This week's TheFletch.

Enjoy!

Disagreement in the AJC’s sports department and a 790 The Zone host wants the Falcons to ban contact with a former player. It was a busy week in the Atlanta sports media last week. At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, when Fredi Gonzalez was fired from the Florida Marlins two opinions went up on the paper’s website almost instantly and the opinions were certainly differing. Jeff Schultz was loudly calling for the Atlanta Braves and Frank Wren to bring the former Braves coach in immediately in some sort of capacity as an advisor or extra bench coach or anything. Schultz clearly has thrown his hat in the ring of Fredi Gonzalez as next manager of the Atlanta Braves and he wanted the team to lock up Gonzalez as he was afraid some other team (The Baltimore Orioles?) might swoop in and gobble him up before Atlanta could get him signed to take over for Bobby Cox at season’s end. Meanwhile the AJC’s Braves beat writer Dave O’Brien seemingly shot back that a move that Schultz was suggesting was not needed. DOB seemingly feared that such a move would insult Terry Pendleton and/or Eddie Perez, two guys currently on Cox’s staff that many people feel will get a real look at the skipper post when Bobby hangs up No.6 at the end of the season. DOB suggested that maybe, if Gonzalez IS the choice of the brass, they get together for a meeting to talk about a mutual interest, if there is one, and just decide to do things at the end of the season, not during the season.

Personally, I am more in the camp with DOB. That isn’t a distraction you need right now. We found out with the Chipper Jones situation a few weeks back that the team doesn’t really want distractions about next season to potentially unhinge what this team has going on right now. If Gonzalez is the guy, talk to him but don’t alert the media to the meeting, and if Gonzalez is willing to wait, you hold off and give Cox his final ride with zero distractions and then a few days after the final Cox press conference, you have your Gonzalez conference. If he is the guy and really wants the job, that isn’t too much to ask for that he sit on the announcement.

On a recent Saturday edition of Brandon & Woolvey on Sports Radio 790 The Zone, Brandon Adams called for Atlanta Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff, head coach Mike Smith and owner Arthur Blank to call Falcons wide receiver Roddy White into the team headquarters in Flowery Branch and demand that the 1000-yard receiver break off all communication with Michael Vick. The former Falcons quarterback was in the news once again after someone was shot at a Virginia Beach birthday party thrown in his honor. Vick and White were both in the area, having worked at a youth camp earlier that day, and police admit that Vick had left the scene before they arrived and they would not seek out Vick as a person of interest in the investigation. Adams was arguing that White is too valuable to the Falcons to get caught up in a dangerous situation with Vick, who for whatever reason cannot leave his Virginia roots behind. On Score Atlanta Sports Sunday last week, I defended Adams’ comments as my co-host Brian Jones was saying that you cannot tell someone not to be friends with another person. I agree with Adams in that White is technically your property and you can put clauses into a contract that can prevent that person from doing things like riding a motorcycle, why not who you can associate with as well? I cannot totally back Adams because this isn’t China; I believe White should be allowed to work with Vick on things like charities and youth camps, but how about White invites Vick to his turf instead of the other way around. That way White could stay away from the Virginia riffraff and control the situation where they work together. No hanging out, but working together on camps would be fine with me.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised recently when listening in the morning to the local sports stations. I’ve been known to carp in this column about the two stations re-airing interviews in the morning after the listeners had just heard the interviews live the day before. Once again, if it is a huge interview, i.e. the first Michael Vick interview after he was out of prison, that is one thing, but when the stations aired interviews of random website bloggers that no one had ever heard of, that got to be a little crazy. Anyway, the last few days (and I am sure that I am jinxing it by writing this) 680 The Fan has been running live interviews now in the 6 o’clock hour. Jamie Dukes appeared this past Monday to discuss the Vick party as well as Roethlisberger and Albert Haynesworth situations. It was nice to hear a live interview with an interesting person instead of a canned interview that once again, I heard the day before. After each live interview, I flipped over to 790 and sadly, The Zone was still airing reruns. I like Nic and Chris in the morning and Steak always brings a strong opinion but I wish I could hear them instead of an interview the Two Live Stews had done the day or two before.

Finally in this week’s installment of “Do you listen to what you are saying David Pollack?”, after Mike Bell of 790’s Pollack & Bell was blasting the Knicks, Bulls and Heat for wanting to acquire the all-star Chris Bosh, Pollack nearly made me drive off of the road. Bell rhetorically asked “What has Chris Bosh ever done?” Pollack, seemingly offended by the question, responded with “what has LeBron James ever done?” Huh? You mean other than win the last two MVP awards? Pollack went on to explain that James hasn’t had the postseason success that Kobe has and has been about on par as Bosh has with the Raptors. I am not a huge LeBron fan (I fall into the Kobe camp here on the great debate: who is better?) but I at least acknowledge that he is far and away better than Bosh seeing as how he’s won the last two MVP awards.

Can you believe he said that?
“Because if he keeps hitting like he's been hitting, this erstwhile lock for Rookie of the Year is little more than the waste of a valuable roster spot.” ESPN’s Rob Neyer realizes that Jason Heyward is hurting and was placed on the DL a few hours after this blog was posted on ESPN.com, but wow. I remember just a few weeks ago ESPN was running an E:60 piece on him and now he’s wasintg a valuable roster spot. Sorry Jason, apparently ESPN has already moved on to Stephen Strasburg.