Tag: braves

Dad Brog (#174): A brave new world

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The house is empty and quiet and for the next 60-80 minutes, I can kind of do whatever I want.  It’s a jarring and weird feeling, and this is going to be the case, probably indefinitely, during the durations of the school year(s, to come).

Today is the first day of school where I live, and it’s the first day of school where both of my kids are on the same morning schedule, and now go to work with mythical wife who teaches at said school.  Prior to this day, both kids went to a preschool that was on a different schedule than mythical wife, or last year, where one was still in Pre-K, while the other began her elementary school journey and I basically had two morning routines, prepping and sending off one kid at time, on different schedules.

But now, they are both going to the same school, on the same morning schedule, and I just have to do one morning routine, and then they’re out the door and it’s like slamming into a wall where it goes from fast-paced, eat, dress, brush, pack, shoes, go, go, go, to suddenly nothing.  Calm.  Quiet.  Still.

And I’m still trying to process what I’m going to do, and how I’m going to try and capitalize on this gift of time that I’m going to get every single school morning, presumably for a very long time.

The thing is, I knew this was coming, and I have been giving it thought to what I was going to do, but it’s one of those things where no matter of thinking, planning or theorizing was going to really compare to how things were going to go once the time finally came, and I’m sitting here on day 1 of forever, doing one of the things I imagined I’d do, which is to try to carve out some time to write, about the myriad of things and topics that I think about writing about, starting with, writing about this brave new world of actually having a little bit of peace and quiet in the mornings now.

It’s a little different from the summer mornings, where I kept my school year alarms all intact, waking up at 5:45 daily regardless of the fact that the kids didn’t have any school to go to.  I did it because I didn’t want to fall out of routine and have to deal with the bodily regression of trying to adjust to the school year, but mostly because I liked having the peace and quiet in the early morning while everyone else was still asleep, and could more leisurely have a cup of coffee, knock out a daily Duolingo session, and do some writing before one or both of the kids would eventually awake and tear hell coming downstairs.

And frankly, such a routine is what I was thinking of doing now, except that the kids come first, and then I have that gap between when they go to school and I go to work, where I can do it.  I pondered doing some exercise in that time, or even potentially going to the office early where I could hit the gym before I started my work day, but for the time being I’m opting against such.  Working out during lunch has been a great way to break up the monotony of work days and frankly I don’t feel that 60-80 minutes is sufficient time for me to get in an adequate workout plus time to shower and refresh.

I also don’t want to even put myself into a position where I could be remotely close to doing any modicum of work outside of work hours and that seems to be the point of writing this all out, so I can write out how I often contemplate the differences between work ethics of the generations of the workforce, but if there’s one thing that the kids of today are better at, is understanding that in so many instances, giving more than what’s necessary rarely pays off, and me rolling into the office 15 minutes earlier isn’t going to make much of a difference in my day-to-day, except that I’m taking 15 minutes away from myself where I could be doing something I want to do instead.

All that being said, coffee, Duolingo and brogging seems to be the obvious and inevitable daily agenda, as I embark on the brave new world of having some morning calm of the kids going to school, together, at least for the next four years.

Welp, time to become an A’s fan

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

JoongAng: Oakland Sacramento Las Vegas The Athletics receive large investment from Team61, a group led by former great Chan-Ho Park, making him the first Korean to have a stake in a Major League Baseball team

If there were ever a more tailor-made story for me to want to write about, here it is.  Much as the Dodgers have basically sold themselves to Glorious Nippon, it seems fitting that Korea is attempting to gain control over an MLB organization as well, with the team formerly known as the Oakland A’s, eventually going to be landing in Las Vegas one of these days.

But it’s not just the simple fact that Koreans are entwining themselves with an MLB team, it’s who.  Led by the ultimate Korean pioneer into MLB history, Chan-Ho Park, the first Korean-born player to make it in Major League Baseball, and his investment group Team61, Park once again finds himself making firsts in MLB, becoming the first Korean to have ownership stakes in an MLB team.

Obviously it’s completely relevant to mention all of his baseball statistics and serves as more than adequate justification to why he is qualified to become a part-owner in an entire club, but it’s not just Park that makes this whole thing so entertaining to me.

