A rude welcome

Braves, boobirds make Glavine's return a rough one

ATLANTA -- As follow-ups go, this one ranks somewhere below the Monkees' 1997 Reunion Tour and just above Weekend at Bernie's II. Maybe just above.

It wasn't that Tom Glavine was absolutely terrible in his return to Turner Field on this sunny Saturday afternoon.

OK, OK. So maybe he was.

But you have to give Glavine this much: The Atlanta Braves, the guys Glavine faced Saturday, are awfully good right now. Awfully good.

However you look at it, things did not go anywhere near the way Glavine had hoped they would on his return to the city where he spent 16 mostly great years. The New York Mets' new ace didn't get out of the fourth inning. He gave up a lot of hits -- a lot of hard hits -- and he gave up too many runs, and by the time Mets manager Art Howe mercifully pulled him, one out into the fourth inning, it was already way too ugly.

There were the boos, too, from the Atlanta crowd. Plenty of them. Some of the more vocal fans yelled, "Traitor!" One young fan pasted Glavine's mugshot onto the front of a dollar bill.

But there were also cheers. Lots of them, too. Glavine won 242 games with the Braves. He was a key member in the Braves' run of 11 straight divisional titles. As Atlanta's Chipper Jones pointed out, he is as responsible for that as anyone. So it was that many in the holiday crowd of 40,000-plus at Turner Field chose to remember the good Glavine rather than the guy who jumped to New York in the offseason for a three-year, $35 million bonanza.

And if you think the crowd was a little conflicted, just consider Glavine. He had to find the right parking lot. He was seeing the visitors' clubhouse for the first time. He warmed up in the wrong bullpen.

"Everything about it, coming from the other side, was different," he said.

For the fans, it was weird seeing the rangy lefty in that ugly orange warm-up. It was weird seeing him walk out to the mound for the bottom of an inning for the first time in Atlanta.

It all was doubly weird for Glavine.

"There are certainly games that have a different feel to them," he said. "Today was probably no different than walking out there for a World Series game."

It had to be exciting, too, facing his ex-team, the team with the best record in baseball. But because there was so much more to this game than that -- the ugly offseason breakup, the return to Atlanta, facing ex-teammates Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones and his longtime catcher, Javy Lopez -- it was all overrun by the weirdness.

Glavine's first pitch to Atlanta leadoff man Rafael Furcal was low and away, just the thing he lived on for so long here and just what the Braves were expecting. Still, Glavine's first half-inning went by in a snappy seven pitches, with only a harmless single to Gary Sheffield to blemish it.

"After that first inning," said Glavine, who admits to a little nervousness before every start, "I felt like, 'OK. Everything's fine.'"

But then Andruw Jones took a high changeup and blasted it 409 feet to left center in the second inning for a home run, and in the third, Glavine gave up two more runs, starting off by allowing a leadoff triple to Atlanta pitcher Horacio Ramirez. Then in the fourth, everything fell apart.

Glavine threw a sinker somewhere around Lopez's shoetops, and he golfed it over the 400-foot mark in straightaway center. Furcal doubled to right, his second double off Glavine. And before anyone knew it, Glavine was gone.

By the time it ended, the Braves had won 10-4, the Mets had fallen 11 games back in the National League East and Glavine had dropped to 5-4, with his ERA bouncing to 4.05. His line for the day: 3 1/3 innings, six runs, eight hits (five for extra bases), two walks and no strikeouts.

To be fair, this was not typical Glavine. A blister that has bothered him since the second half of last season reappeared between the first and second innings. By the time he was pulled, it was in full blossom.

"His heart," manager Howe said afterward, "got in the way."

During the offseason, torn between signing Glavine and Greg Maddux, the Braves tried only meekly to keep Glavine -- at least in Glavine's mind. That left him hurt and stunned. "I never thought I would play for someone else," he said at the time.

But earlier this weekend, Glavine said all that was behind him. He said he holds no grudges. It does not bother him, he insists, that the Braves are still winning while the $170 million Mets flounder near the bottom of the division.

"I don't have the time for it," he said. "I don't have time to put myself in that spot, to figure out 'Whose fault was it? Why did it happen?'"

He still has to pitch. He still is aiming for 300 wins. If his blister doesn't prevent it, Glavine will start again Friday. In Shea Stadium. Against the Braves.

It won't be nearly as weird, he figures.

But it won't be any easier, either.

Return Engagements
How longtime aces fared against former teams in their first start as vistors:
Pitcher, Team	Opp.	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	HR	Result
Tom Glavine, NYM	ATL	3.1	8	6	6	2	0	2	Loss
Bartolo Colon, CWS	CLE	6.0	6	2	2	3	6	0	ND
Curt Schilling, ARI	PHI	6.0	5	3	3	2	6	1	ND
Mike Mussina, NYY	BAL	7.0	6	1	1	2	3	0	Win
Randy Johnson, ARI	SEA	9.0	8	0	0	0	10	0	Win
Pedro Martinez, BOS	MON	6.0	6	4	4	2	10	0	Loss
Roger Clemens, TOR	BOS	8.0	4	1	1	0	16	0	Win

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.

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