Tag: braves

Same shit, different year

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the shocker of the century, the Atlanta Braves were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.  For those keeping count, this is like the 5th or 6th time that the Braves dropped the deciding game of the NLDS at home, and somewhere around the 169th time that they’ve failed to make it out of the first round despite making it into the playoffs.

I’m long past the point of where I get upset about it anymore, because I would’ve bet my house that the Braves were going to lose to the Cardinals when the playoff field was initially set.  There’s just something about history, and something about the Braves vs. Cardinals matchup that was a foregone conclusion that another heartbreaking loss to the Cards was all but inevitable, and as much as I would’ve loved to have seen the Braves exorcise the demons of the past and advance, I’m just as satisfied with being right about how the Braves would simply collapse and fall apart – like they always do.

However, this year was a little bit different in the sense that at one point, the Braves actually captured the series lead, when they stole game 3 in St. Louis and for 24 hours, held a 2-1 lead on the Cardinals in the best of 5.  Television was nice enough to do the research for me and explained that it was the first time since 2002 that the Braves carried a series lead in a playoff series, and despite the pessimism, it did birth a sliver of hope that this might be the year that the Braves make it out of the first round.

Naturally, when the Braves squandered their lead in game 4 and inevitably lost in extra innings, I knew right then and there that it was over.  History was just far too strong, and the Cardinals are just one of those teams that are far too charmed, that there was absolutely 0% chance that the Braves were going to win game 5.  Sure, I had hope that maybe they would break the glass ceiling that they erected unto themselves, but the reality was more likely that they were going to choke again, especially when the pitching matchups were set up, with Jack Flaherty going for the Cardinals, and the Braves countering with the once-exiled to Triple-A Mike Foltynewicz.

All I knew was that the Braves were going to win 10-3, or the Cardinals were going to win 10-3, but there was going to be no close game, and it was going to be a blowout.  When the game ended 13-1, I was the last person in all of Atlanta that was remotely surprised at the outcome, and there’s even a part of me that’s relieved that the season is over for the Braves, because I have to pass ScumTrust Park on my commute, and I would no longer have to worry about any future playoff game traffic getting in my way.

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Unsurprisingly lame

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

BB&T and SunTrust banks choose their united name: Truist.

I mean, I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised that this ended up being something as lame as this.  Fewer things in the world are as square and soullessly uncool as the entire banking industry.  I mean, it’s an industry that’s basically built on storing the money of people that are not themselves, and finding every single possible way to take cuts and slices from them in order to profit.

I even yawned heartily while typing out that line, that’s how lame the whole concept of banking is.  I can’t believe I worked in the industry as long as I did, and in some degree of retrospect, I kind of have to thank them for being the tools they are and laying me, as well as my entire department off, because they kind of did me a favor of getting out of the banking industry.  I mean seriously, it paid the bills pretty well, and I would’ve have free parking for years during Dragon*Con, but I have to say that it wasn’t a whole lot of fun saying I worked for SunTrust; as large as it was in Georgia and the eastern seaboard, it was still a regional bank and it was the equivalent of saying that I worked for like, Habib’s Fuel & Automotive in the grander spectrum of the world.

But back to the point at hand, with the name of the unholy union being established, that means that without any further question, the home of the Atlanta Braves is soon to become Truist Park.  I had to wiki it to make sure that it was going to be the de facto lamest name in all of Major League Baseball, but since I’ve completed my quest to visit all 30, I’ve fallen a little to the wayside when it comes to ballpark names.  And as gargantuan-ly lame as Truist Park is, I think there is some stiff competition when it comes to comparing to Guaranteed Rate Field (Chicago White Sox, replacing “The Cell” US Cellular Field (the worst park in MLB)) and RingCentral Coliseum (Oakland A’s, who are always plagued with bad names).  Ultimately, it’s like comparing herpes to chlamydia and gonorrhea, because no matter which name you have, it sucks.

Given the propensity of the Atlanta Braves to always go in the direction of profit > style, it’s no surprise that they’re going to be perfectly at home playing at a place called something as boring, vanilla and lame as Truist Park.  But damn if they aren’t going to get rich cashing in on those naming rights, despite the fact that the product on the field isn’t going to benefit one iota from said proceeds.  A bunch of old white guys need to take their slice of the pie first, as well as their seconds, before the Braves have any chance at possibly getting a little bit of forward investment to maybe succeed. 

I hear winning is pretty lucrative, but the risk-averse Braves don’t really seem the type to risk possibly finding out.  But misery loves company, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that pretty much any team not the Houston Astros seems pretty content on sitting on cruise control and cashing in on revenue sharing, and if they happen to win, great, but if not, that’s perfectly okay as well.  Fuck that, and fuck Truist Bank.  Need to figure out a simplistic and punny name for the new park, because “ScumTrust” is running out of time.