Among the other names that comprise of Team61, are notable Korean celebrities, such as Suga from BTS and actor Daniel Dae Kim, but the one that really got me, aside from Chan-Ho Park, was comedian/actor Ken Jeong.  Like, I love Dr. Ken as much as anyone else, but it’s just hilarious and tickles me to think of the notion of him having anything to do with the ownership of an MLB team.  But Koreans like making money, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any easier way to make money these days than with investments, and all four of these members of the Korean Avengers probably aren’t hurting for capital, and good on them to get in with sports franchise ownership, which has proven to be as endlessly inflating as much as gas prices.

I really wish there were a good photograph of the four Korean Avengers together, all wearing A’s jerseys, but in the spirit of timeliness I can’t find any.  So the one with Park, Jeong and some generic looking bald old white guys whom I’m assuming one is John Fisher, the hated owner of the team, will have to suffice, for now.

All the same, whilst I will remaining rooting and being a shitty worst fan ever for the Barves of my city of residence, if there were ever a time for me to be a real shittier and worst-er fan ever and pledge a modicum of allegiance to another team, it’s time to become an A’s fan.  Not that I had any beef with them in the first place, I just never cared about their existence, until now.

Future A’s vs. Dodgers games are about to become lit, and hopefully being in Las Vegas one day will make it really easy for the A’s to book Korean hotties to throw out first pitches, and combined with his degenerate gambling addiction, absolutely cripple Ohtani and his teammates whenever they take the field against my new team.

Just stfu and play ball, Mookie

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: All-Star Mookie Betts wants MLB to basically implement a mercy rule and avoid position players pitching

One of the tiniest consolations of watching a baseball game where the score gets out of hand, is the off-chance of getting to see a position player come into the game and pitch.  If cheering for the team that’s up by a margin that warrants the entry of a position player, it’s kind of a fun, rubbing-it-in kind of mentality that they’re clobbering the opponent so bad that this is happening.  And if cheering for the team that’s getting clobbered, it’s the moment where the white flag has been raised, and hopefully they can relax a little bit and enjoy the entertainment of seeing a guy more than likely loft some meatballs to the plate, but occasionally make some surprising highlights.

Frankly, some of the more memorable highlights that I can recall easily in spite of being a shitty baseball fan, come from position player pitching:

Every one of these plate appearances I could recall off the top of my head without any thinking necessary.  That’s the beauty of position player pitching, it’s low risk, low stakes, high chance of fun, high chance of making positive memories.

And Mookie Betts wants it all to go away.

A man who has won four World Series, an MVP award, and is making $20 million dollars this year, $170 million in his career, with about $120 million waiting for him in deferred pay, all for playing a children’s game, somehow wants to play less baseball, even if it it’s just removing one of the more rare scenarios, and removing position player pitching and basically having a mercy rule instead.

Yeah, that’s never going to happen because of things called television deals, advertising rights, time to move concessions and merchandise, greedy owners getting their money’s worth out of their indentured servants, but (what should be) most importantly, fans getting the product that they volunteered to get when they decided to invest their time in a baseball game.

But fuck you anyway for even suggesting such a selfish, poor-optics and tone-deaf idea, because it’s not like having the opportunity to hack away at pitches from dudes who haven’t seriously pitched since they were teenagers is truly ruining your life.

Despite the fact that he players for the Dodgers, I generally have no qualm with Mookie Betts.  He seems like a decent guy, likes bowling, always shown to be real chill, one of my favorite authors adores the man.  But this absurd suggestion coming from him creeps him into Anthony Rendon-territory of coming off as selfish and greedy, wanting to even suggest reducing the amount of baseball he has to play despite making multi-generational wealth playing it.  I don’t, really agree with the notion that everyone gets an opinion on the matter, especially when the one trying to make it is a guy who makes absurd amounts of money playing baseball. 

This is where I’d say, how hard is it to take an at-bat against a guy probably throwing no harder than 60 mph, but apparently Mookie has but only one plate appearance against a position player, this season, against the Pirates’ Tyler Callihan; where he flew out to center.  So I guess his salt at not being able to basically get a free home run or base hit, and denting his batting stats by a ten-thousandth of a point entitles him to suggest implementing a mercy rule for everyone, got it.

