Chipper Jones has joined the ESPN family. According to Carroll Rogers Walton of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Atlanta Braves legend and Baseball Hall of Famer has been hired by the four-letter network to be a color analyst for the show Wednesday Night Baseball. He will replace David Ross who has been hired to be the manager of the Chicago Cubs.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but if I hadn’t played baseball, if I had gone to college, I would have majored in communications,” Jones said who was the No. 1 overall pick of the draft by the Braves in 1990. “I wanted to be a broadcaster. I really have fun talking the game. I feel like I have something to impart upon the people tuning in, and I have fun doing it. I get the chance to do it on probably the biggest stage you can, maybe next to ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ (on ESPN).”
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Jones has little experience in broadcasting as he called one game for ESPN last year and one Braves game for Fox Sports South which was also last year. It looks like ESPN loved what Jones brought to the table.
“If I had to sit in the ESPN booth and talk about religion or politics or astrophysics, obviously I would be out of my element,” Jones said. “But this is something that I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve stood 60 feet, 6 inches from the best in the world, and I’ve played third base for two decades, and I have a lot of input and a lot of knowledge on the subject. I know it takes a little something to be able to get your point across, but that doesn’t intimidate me.
Jones continued: “I’m not going to sit here and say that my way is the way, but I feel like I can do a lot like Smoltzy (John Smoltz) and Glav (Tom Glavine) and Frenchy (Jeff Francoeur) and those guys, who have become pretty good at their craft in trying to get across what it’s like to be in the game.”
Jones was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018 after spending his entire career with the Braves. He recorded a .303 batting average, 468 home runs, 1,623 RBIs and 2,726 hits in his 19 seasons in Atlanta.
