I’m going to be honest with you: I am horrible at identifying baseball players when they’re not in uniform. Absolutely awful.
I was once at a hotel where a baseball team was staying once and a bunch of them were down in the bar. I knew they were ballplayers and I knew what team they were on but I could not put names to most of the faces apart from a couple of super obvious cases. Ballplayers -- except for the super famous ones -- all sorta look alike to me, at least when they’re wearing street clothes.
Which is to say that I have no small amount of sympathy for the security guy at CoolToday Park, the spring training home of the Atlanta Braves, who was somehow unable to identify the second most famous living Atlanta Brave, Chipper Jones:
Chipper showed up today, security guard stopped him and said he didn't have a credential. He smiled, said, "No, but I'm on one of the banners." Security guard asked his name. He said, "I'm Chipper Jones." And the guy apologized profusely. Chipper laughed, told him no problem.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) March 6, 2020
I’d probably have at least some issue telling Jeff Blauser apart from Greg Olson if they weren’t in uniform, but I’d like to think that I’d not have any trouble identifying Chipper Jones. Still, for reasons stated, I’m not gonna throw stones here. I will give Chipper credit for being chill about it, though.
