible way to kickstart the season that wouldn't involve the phrases "scantily-clad Salma Hayek" and "halftime entertainment."

I mean, it worked out pretty nicely for 'Bama, didn't it? This is the sort of action we'd love to get in on, right? If ABC tried to set us up with an opponent that would have to travel cross-country to be there, for a prime time showcase that could establish our up-and-coming bona fides to pollsters everywhere in 2010, we'd leap at the opportunity, wouldn't we?

No, according to the Los Angeles Times, we would not:

Efforts to match UCLA in a nationally televised game against Auburn to open the 2010 season fell apart when Auburn officials decided against the matchup, which was to be played in the Georgia Dome.

ABC was attempting to broker a deal for the game, which would have replaced one against Kansas State on the Bruins' schedule.

The game would have replaced the Arkansas State game on Auburn's schedule*.

There are, I suppose, arguments against the game. Auburn's already made a deal with Arkansas St. The 2010 schedule would only have seven home games. With a home tilt against Clemson already on the docket, Auburn would be playing two tricky BCS-level out-of-league games, and based on our experience with West Virginia and South Florida the past two years, that's at least one too many.

I'll just come right out and say this: I think each of those arguments are horse pucky. I don't care what Arkansas St. thinks if we pull out of the deal**. I know there would be some financial loss in losing a true home game, but the benefits are overwhelming, and as for Auburn's fans I can't think of one I know who'd be more excited for a home game against Arkansas St. than one vs. UCLA in the Georgia Dome. And if Auburn passed because they're genuinely worried that playing a UCLA team that flew across the country two hours from the Plains will make the nonconference schedule too difficult ... that's just sad.

I'd like to just straight-out scapegoat Fail Jacobs for this, but it's possible the decision was made in cooperation alongside others in the athletics administration and/or Gene Chizik. So I'll just address this to whatever person or persons was responsible for this decision:

You blew it.

UPDATE: Jacobs had this to say for himself:

"We talk every year with ESPN to help us get games. They helped us with Washington State, Kansas State; they had their hands in West Virginia. They are great partners and always helped us.

"We've told them, `We're going to play one BCS team a year, how can you help us?'"

One a year, huh? To that I have to say:



*This assumes the L.A. Times' information is correct. I don't see any reason to assume otherwise.

**The one argument I would be willing to listen to is if there's a contract signed between Auburn and ASU that gouges Auburn for some additional giant sum if they pull out. If that's not the case: BOOOOOOOO.

HT: the Good Doctor.

What I want to know is what special teams coach Jay Boulware has to say about this

Well, if he wasn't important enough to get his mugshot on the official site, what makes you think he was important enough to draw a scholarship, huh?

See, I'm confused. Do we--Auburn--give a crap about our special teams or not?

I was under the impression we do. I mean, we hired a dedicated special teams coach. We heard all the usual coachspeak about how important special teams are. Surely, surely, we've learned our lesson about that after losing to LSU three times in four years because of special teams cock-ups, right? And there's the old adage about the fastest way to improve a bad team being on special teams, right? And then there's the fact that the most special teams-mad head coach in the country has won two national titles in three years. So I thought we were in agreement on this: we think special teams are really important.

But then, see, today we find out that our very best returning special teams player was told to take a hike. The guy that landed us at 15th nationally in net punting, the guy that was one of the few precious things that actually went right during that godforsaken season, the guy who was the best player on the entire freaking team on more than one Saturday last fall ... that guy isn't worth one of 85 scholarships? Really? I mean, the very fact that Tubby promised him a scholarship makes it kind of the right thing to do, and then on top of that he's already one of the best (if not the best) punters in the league and is only going to get better from here ... and that's still not enough? Look, I know carrying two punters on scholarship is a less-than-ideal situation, but Shoemaker made all of one appearance last season and in that one appearance he cost us the game. There's so much uncertainty about next year's team. Shouldn't we have this one thing to hang our hat on?

I guess not. I guess I'm not really confused. Gene Chizik doesn't give a crap about special teams. There. That's simple enough.

Well, so much for that whole "sunshine" thing

Just minutes after I got a heads-up about it, Goldberg confirms: James Willis is on his way to Saban's staff to coach linebackers.

James, I gotta be honest with ya buddy ... you're dead to me. Raise or no raise, temporary unemployment or no temporary unemployment, years of loyal productive service or no years of productive service, you don't do this. You don't rejoin Auburn's staff, play the good soldier, and then bolt for Alabama two weeks before Signing Day when our school and our program--your school! Your program!--need you the absolute most. If you were that unhappy about not being immediately retained after the coaching hire, have the grace and integrity to say "No thanks, I'd rather move on" instead of putting a charade for a few weeks. There will be no sympathy, no "Godspeed" or well-wishing from this corner. You don't deserve any.

