{"id":1473,"date":"2012-06-06T13:46:49","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T19:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/?p=1473"},"modified":"2012-06-06T13:46:49","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T19:46:49","slug":"javy-lopez-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/2012\/06\/06\/javy-lopez-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Lopez reminisces about life Behind the Plate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Behind<\/a>Javy L\u00f3pez<\/a> looks forward to spending a couple of days in Birmingham this week, and not just because being back in town reminds him of the old days when he and the Greenville Braves<\/a> were beating the Barons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always did good against them, but there are a lot of Braves fans in Birmingham, no doubt,\u201d the three-time All-Star catcher said, anticipating a visit to Regions Park<\/a> to throw out the first pitch when the Barons host the Pensacola Blue Wahoos<\/a> at 7:05 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

The last time he played Birmingham was 1992, which he remembers as a very good year. \u201cWe were sick of winning that season,\u201d he said with a laugh by phone from his home in Suwanee, Ga<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finished 106-42, won the (Southern League<\/a>) championship, and then I got called up to the big leagues and went straight to the World Series.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez has detailed his meteoric rise from the minors in his new book, Behind the Plate: A Catcher\u2019s View of Braves Dynasty<\/em><\/a>. He\u2019ll greet fans and sign copies at Books-A-Million<\/a> in Brookwood Village<\/a> at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 6. The autobiography, compiled from interviews he did with sports journalist and Braves historian Gary Caruso<\/a>, was published in April by Triumph Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book is for my family, fans, and friends who have constantly been asking me to write it,\u201d L\u00f3pez said. \u201cEven my kids pushed me to do this. Fans who wonder what it takes to get to the big leagues and what occurs behind the scenes can find out, and my family can read it and learn a lot of things about me they didn\u2019t know. There are things in the book that I\u2019ve never talked about before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not, he added, that a reader has to be a baseball or Atlanta Braves fan to appreciate L\u00f3pez\u2019 story, which begins with how he learned to play baseball on a neighborhood basketball court in Puerto Rico and continues through a difficult language barrier and other struggles on his way to the major league record of 42 home runs in a season by a catcher. It also includes being named MVP of the 1996 National League Championship Series, playing on 11 of the Braves\u2019 14 straight division-winning teams, and how, after spending two seasons with the Orioles and Red Sox, he dealt with a failed comeback attempt with Atlanta four years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book can teach anybody what it takes to get what they\u2019re looking for in life,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was hard for me to make it. I had to go through a lot of barriers and overcome a lot. It wasn\u2019t easy to get to my goal, but what helped me get to it can help someone else get to theirs, whether they\u2019re a baseball or Braves fan or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez remains associated with the Braves organization and still has vivid memories of his first season on the roster. \u201cWhen I got called up, (Atlanta) was already on fire. The Braves had gone from worst to first the season before, and everybody was pumped up. That\u2019s what I came into as we were going into the World Series. Some guys play their whole careers and never make it to the playoffs. To go straight from the minors to the World Series was an amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

So was catching Kent Mercker<\/a>\u2019s no-hitter against the Dodgers in 1994.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez wasn\u2019t having a good day at the plate. Midway through the game, he was 0-4 and had struck out three times. \u201cI was so furious because I was struggling offensively that I didn\u2019t pay attention to what Kent was doing. It wasn\u2019t until the seventh inning that I realized, \u2018Wait a second. We\u2019ve got something going on here.\u2019<\/p>\n

He had one more at bat, a fly ball for an easy out. \u201cI didn\u2019t even care any more. All I wanted at that point was to get that no-hitter done.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez has filled his memoir with such stories and said that readers expecting accounts of contention and scandal are likely to be disappointed. \u201cFor some reason, people find controversy interesting, but this book is just good old baseball stories.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>

Former Atlanta Braves catcher Javy L\u00f3pez will be in town on Wednesday, June 6, to sign copies of his new book; he throws out the first pitch at the Barons game the following night. Buddy Roberts got a chance to catch up with him before he got into town. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43],"tags":[148,195,439,455],"class_list":["post-1473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-baseball","tag-book","tag-interview","tag-javy-lopez"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4PdO-nL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}