Braves third baseman Chipper Jones has enjoyed coming to the ballpark every day knowing there's a lot at stake and little margin for error.

"I'm having a great time," Jones told ESPN's Gary Miller on a recent appearance on Up Close. "The intensity is there every night. Sometimes, when you have a big lead you can take some things for granted."

The following is an edited transcript of the Jones' interview.

Miller: Does it feel weird to be locked in a pennant race in August? You guys are locked right there with the Mets.

Jones: It does. We are used to, being August and September every year, having an eight or 10 game lead. It's a little bit different, we had a team meeting a little while ago where we kind of circled the wagons and said "look, we have to go for the last two months of the season just to play for our playoff lives." This team is not really used to that so it will be interesting to see how we react.

Miller: How different is it, how different has it made it because you have never ever been out of first place in August?

Jones: I think it's fun to be honest with you. I'm having a great time. The intensity is there every night. Sometimes, when you have a big lead you can take some things for granted, you can go certain games where "okay, I don't feel that good today so maybe I'll just go through the motions" - and still have a great chance of winning.

Miller: YOU?

Jones: No (laughing).. I'm just saying that's the attitude some people might have, and now you can't afford to do that. You got to go balls to the wall every game from here to the end of October.

Miller: How much of it do you think has to do with the major losses on this team? Every team has injures, but Andres Galarraga, especially to you hitting third in the order, is a big loss and that right-handed presence. Ligtenberg goes out, your main closer, now Javy Lopez.

Jones: Well, I think when you look back even before spring training ever started, we loose Graffanino with lympoma, Kerry Ligtenberg blows out his elbow, Mark Wohlers, his problems have well been documented. Then Javy. You take those four guys out of our lineup - those are four big guys you're talking about. You're talking about taking 70, 75 home runs out of your lineup, 250 RBIs, 30 saves, possibly more and all of a sudden there is a panic, there really was. I think you have to persevere. This has always been an organization that has persevered through everything and a lot of trials and tribulations, but just think how great it is going to feel if we get to that point in the season where we are at the brink of winning the World Series even with all these injures. Think how good it is going to feel to those 25 guys in the clubhouse.

Miller: You said you used the word panic - how could you tell?

Jones: I don't really want to get into it but you see. . .

Miller: All right, you don't have to name names, but what kind of behavior did you see?

Jones: You see certain things, the way people normally look when they go out there on the field. They didn't look that way anymore and to a certain extent I'm sure people saw stuff in me, reactions out of me. I'm not the kind of guy who is very vocal, not a real rah rah kind of guy. All of a sudden, I'm throwing helmets and bats and everything down the tunnel because I'm frustrated. I'm used to winning 100 games in a regular season and not having to worry about playing for my playoff life in August. There were times when everyone had gotten a little frustrated.

Miller: So this team is spoiled?

Jones: Without a doubt. You can't do what we have done over the period of the 90's and not expect to be there every year coming out of spring training.

Miller: You've had much better power numbers this season from the right side of the plate. What's been the difference?

Jones: It's a funny story, because I got into spring training this year and we have a new hitting instructor, Don Baylor, and we sat down the first day of spring training and Don said "what's your philosophy when you go up to the plate and hit right-handed?" I said "to be honest with you I try to stay inside the ball, try to hit the ball up the middle, line drives, just put a good at bat up there and hopefully there will be some guys on base and my RBIs will follow." He said -- well I can't tell you what he said but he yelled an expletive. He didn't really like my philosophy. He said "You're the number three hitter for one of the best teams in baseball and people look at you as the guy they have to get out; they don't want to face you in crucial situations, so what I want you to do is go up there and try to do some damage from the right side. If you strike out a little bit more, who cares? But go up there, do some damage." And from then on I pretty much have been swinging from the heels, and to be honest with you, my strikeouts are down and the power is up and I have Don to thank for that.

Miller: We know now what we didn't know before, that in '97 and '98 your personal life was in turmoil. The end of last off-season it became very public in the spring; you had a long article in Baseball Weekly with Bob Nightengale and you ended up, you tried to reconcile, you and Karen haven't been able to resolve your differences. It sounds like kind of a messy divorce, and everything is very public. How difficult is that to deal with?

Jones: Well it was my own decision for it to go public. The last two years have been very difficult for me off the field; it was hard for me to go to the park and see some of the signs around the stadium, people thinking how great I was. I had a lot of guilt over that. What I wanted to do as a form of getting better is just to let everyone know what happened and let people make their own decisions. That way I could start my rehabilitation and I could be on the road to getting better and let people make their own decisions. Once it came out there were a lot of hostile people out there because a lot of people looked up to me, but I never wanted to be put up on a pedestal.. I wanted people know that even I make mistakes, I'm not perfect. I realize that people don't think of me the same way but that's okay, I understand I might not feel the same way if someone I looked up to did some of the things that I did. But there sure has been a lot of support from a lot of the fans in Atlanta and I am very appreciative of that.

Miller: I think that was the toughest part. John Boy Walton, the golden boy, the Wheaties Box, the All-American Hero. You had a child out of wedlock, you mention in the off-season interviews you did that there were affairs ongoing. You got to see your son, Matthew, what was that like?

Jones: You talk about changing your life on a dime, I mean I've always been this jock from central Florida that cared about one thing and that's playing sports, playing baseball, playing basketball, playing football doing anything competitive. Seeing that little boy certainly changes your priorities. I mean now the game of baseball still means a lot to me but it doesn't mean nearly what it meant to me a year or so ago. Now to be able to look into his eyes and see a little bit of myself, you know, when I was one or two years old brings me a lot of joy. Can't wait to see him, every time I get the chance I take the opportunity to try and see him.

Miller: What changed your mind? When you first knew that that girl was pregnant and this all became public and you thought that you weren't going to be any part of his life - now you are a part.

Jones: I had to sit down and think what was most important to me and at that particular time what was most important to me was trying to save my marriage. I figured that I owed it to my wife to put the effort out and to do that. Once I realized that my marriage to Karen was irreconcilable, that things were not going to work out between us, that is when I realized that I have this over here and I want to be a part of his life. I need to be a part of his life, he needs me to be a part of his life, it's the right thing to do. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, I mean, you take one look at him and you see a little Chipper walking down the hall towards you. It'll change your mind in a heartbeat.

Miller: It's interesting, I'm sure you have already heard that we had Alexandra Stevenson on the show this week and Dr. J. Publicly we found out, but she had known since she was four and they really only met each other once. When you see a story like that, can you sort of relate to it and say "gee, I'm glad I got involved right away?"

Jones: I can, and it's stories like that which urge me to be a bigger part in Matthew's life. I want him to see me on TV and say "that is my Dad!" I want him to go to school and for kids to say "hey can I have your Dad's autograph." I want him to be proud of me and the only way for me to get those reactions out of him is for me to be a very integral part of his life.

Miller: You mentioned Mark Wohlers early in the show. Some people think that his divorce is the reason why he can't find the strike zone anymore. You have improved, your numbers are even better this year than last year's career year. How have you been able to isolate the two?

Jones: Each player reacts differently to stuff off the field. I mean Mark is a very emotional person, he takes everything to heart. I love Mark to death, everyone on the team wants to see him do well even if it's not in a Braves uniform. Mark was one of those guys who would maybe bring some of his off-the-field stuff to the park. For me personally, the park was a release, I'd go to the park at two in the afternoon and stay there 'till midnight, and that was ten hours out of the day where I could take everything that was happening off the field and just forget about it. I had a job to do there on the field and that was my number one goal at that particular time.