ajc: Moore: Aaron recalls making call on Chipper (RR)

This reminds me of Michael Burke and George Steinbrenner haggling over The Stadium frieze idea.

Cox looked perplexed when informed of Aaron’s remarks, saying, “Well, we had a lot of people see (Van Poppel), and they liked him. Some other [Braves scouts] went to see Chipper, and they liked him a lot. I can’t remember if I had Hank talk to Van Poppel’s father or not, but [Van Poppel] was unsignable. And we needed to know that beforehand. So that’s why it really was an easy decision to take Chipper. He wanted to sign. He wasn’t playing games with the college thing. It was simple. I mean, Chipper was the guy.”

Was he?

Aaron forced a chuckle. He mentioned how Poppel was taken 13 picks after Jones, played for six different teams and retired with a 40-52 record and 5.58 ERA. “The kid never did anything, and that’s who Bobby wanted,” Aaron said. “But every time you listen, it’s always like, ‘Oh, yeah. We always wanted to sign Chipper Jones.’ The only reason they didn’t take Van Poppel was because of what I told them about what his daddy told me.”

If this sounds like a conflict between Aaron, now the Braves senior vice president, and Cox, now the Braves field manager, well, you make the call. Said Aaron of his relationship with Cox, “I just talk to him, you know. What bothers me is that when he became general manager [in 1985], there absolutely was no connection between the two of us.

“Here I am the farm director, and we have a bad ball club, and it seems like he would talk to me about the kids we have in the minor leagues. It didn’t happen.”