I’d be all in if this actually happened

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

All.  In.  If the Braves were to rename the ballpark after Waffle House.  100%.  Maybe even get a season ticket package of some sort.  It would be the perfect catalyst for anyone to go balls deep into, or back into Atlanta Braves fandom, because the time couldn’t possibly be more appropriate given the talent movement going on with the club right now.  I just need a little push, or a little nudge.. or just that slight positive association of the greasy spoons where I’ve never had a bad meal in my life where I could feel comfort knowing that the restaurant I like to go to the most after drinking is partnered up with the sports franchise that makes me want to drink.

Although the possibility of something like Waffle House Field coming to fruition is like as likely as my job not sucking any time soon, the logic behind the really is a solid.  I didn’t think for a second that upon the collection of ScumTrust by BB&T, that the conglomerate would even consider for two seconds to give up the naming rights to ScumTrust Park.  I just, and still assume that whenever the transition is complete, it’s just going to remain something as soulless and corporately square like “BB&T Park” and continue existing as the vanilla mass of land in which baseball is occasionally played while they soak in accolades and praise from equally square and vanilla white people who think they know something about architecture with character.

But imagine a world in which the Scum&T blob decided that paying the Braves millions of dollars to slap their name on a stadium that exists outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.  Or the Braves actually growing a spine and deciding that it would be nice if their ballpark were named after an actual Georgia company, instead of a banking company that turned tail and ran towards the money.  What better business would there be to take the keys to the ballpark than Waffle House?  Sure, Coca-Cola comes to mind, as does Delta Airlines or The Home Depot.  And as Oprah-rich as those businesses are, they’re still businesses that some people still have to stop and think about to remember that they’re companies based out of Atlanta.  Waffle House is definitively, a symbol of the south, which is something that the Braves often try to declare themselves, regardless of the cultural clash between representing the south versus hoarding money like a true Wall Street grub.

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It’s hard to care about a team whose management doesn’t care about it either

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

At the time I started writing this, the Braves had just finished getting swept by the Phillies to open the 2019 season.  Prior to the start of the season, Braves fans were treated to an offseason where the Braves performed their standard song and dance of crying poor and pretending like they don’t have the necessary money in order to pursue logical free agents and improve their chances at winning baseball games, but then business reports emerged that showed that the Atlanta Braves organization as a whole, had raked in record profits throughout the 2018 calendar year. 

In typical Braves fashion, instead of just coming clean and admitting that the ownership has little interest in investing money into the team, they sent their stooges out blab a whole bunch of corporate-ese about the importance of financial responsibility, and extol their profits as if Bubba in Habersham, Cletus in La Grange and Ricky Bobby in Valdosta are going to give a flying fuck about the organization’s financial standing, when the team is losing games that they’d have a better chance at winning if they had some competent players.

And basically, personally, I’m at my wit’s end with it.  As much as I feel like I’m always on the cusp of swearing off the Braves and declaring a disdain for them, I never really fully pull the trigger, because I like having a local team to root for, and when the day is over, I do want to see the Braves win and find success, even in spite of the fact that the organization itself is flagrantly ambivalent and doesn’t appear to care whether they win or not, just so long as they’re making investors money.

But as for this year, all it took was three games for me to confirm that this team is dead in the water, and to not really hold too much hope that there’s going to be anything remotely better than a first-round playoff appearance, at the very, tippy top best possible scenario.  The Braves Way, an agonizingly cliché phrase the team uses to applaud the team’s tendency to favor and acquire over-the-hill veterans or post-injury reclamation projects at reasonable costs is the modus operandi of the team, and has pretty much been the case in almost the entire time that I’ve followed them, and they rarely drop any big money on anyone.

I understand that the last few times they’ve done so, they’ve ended up with stiffs like BJ Upton and Mike Hampton, but the unfortunate truth of professional sports is that every single team on the planet has dealt with free agent busts, and that it’s more of a surprise when a free agent deal doesn’t go sour, and that at least from a WAR standpoint, they don’t lose too much money in the life of a deal.

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Love this fire from Craig Calcaterra

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Go on, get ‘em Craig: NBC Sports’ Hardball Talk writer Craig Calcaterra lights into the Atlanta Braves front office after their apparent ambivalence for the success of their baseball team

I don’t follow a tremendous amount of sports as much I once used to, but there are a couple of names that I’ve grown to really enjoy and respect throughout the years.  Joe Posnanski and Tom Verducci come to mind pretty quickly, but after reading this scathing editorial by Craig Calcaterra, I have to say that I think he’s ascended to that level of “this guy often piques my interest, no matter what he’s talking about.”

