ATLANTA — The lead-in to this spring — an undervalued sports season — has been, um, unsettling.
Within four days in March, the Atlanta market had two cornerstone athletes removed. Franchises are built like Jenga towers. Take out a Freddie Freeman here and a Matt Ryan there, and it all falls down.
Baseball, whose reigning champion resides nearby, got spring all wrong. The year began with the game in lockout while threatening to perform an amputation in installments on its regular-season schedule. All over issues that seemed oh-so important to anyone who can hit a 98-mph pitch but otherwise weren’t going to fill anyone else’s gas tank. Workers unite for a better pre-arbitration bonus pool!
