C.J. Nitkowski loved the years he spent in the Rangers’ television booth. His entire family developed a strong bond with his broadcast partner Dave Raymond, and he experienced the thrill of seeing the team win a World Series last year.

But it’s hard to beat the comforts of home.

So, when the Braves came calling this past fall, the suburban Atlanta resident jumped at the opportunity to become a fixture in the Braves’ television booth. He’ll be filling the analyst role that opened when Jeff Francoeur opted to spend more time with his family. 

“This is going to be amazing,” Nitkowski said. “I was spending an average of 125 days a year on the road. That’s a year, every three years, that I was gone. So, it’s going to be great being here.”

Nitkowski’s 10-season big league career included a short stint with the Braves in 2004. Yet, when it came time to retire, the New York native decided to raise his family in Atlanta. He quickly rose through the media world and joined the Rangers’ TV booth in 2017. His hope of gaining the same role in Atlanta seemed to fade when Francoeur became the Braves’ primary TV analyst before the 2019 season.

It was easy to assume Francoeur would fill this role for decades. But without any prompting, Francoeur went to Nitkowski in 2022 and told him there was a chance he would be stepping away to spend more time with family. This was the first of many signs folks in Atlanta wanted Nitkowski in the role if it opened.

When last winter passed without any change, Nitkowski assumed Francoeur had changed his mind. But hope was rekindled in September, when John Smoltz called Nitkowski to tell him there would likely be an opening. Smoltz added that he would call Braves president and CEO Derek Schiller and tell him Nitkowski would be the perfect fit. 

Braves radio broadcaster Ben Ingram and Francoeur both called with similar messages over the next couple of weeks.

“It was overwhelming,” Nitkowski said. “It’s like anything, you do your job and hope to do it well. To have some guys you respect and some big names in Braves broadcasting reach out and tell you, 'Something is going to happen and I think you need to be involved,' was special.”

Nitkowski’s anxiety grew when he didn’t hear anything over the next few weeks, but he later appreciated Schiller’s choice to halt his pursuit until the Rangers completed their bid for a World Series title. 

Once Nitkowski accepted the offer, he and his wife, Megan, were thinking, “Is this really happening?”

“We knew it seemed so far-fetched,” Nitkowski said. “Everybody has been great. We have just been overwhelmed.”

Nitkowski played for eight clubs during his MLB career and then spent time playing in Japan and Korea. Stability is something his wife and three kids haven’t experienced much of during the baseball season.

This year will be different, as Nitkowski teams with Brandon Gaudin in the Braves’ broadcast booth. Home will be just a short drive away after home games. And Francoeur’s desire to still do about 30 games this year will allow Nitkowski more opportunities to spend time with his family. His 15-year-old son Luke is a promising baseball player for Creekside High School. His oldest son Matthew has graduated college, and his daughter Brooke is working toward her undergraduate degree.

“When I was gone doing Rangers games, I was gone,” Nitkowski said. “So the idea of playing tennis with my wife in the morning or spending more time with the kids, this is going to be amazing.” 

Who has the most multi-homer games for the Braves since the start of the 2010 season?

A) Freddie Freeman
B) Ronald Acuña Jr.
C) Matt Olson
D) Ozzie Albies

Nitkowski is from Suffern, N.Y., the same hometown as Braves bench coach Walt Weiss.

“I will never be the biggest guy from my small hometown,” Nitkowski said.

Andruw Jones would have been elected to the Hall of Fame before Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz had he simply decided to retire after the 2007 season, when he was still just 30.

Ridiculous? Maybe. But so too is the fact that the best defensive center fielder of all time still isn’t in the Hall of Fame.

Jones received a vote on 61.6% of the ballots cast this year. At some point over his final three years of eligibility, he’ll likely receive the 75% needed to be elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame. But the wait won’t be fun. Just ask Billy Wagner, who fell five votes shy of election this year.

Trevor Hoffman is a Hall of Famer and Wagner is still waiting. That is definitely ridiculous. But Hoffman has all those saves, right?  Seriously, how can we not understand that we once placed too much value on pitching wins while still overvaluing save totals?

Back to Jones. Had he retired after the 2007 season, he would have had 368 home runs, 10 Gold Glove Awards and 61 career WAR. Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez were the only players who had produced a higher WAR than Jones over the previous 10 seasons.

Isn’t a decade of excellence enough?  Sure, Jones didn’t hit 400-plus homers over those 10 years. But Sandy Koufax had collected just 165 wins and 2,396 strikeouts when he retired at the age of 30 with 53.1 WAR.

So, it’s not ridiculous to think Jones might have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer had he retired at 30. Had he done so, he’d have been elected in 2013, one year before Glavine and Maddux and two years ahead of Smoltz.

A. Freeman

Freeman leads the way with 17 and Acuña ranks second with 13. Both could soon be passed by Matt Olson, who has tallied 10 multi-homer games through just two seasons with Atlanta.

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