In this regard, Mookie can go fuck himself.  Position player pitching should remain indefinitely, and it wouldn’t matter if it were Mookie Betts suggesting this, his douchebag teammate Dalton Rushing, or even someone I enjoyed like Freddie Freeman, Martin Prado, Chipper Jones, Jonny Venters, David DeJesus or Cal Ripken, Jr., my reaction would be the same, fuck off and stop acting like an overpaid man-child and take your at-bats against the backup catcher or veteran all-star just wanting to have some fun.  It’s the one of the only consolations of a lopsided game, and often times a reminder that baseball is supposed to be fun.

Watching the WWE has kind of become a job

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was on vacation, I didn’t really think much of wrestling beyond the show in Korea that I was going to go/had gone to, and thinking of an upcoming local show that I mentally reminded myself to reach out to my boys about when I got back.  But as far as what was going on in the big pro-wrestling industry, I knew that I was missing out on things, but at the same time I didn’t really care.

Through social media, I saw that Sami Zayn had won the WWE championship at Night of Champions, which in one hand made me happy because I’ve grown to really appreciate the man and his career, and it always brings me satisfaction when a hard worker gets rewarded. 

However, in the other hand, was the skepticism that his win came entirely on account of the fact that this was one of the WWE’s gross Saudi shows, and in spite of the fact that the E has gotten a lot of credit in recent years for not treating viewers like complete idiots like they used to, such doesn’t seem to apply to the Saudi shows and the company pretty much does nothing but grasp at low-hanging fruit out in the Middle East.  It’s very easy to assume that Sami won in Saudi Arabia almost entirely to satiate the local audience, getting to see an openly Muslim man win the largest prize in the company.

Such narrative was justified just nine days later, when Sami would immediately drop the WWE championship to a returning CM Punk; contrary to what I was just saying about not treating fans like idiots, such had occurred in Chicago, Punk’s hometown, being seen as yet another low-hanging fruit cash grab, or that Sami was seen as nothing more than a transitional champion and that this was the plan all along, neither of which is particularly good optics among the IWC.

The E has been harder and harder to keep up with, much less actually, like and enjoy, as the sands of time have progressed since the company had been sold, folded into the parent TKO company, and turned into this NASCAR-like ATM of corporate greed.

Months ago, I stated that I’d never felt more alienated from the WWE and my general fandom, and not only has that not changed, but the chasm has widened and continues to do so.

Obviously, companies like the WWE and their parents TKO don’t become the bloated fat cash cows they are because they care about lifer fans with lots of opinions like me, but if it actually mattered, they’re at constant risk of fans like me turning my back on them because of how much they’ve changed things, primarily for the pursuit of moar and moar money.

The point of all this is that I’d actually been debating with myself since coming back from vacation, on if it really wanted to bother getting back into watching big wrestling anymore, because over the last few months, watching wrestling has begun to feel more like a chore and that my time was not being spent well doing such, versus actually enjoying the product. 

For every Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley or El Grande Americano vs. El Grande Americano banger classic, there are hours upon hours of ads to have to sit through, predictable, ChatGPT-generated storylines, moar ads, moar shitty product, and a whole lot more ads.

But for lack of a better alternative, as well as probably false-hope clinging that just one more RAW will get better, I still tuned into RAW the other night, just to see where things were.  And honestly, nothing was really new, and I’m left wondering why I even bother, yet again.  I’d say I’ll just keep up through YouTube, but even those videos are so loaded with ads now as well, that they’re becoming a chore as well.

I was chatting with some of my bros during the broadcast, and it dawned on me that watching the WWE was a lot more like a job, than the last time I opined such, and it was slightly more explainable now, because as someone who has worked for large corporations for the most of their career, watching WWE truly feels like a scenario where I like and appreciate all the workers and talent, but I really dislike and detest all of the higher-ups, shareholders and people who are steering the workers and talent into soul-sucking and inefficient uses of their skillsets.

Frankly I realize that I’ve had this mentality and relationship with other fandoms in my life, like how I’ve felt/currently feel about the Atlanta Braves, as well as how I’ve felt about most of the companies I’ve ever worked for.  I appreciate (most) talent, workers and colleagues, but I don’t particularly care much for those higher up, playing a different game than the rest of the pleebs.

This is probably one of those revelations where I’m amazed to realize at the age of 44, and that there are probably tons of people way more enlightened than me that figured it out way longer ago.  That fandoms all eventually feel like jobs at times, and that it’s worth pondering on if they’re worth continuing to keep once they hit that point, or if we should always just be looking for better things to invest our time into.