There are characters in various sci-fi and fantasy films who give up in the face of seemingly overwhelming evil and work with the bad guys because they "don't have any choice" or "what's the use in resisting?" As soon as I work through enough of my disappointment and rage to remember one specifically, Mr. Willis will have a new nickname.

UPDATE: Willis has released a statement, available here:

I'm excited about the opportunity to come and work with Coach Saban at the University of Alabama," Willis said in the statement. "He is one of the best defensive coaches in the game and this is a chance to gain some great experience and learn from the best. You don't get many chances like that in the coaching business. When you combine that opportunity with the history and tradition at Alabama, it was a decision that was best for me personally as well as professionally. I know my wife and the kids are as excited as I am to join Coach Saban's staff."

Look, you want to spin about how wonderful Saban is and how it's a good move for you for a professional and/or development standpoint, fine. But don't feed us that line of horse pucky about their "history" and "tradition" being a huge attraction when you've spent the last 20 of years of your life, no doubt, feeling and saying that that history and tradition adds up (or should add up) to--pardon my French--precisely d*ck.

Ramseywatch concludes

Charles Goldberg is relaying a report from Rivals that Chaz Ramsey has had a second back surgery and will accept a medical scholarship from Auburn, ending his football career.

Other than the further confirmation that Ramsey genuinely cares about his academics and likes Auburn as a school and a community, there are no positives.

Departures

This one hurts.



Not because of what it does to Auburn's linebacking corps, which was OK (if not great) even in Blackmon's absence this year, nor because I think it's not the best decision for Blackmon himself (which, given his apparent family-driven need to play for a paycheck, it probably is). It hurts because of the ifs. If he'd been able to stay healthy. If he'd had his head on straight long enough to stay out of Tubby's doghouse. If he'd been able to play more than two good games at a stretch and really give himself something to build on ... if, if, if he'd ever been able to just play, he'd have been an Auburn legend. And as long as he was in school, there was the chance those ifs could become whens. That won't happen now, and so the Little Ball of Hate hits the long road north with more ifs trailing behind him than any Auburn player I can think of. It's safe to say Blackmon's going to be remembered at Auburn for a long, long time, but for a kid who could have been remembered as the final All-American culmination, the definitive example, of Tubby's undersized-but-quick-and-hard-hitting defensive philosophies, being remembered as a cautionary tale just seems so, so hollow.

From Auburn's actual on-the-field standpoint, however, Blackmon's departure might not have even been the most damaging one reported yesterday, since Chris Slaughter has also hit the road. Commenter Alex P pointed out recently that even if Malzahn wants to throw deep on a regular basis, at the moment Auburn doesn't have the kinds of receivers that scream "legitimate deep threat." I responded that Auburn had one guy who could be coached into the sort of player that defenses would have to respect downfield: Slaughter, who showed against Ole Miss that he had some potential to be that bombs-away weapon Malzahn needs. Now? Uh ... Billings? Uh ... Hey, I hear Rueben Randle is coming for a visit!

Ryan Williams is also gone, which isn't surprising but is just one more blow to the depth of a secondary that really could use all the depth it can muster. All in all: yesterday was not a very good day on the roster front, that's for sure.

Powers declares

That noise you just heard was Auburn's run of delirious good fortune over the past few days going "splortch"*:

Auburn junior defensive back Jerraud Powers will turn pro a year early and will make himself available for the NFL draft in April. Auburn will acknowledge Powers' decision later today.

Well, nuts. Sucks for us, but it's still hard (for me, anyway) to hold much in the way of a grudge towards players who actually want to be paid real money for the tremendous investments they make in this sport in terms of both time and wear-and-tear on the body. That Auburn's undergoing such wholesale staffing changes only makes it more understandable. C'est la vie and godspeed, Jerraud, not that anyone is ever going to forget you as long as the Internet continues to exist:



On the practical side of things: depth will again be a primary concern, particularly given the transition to the no-huddle, but KNOCK ON EVERYTHING MADE OF WOOD IN THE ROOM if Thorpe and McFadden stay healthy and Savage can return to something approximating his level of play before his injury, corner probably won't be Auburn's biggest worry. If Marks and Powers are the only real defections that (sort of) result from the coaching change, Auburn will be getting off easy.

*Yes, splortch. That's the sound. No one will convince me otherwise.

Happy Trails

So, yeah, losing both Sen'Derrick Marks and Antonio Coleman to the draft sucks. (Yes, we're losing Coleman. You don't call a press conference celebration in front of all your friends and family back home to announce they're not going to be sharing in the million-dollar spoils of the NFL for another year.) They would have been awesome next season. Chizik needs all the help he can get. A defense with a Malzahn offense on the other side, let's be honest, probably needs all the help it can get, too.

