I know how you kids love the long-running features (like the pretend TV show Andy is foisting on us every Tuesday), so I’m starting one of my own. If the Atlanta Braves insist on publishing the Chip Caray Crapfest “Chip’s Corner” on their Web site, I’m going to run my own feature, “Scooping Out Chip’s Corner” in which I rebut our mono-browed buddy.

I consider it my little contribution to society. That and spreading the joys of syphillis to the masses.

That didn’t come out right.

Anyway, Chip’s first column appeared yesterday with the brilliantly concieved headline “Great to be here.”

I’m sure that took him all of four hours to come up with.

OK, let’s dig in.

Ah, spring! There’s nothing like this time of year, especially for baseball fans. Spring represents a new beginning, a fresh start and wonder and hope for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Challenges and opportunities? For Chip this means trying to make it through April without blowing his per diem on comic books and lollipops.

After seven great years with the Cubs, I am so pleased and humbled to be asked to rejoin my dad, Skip, as well as Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton, Joe Simpson and the great folks at TBS and WGST in the broadcast booth this season.

Seven great years? More like one honeymoon year and six years of Bataan Death March torture. The only upset was that another team acutally wanted him. I’m pretty sure Chip was the assclown to be named later in the Juan Cruz trade.

I always wondered what it would be like to work with dad on a full-time basis. We did some radio games together in 1991, when I was just beginning to work in baseball. Now, at the ripe old age of 40, to get to spend more time with my dad — my hero — is really something I am going to treasure.

I believe that Chip really is going to treasure doing games with his dad. I’m not so sure dad is going to feel the same way. The best part is that most Braves fans drive cars with Confederate flags on them and when they leave the house to go to “rallies” their beds are sheetless.

In our business, family has to take a back seat, at times, to baseball. Already during Spring Training, we have caught up a lot, laughed a lot, and have had a lot of fun … even when I have been directionally challenged while driving to the various Spring Training sites around Orlando!

I’m not quite sure why spring training is capitalized there, and I’m sure there have been a lot of laughs. You get Chip Caray and Pete Van Wieren in a room and hilarity ensues.

Wait, he can’t find his way around Orlando? Isn’t that where he supposedly lives with his imaginary wife and imaginary kids? Maybe they give him imaginary driving directions?

The same holds true for Pete, Don and Joe. It seems like yesterday I was sitting behind Pete and Ernie Johnson in the radio booth, handing them ticker tape scores from out of town during the “Award-winning 10th Inning Show.” I listened a lot and learned even more from Pete during those summer vacations. Having a chance to see and listen to the game through the eyes and ears of a consummate pro is great.

Ticker tape? What, was he working for the Braves when they were in Milwaukee? The “Award winning 10th Inning Show?” WTF? Did they rip that off from the Cubs? What awards did it win, “Most pedantic waste of 15 minutes?”

In my broadcasting life, I have had some wonderful partners, and I am really looking forward to again sitting with Don while he dissects the art of pitching. And with Joe, I’ll get a new perspective of what a Major League hitter thinks about when he stands in against Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens. I hope you at home will enjoy those insights as much as I know I will.

First of all, what would Joe Simpson know about batting against Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens? About as much as you and I and Lisa Simpson would. Secondly, raise your hand if the term “wonderful partners” made you cringe as much as it made me? I thought so.

Best of all, it seems like all of us in the booth are again going to be treated to another great Braves team. It looks to me like the Braves have returned to their mid-’90s philosophy of outstanding starting pitching. The rotation, if healthy, may be the best this team has built — and that is saying something.

So many things wrong with this. First of all, did the Braves get away from their philosophy of outstanding starting pitching? Did they go out and sign Mike Harkey and Jaime Navarro for a few years there when I wasn’t looking? Secondly are we really supposed to believe that nailing John Smoltz’s arm back on and signing Tim Hudson suddenly makes Horacio Ramirez, Mike Hampton and John Thompson Glavine, Maddux and Steve Avery?

Dan Kolb is a very good closer, and he will be even better in a bigger ballpark in Atlanta. I look for a resurgent year from Raul Mondesi — he feels like he has a lot to prove to his skeptics. Chipper will be Chipper, Adam LaRoche got better as the 2004 year went along, and how can you not love watching the way Marcus Giles plays?

Again, typical Chip no-nothing bulls@#$. Dan Kolb, a groundball pitcher needs a bigger ballpark? What, are the bases 120 feet apart in Atlanta? If wouldn’t count on Raul Mondesi to pick me up after work, much less play right field for me. “Chipper will be Chipper.” Excuse me while I gag. Adam LaRoche got better as the year went along, because it would have been hard to have been worse than he was in the first half. At the break he had a .292 on base average and had driven in 15 runs. Whee! I can not love watching the way Marcus Giles plays. Try me.

As exciting as 2005 may turn out to be, the future looks promising too… Andy Marte, Jeff Francoeur, Kyle Davies, Ryan Langerhans, Luis Hernandez… the next wave of youngsters is on the way. And I am sure that they, too, are eager to continue the Braves’ winning ways.

He’s a big fan of Jeff Francoeur and Ryan Langerhans because he can’t wait to obnoxiously overpronounce their names.

Looking from the outside-in from Chicago, Cubs fans always asked me how the Braves win, year after year. My answer and belief was — and is — consistency. John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox work wonderfully together and have created an atmosphere of ultimate professionalism, pride and tradition, as well as an expectation of playing and honoring the game the way it should be. Obviously, the results speak for themselves.

People always asked him how the Braves win year after year? That’s interesting. Mostly I just heard people telling Chip how much he sucked and how he was ass raping the memory of his grandfather every time he opened his pie hole in front of a microphone. But that’s just me.

And if you don’t think that whole paragraph was his passive-aggressive way of taking a shot at the Cubs for kicking his ass out the door, you’re not paying attention.

I remember sitting in the dugout at old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium with Pete and Ernie, asking them in 1991 what they thought a good Braves year would be. Both said, “.500.” I remember fondly that “Worst to First” season and the thrilling, heart-wrenching World Series. … Terry Pendleton’s MVP season, Glavine’s Cy Young effort, Avery, Leibrandt, Olson, Pena, Lemke and all the other heroes. … That season ignited my love of baseball and the Braves. And they haven’t stopped winning since then.

Wait, his “love of baseball and the Braves” didn’t get ignited until he was on the payroll? Typical.

As far as the quest for 14 straight National League East division titles goes — until someone knocks off the Braves, they are the team to beat. The division, though, may turn out to be baseball’s best. That means 89-90 victories may win it with all the divisional play against the Mets, Marlins, Phillies and the new Nationals in Washington D.C.

Are the Red Sox and Yankees joining the division? And if he only thinks the Braves can win 89-90 games, what the hell are they doing with their supposed greatest pitching rotation, ever? Hmm?

Everyone has improved dramatically in the East, but the Braves have been there before. It’s going to be fun to see if they can do it again.

Does he have an editor? Somebody felt the need to leave this enlightening paragraph in? It’s going to be fun…it’s going to be fun to see if we can hit golf balls from a highway overpass onto Chip’s car in the Turner Field parking lot.

And so indeed, spring has sprung. Hope springs eternal again, and it’s real nice to be home, where hope for Braves baseball fans has been so proudly rewarded. Thanks for welcoming me and my family home so warmly. See you at Turner Field.

He’s very thankful that everybody welcomed his imaginary family home, even though they never left Orlando. Huh? Yeah, we’ll see you at Turner Field, Chippy. We’ll be the ones thanking you for not working for the Cubs anymore.