Chipper stands a step above them all

By Bud L. Ellis Chipper Jones debuted in the big leagues as a shortstop in1993 ATLANTA — In the spring of 1994, a 21-year-old converted shortstop found himself trying to make a major-league roster. At the same time, a 21-year-old college student found himself trying to make his mark as sports editor of his college newspaper. And on the airwaves that spring, a song worked its way toward the top spot on the charts. Whenever a radio station dials up one of those “90s Weekends,” it’s only a matter of time before the sounds of Counting Crows filters through the speakers, singing of “Mr. Jones and me …” That former shortstop, one Larry Wayne Jones Jr., would not make the Atlanta Braves’ opening-day roster, a knee injury suffered in March scuttling a season that would be shelved by a player’s strike five months later. A few blocks up Capitol Avenue from old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, this correspondent tried to wrap his arms around covering more than a dozen Division I sports for the weekly