Chipper Jones won't play that game.
No way. He refuses to sit around and say, "What if."
"What if my knee didn't blow up for the first time in '94?"
"What if I didn't have to have all those other knee surgeries?"
"What if I'd been able to play in just half those games I missed?"
The Atlanta Braves third baseman won't go there. The way he sees it, he has been blessed to play a boy's game well into his adult years.
Jones will be 40 next Tuesday, and more than half of those years have been spent being paid by the Braves to play baseball in a career that he said will end whenever this season is complete.
And not just play it, but play it at a high level and compile numbers so excellent that the folks who make those bronze plaques for Cooperstown might as well start chiseling.
If you couldn't tell, even at his age, the Braves still need Jones.
In the clubhouse and on the bench, but especially in the lineup. That's evidenced by what his teammates say about the guy.
Brian McCann: "We want Chipper in there. Chipper's a guy that changes the game, just by his presence."
Brandon Beachy: "It's huge just seeing him out there, having him on the field, regardless of what he does. Just him being out there really helps us."
It's uncertain how Jones' knees, especially the left one, will hold up this year, but his mind and his bat are still young and lethal. He's quick with advice for his younger teammates but also enjoys goofing around with them in the clubhouse and dugout.
"He's always talking baseball," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "He's always talking hitting. You always hear him talking about the pitchers and what they're going to throw. Even when he's not in the lineup, he's a presence."
The Braves would prefer him to remain in the lineup, where he causes the most damage.
He demonstrated why in his first game back from the disabled list, when he miraculously homered in Houston to lift the Braves out of the morass of a season-opening four-game losing streak.
If that weren't dramatic enough, there was another cinematic moment Sunday. He hit a three-run home run in his first home game.
Shock and awe, y'all?
That's what the fans felt when Jones smashed a pitch from Milwaukee's Chris Narveson less than two days after having fluid drained from the left knee that was "scoped" on March 26.
"It was a pretty cool moment," Jones said. "This year is going to be filled with a lot of moments."
He'll enjoy all of them.
Jones has already received a farewell cowboy hat in Houston and trotted around the bases in his 2012 home opener. He'll receive more gifts from the teams he has tormented through the years, but his on-field heroics will be dictated by his knees.
It's always his knees.
Jones figures he has lost about two years of games to injuries. And he's still considered one of the best switch-hitters in major league history.
He has won a World Series. He has been MVP. He's the face, heart of soul of one of the league's most successful franchises in baseball for the past 20 years.
"Hindsight is 20-20," he said. "How much better would Mickey Mantle have been with good knees? Mickey probably didn't have an ACL when he retired. The advances in medicine have been so great since the '50s and '60s — back then, I dare say I wouldn't have played as long as I have."
And through all the injuries, Jones has been a constant, from his first appearances in a Braves uniform in the waning days of 1993, through his productive peak, through his injury-riddled later years, until now.
At some point in the near future, Jones' familiar No. 10 will be retired by the only team he has known. And it wouldn't be out of the question for a statue of Jones to join other Braves greats outside Turner Field.
That would be an honor worthy of a legend.