As far as professional wrestling goes, I still enjoy going to indy shows with friends, and thankfully Atlanta has no shortage of availability of such shows, and even though I’m jaded and completely skeptical of the E these days, I still have hopes for the few storylines that it’s clear that the company actually gives a shit about, like the masterpiece that is the redemption of Chad Gable. 

Granted, I know that on a long enough timeline, they’ll fuck it up because they always fuck up eventually, be it through he’ll fall short at Summer Slam due to some shenanigans, an injury, or they won’t plan for anything beyond his initial journey and that he peters out after victory, but at least for the time being, he’s probably the best thing going under the E umbrella, and the only thing I’m truly vested in with the company.

Bobby Bonilla Day presents the 2026 MLB All-Deferred Money Team

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This year, I actually learned that there was a Bobby Bonilla in history before Bobby Bonilla took the Bobby Bonilla deal that turned every July 1st into Bobby Bonilla Day.

And it was actually a player for the Atlanta Braves, which is astounding seeing as how as a, for lack of a better term, Braves fan, I did not know about this, as well as the fact that the Braves are among the cheapest teams in the galaxy these days, so it’s doubly amazing to see how they were once wrapped up in a Bobby Bonilla-like arrangement, ever.

But in 1984, the Braves signed reliever Bruce Sutter to a six-year, $9.6M contract, with $4.8M of that deferred, at an interest rate of 13%.  And between the years of 1992 and 2022, the Braves paid him $1.12M a year, and I don’t know how and when the interest compounded through the life of repayment, but he was paid $9.1M in 2022, the final installment of the pact; and I don’t know the specific date of the payment, but it should be noted that he also died that same year, and I think it would be ironically funny if the narrative were that he stayed alive long enough to ensure that the cheap-ass Braves paid him his money before he could rest.

Also impressive to me is that within the duration of the repayment plan, the Braves’ ownership had transferred from the free-spending Ted Turner regime, into the stuffy corporate penny-pinching Liberty Media ownership company that as choked the team into this mid-market team, crying poor all the time, caring more about fiscal responsibility to shareholders versus trying to remotely operating a baseball club to victory.

I’m sure Sutter’s contract was an excruciating blight for the Liberty Media bean counters to inherit, and they probably were counting the days of the last 12-13 years of the deal, and probably remains a large part of why the Braves will never play in such deferral tactics, regardless of how effective it is proving to be capable of.

Needless to say, I’m not sure how accurate the math is, since deferred monies have a tendency to be invisible in online payroll records, but Sutter managed to parlay $4.8M into at least $41.58M through a Bobby Bonilla-like payment plan, and seeing as how there was a twelve-year overlap between when Sutter’s payments and the Bonilla’s started, I’m surprised the whole thing didn’t meme out to be Bruce Sutter Day instead.

That’s the strength of the whole LOL Mets meme, I suppose.

Anyway, it’s July 1st, so that obviously means it’s that time of the year again, where a 63-year old Bobby Bonilla receives a $1,193,248 paycheck from the New York Mets because they didn’t want to pay him $5M in 2000 after 141 horrible plate appearances in 1999, and decided that it was more preferable to pay him nearly $36M over 30 years starting a decade later.

And in honor of Bobby Bonilla Day, I take my yearly deep dive into the state of the MLB to try and construct a hypothetical roster of players receiving deferred money, share some stats about them, as well as share all sorts of shade about the practice, the cheapness of the Braves, and other opinionated takes.

Continue reading “Bobby Bonilla Day presents the 2026 MLB All-Deferred Money Team” →

Happy Trails, Bobby

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

ESPN: Legendary Braves manager, Bobby Cox, passes away at the age of 84

As the years passed, long after his retirement in 2010, occasionally I did have the thought of this eventuality, when Bobby Cox would one day leave us; usually whenever he’d pop up sporadically throughout the years, be it as the novelty guest manager for an exhibition game, or just appearing at the ballpark for some special occasion.  But Bobby Cox was no exception to the rule of Father Time, and as his age continued to rise, it was always a matter of when and not if, and curiosity on how the sports world would receive the sad news.