But I wish Marks and Coleman nothing but the best. Not that anyone from Auburn is arguing either should stick around, but I always find it astonishingly easy for fans to say a certain player or two should remain for their senior season when leaving for the NFL represents something like a 3,567 percent raise. Let's say you love your job the way these players (we hope) love Auburn. How often are you going to turn down a 3,567 percent raise, especially if the job you'd be leaving for happens to be one you've had your eye on since you were a little kid, even if might not be quite as fun as your current job? My guess is that 3,567 percent is going to speak pretty loudly.

So the JCCW hopes Marks and Coleman rock the NFL's world--Marks, in particular, should be a very, very rich gentleman in the near future--and wishes them as much luck as they can stand.

Mike Blanc, Jake Ricks, Raven Gray, Antoine Carter? You guys are on the clock.

Thanks, Skip

I've spent a good chunk of this morning digging around YouTube and a handful of other video sites, searching for the right combination of search terms that would unlock one of two particular clips involving Skip Caray, the beloved Braves broadcaster who died in his sleep Sunday. I often see the word "beloved" tossed around in various tributes to public figures and sometimes wonder how "beloved," say, the local district attorney really was; in Caray's case, though, I know it's appropriate because I for one loved the hell out of him. No one I've heard was ever better at baseball. I'm not sure anyone I've heard has been better at any sport.

The clips I haven't been able to find would show why. The first was a staple of various baseball blooper specials or those "Not-So-Great Moments in Sports"-style videos that every kid I knew had three of. In it, the hapless early-80s Braves are facing the Giants on TBS, back at old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Jeffrey Leonard is at the plate for the Giants, one out, runner on first, top of the ninth, Braves ahead. As Leonard approaches, Caray reads off a promo for whatever movie TBS had reeled up to follow the game. Leonard stands in as Caray says "And we'll get you to that just as soon as Leonard hits into a 6-4-3 double play." Pitch. Grounder to short. "6," Caray says, as the ball is scooped and flipped to second. "4. 3!" Game over. And as best I recall--and I may be manufacturing this last bit wholecloth, but what if I am? Some of our idols deserve this sort of treatment--neither Caray nor his partner (safe to assume it was one of Ernie Johnson or Pete Van Wieren) make any nod to Skip's little crystal-ball moment. They just get on with the details of the Braves' record, the winning pitcher, the "X-runs, X-hits, X-errors" minutiae of the box score.

The whole thing lasts about 20 seconds or so. But it's everything that made Caray great in a nutshell: the professionalism that was never robotic, the humor that never drew undue attention to itself, the intuition about the game, that subtle love for his and my baseball team that never (well, rarely) blossomed into outright homerism.

On that last part, Caray could be forgiven, I think, in the early '90s, when the same Braves that had been Hammerin' Hank, Dale Murphy, and a collection of bad jokes for the better part of 20 years became the most consistent club in American sports virtually overnight. There were days late in the 1991 pennant race when those of us who had spent our formative years squirreling away Gerald Perry cards and practicing the Gene Garber windup in the backyard could read the NL West standings and feel like we'd dropped into some parallel universe we'd be whisked away from at any moment. When Brian Hunter popped up with the bases loaded to bring Frankie Cabrera (Francisco freaking Cabrera! It's been 16 years, and I still can't believe it) to the plate with two outs and the Pirates up a run in Game 7 of the '92 NLCS, the wormhole that would bring us all back the Braves' old 100-loss reality seemed to be closer than ever.

Then, of course, Cabrera singled, Bream ran the fastest 90 feet of his entire molasses-paced life, and you know the rest. I wish like hell I'd been listening to Skip at the time; my Dad and I discussed muting the TV and clicking on the radio (as we did for Auburn's road games to listen to Jim Fyffe), but we worried about a lag and got Sean McDonough's TV call (weirdly available 15 seconds in here) instead. McDonough did a fine job, but there was still a sharp pang of regret when I heard Skip's call on SportsCenter the next day: his "Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!" had an edge that went far beyond simply telling the listener the good news--it was the voice of our collective amazement. Skip was telling us the wormhole was still closed, that he was as stunned as the rest of us that this star-crossed, snake-bitten baseball team would play for a world championship for a second year in a row.

Braves win. It didn't make any sense. Baseball usually does, and that's how Skip Caray called it, brilliantly, day-in and day-out for as long as I've been alive. But I thank him, now and years from now, for recognizing that singular moment in which the Braves and sense weren't even sharing the same galaxy.

It's not embeddable, but you can hear Skip's call of Bream coming home at the end of a brief tribute clip here. If you have the slightest drop of Braves fandom in your blood, I suggest you listen.

Condolences and prayers also extended to the Tide community in the wake of John Mark Stallings's passing.