I’m not going to bother narrating the things that he wrote, because his piece in itself is pretty brilliant, mirrors a lot of the same thoughts that I have about the Atlanta Braves, Major League Baseball and professional sports itself, but I just really want to extol just how much I loved the fire coming from Calcaterra.

He’s totally right; the Braves are operating as if they think that their fans are idiots.  Unfortunately the arrogant front office, most notably represented by president Terry McGuirk and GM Alex Anthopolous, aren’t entirely wrong either; lots of the Braves’ fans are idiots.  Lots of baseball, and professional sports fans are idiots.  Most fans of anything in general are often idiots.  Not that there’s anything wrong with some blind faith in the things that people like, but when it comes to analytical thinking, that’s just stuff that some people don’t want to do, and it unfortunately puts them into the category of being idiots, as far as front offices are concerned.

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Just because “cool” is in the name doesn’t make it such

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

lol: Braves’ new spring training home unveiled to be CoolToday Park

Leave it to the Atlanta Braves to always put salary over substance, and until 2040, their future Spring Training home will basically forever, be called CoolToday Park; named after a local Sarasota HVAC company.  And despite the undisclosed financial details of the deal, naming rights aren’t cheap, but CoolToday somehow had a couple ten million dollars in order to secure the rights to a baseball stadium for an actual major league club.

Really though, come on now, CoolToday?  And with a logo that makes it look like it’s right out of the 1970’s?  Clearly, the effort doesn’t match nearly the dollar amount spent in order to get these naming rights, but when the day is over, who really cares because of, money?  But to those of us on the outside judging in, it’s a sad and mundane opportunity squandered to get something remotely cool out of the whole charade of the Braves fleecing yet another town in America for another ballpark the country does not need.

But again, leave it to the Braves to ignore everything with any substance in the pursuit of money.  I guess Publix or Red Lobster didn’t want to put in any bids, or be associated with a perpetual loser like the Braves, but damn would I have been excited had either of these native Florida businesses decided to slap their name onto the Braves’ ballpark.  Dare I’d say, it would definitely improve my enthusiasm to know that the company with the immortal chicken tender subs and bakery, or a company with LOBSTER in the name, would be the official home of Braves Spring Training.

I guess it’s no surprise that the Braves settled on some lame HVAC company to name the ballpark after, though.  I mean, from a business standpoint, if any company is going to survive for 20 years, it’s definitely going to be an HVAC company in Florida, and there will probably be no chance that they end up like Denver’s Sports Authority Field, where the naming company went under, but the venue was stuck with their name until it had to be legally changed.

Come on though, “CoolToday Park” sounds about as exciting as a sermon.  But considering how corporately stiff and rigid the Braves management from top to bottom, this is no surprise at all.

Good thing my ballpark journey is for the most part complete.  I can’t say I’d be particularly enthused about having to add an entry for CoolToday Park into my travels.

The prodigal Heap has returned

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Brave Old World: Brian McCann returns to the Atlanta Braves after leaving the team five years ago

This news, brought a smile to my face.  Now I don’t expect ol’ Heap (a very insider hipster nickname for McCann stemming from the minor leagues) to inexplicably return to the form of the 22-year old All-Star that hit .333 and 24 homers all because he’s back in a Braves uniform, especially since he’s now 35 and very much on the declining phase of his career.  But it still makes me happy to know that Heap is coming home, because maybe it’s just the fanboy in me, but it just never seemed right to see a guy like Brian McCann suiting up for anyone other than the Braves.

Don’t get me wrong, I always rooted for him after he left, even when he was on the Yankees, and especially when he was on the Team of Destiny™ Astros, and I was very happy to see McCann, along with other Braves expats like Evan Gattis and Charlie Morton win a World Series.  But it often makes me happy when a guy who was a once popular member of the team, like a Jeff Francoeur, Jonny Venters or a Brian McCann, comes back to the fold.

It doesn’t really matter that when the day is over, he’s probably not going to be an All-Star again, much less even be reliably starting on a regular basis.  The traditionalist in me sees his value in that he’s a steady veteran leader that brings a lot of familiarity with the organization, and a now championship pedigree to a locker room that might be able to benefit from his experience.

But most importantly, he’s a local guy that was always beloved by the city of Atlanta, and him coming home, to try and help nurture and contribute this young and talented roster into more legitimate contenders, can only be welcome.  Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that Josh Donaldson also signed with the team too.

Now if only the Braves could upgrade their pitching, 2019 could actually be a very interesting season.