And now, that hypothetical has become reality, and at the age of 84, Bobby Cox has sadly passed away, leaving a void in the hearts of Braves fans, and to varying degrees, fans of baseball, fans of sport, and the people of Atlanta who had a modicum of local pride to the Braves that repped them.

Naturally, I am very sad to hear this as well, at 84, it can’t be said that it was too soon, and he lived quite the full life, but still it’s sad to hear that ‘ol Bobby has finally left the party.  In a way, he was kind of like everyone’s dad, who grew up watching the Braves, and not just to the players themselves. 

I’m not going to wax too much poetic and recite a lot of the same statistics and career numbers that anyone can read about on the countless other obituaries that are already posted all over the internet, but I was always amused at the fact that he had been ejected from nearly an entire regular season’s worth of games (158).  Although I definitely recall a few times where he trudged out of the dugout to get in the face of an umpire, what I always remembered more were the times where TV cameras and mics don’t necessarily pick up what he’s saying, but we just see the umpire react and throw out his finger and send Bobby off, without anyone but commentators really knowing what was being said.

But that’s what Bobby did, he got his ass tossed out of games, always in defense of his boys.  He was this totem of steady respect and support, and I like to imagine Braves fans everywhere wished for the levels of support and sticking up for his team from their own parents as Bobby did for his players throughout his entire career, and imagined how much better life could be if they did.

What was always amazing to me was how Bobby Cox seemed to be immune to the criticism, from even the most staunch and stubborn of newer baseball fans who prioritized statistics and analysis over the old school, touch-and-feel managing style that Bobby Cox exercised, and what made Bobby, Bobby.  Sure, there would be some grumblings of critique over some of his old school game tactics, but at the same time, nobody would complain when he’d get a feeling, and suddenly Brooks Conrad is hitting a pinch-hit home run of the go-ahead variety and the Braves would win a nailbiter.

I think one of my favorite memories of Bobby was when it was somewhere in between 2011 and 2013, but he would emerge out of retirement at the end of most Spring Trainings, and he would manage the Braves’ minor league all-stars for an exhibition game against the final 25-man Atlanta Braves roster, usually at the home of one of their affiliates.  There was one year, where the game took place in sleepy small Rome, Georgia, and the Bobby Cox-led minor league Baby Braves ended up stomping the Jesus out of the Atlanta Braves by like a score of like 10-3.

Every year, I’d always make jokes about how whether it was at these exhibition games, or whenever Bobby showed up to the ballpark, about the umpires should single him out and eject him from the premises, just for old time’s sake, and every time I’d make the joke, it would get avalanches of likes and thumbs ups from the masses, and it always brought me comfort that others shared the same humor and got the joke.

Either way, it is truly a sad, sad day in Atlanta and the baseball landscape, that Bobby Cox has passed.  No hyperbole, the man was genuinely one of the greatest baseball managers in the history of the game, and Major League Baseball is in a position where tomorrow is not going to be a better day than the last because of the magnitude of the loss of one of its greatest alumni.

What’s crazy is that Bobby’s passing was just days after Ted Turner’s, because the two were very closely intertwined, between the former owner and the former manager-turned GM-turned back to manager.  Already, the morbid hypothesis has already been posed about the brutal rule of threes, and seeing as how one and two were Atlanta icons, those legends in my city need to be on high alert over the next coming days into weeks.

Fare thee well, Bobby Cox.  This one genuinely does hurt, and I’m sad to see that this day has finally become reality, and if this were a magic fairy tale baseball season, there’s no more better reason for the Braves to win it all, than, For Bobby, and what the hell, for Ted too.

Happy Trails, Ted

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WABE: Ted Turner, unofficial godfather of the City of Atlanta, passes away at the age of 87

As a (for lack of a better term) Atlanta Braves fan, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a professional wrestling fan who witnessed the rise and eventual fall of World Championship Wrestling, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.  As a resident of the Metro Atlanta area for over half of my life, the passing of Ted Turner does mean something to me.

Frankly, whether or not they were fans of the guy, not a fan, or just somewhere in the middle, I feel like it’s accurate to say that if you lived in the Metro Atlanta area, it’s kind of hard to say that Ted Turner, or more accurately, one of his endeavors didn’t affect you in some way, shape, or fashion.

I know that in today’s twisted, demented, politically charged state of America, Ted Turner equals CNN which equals information source for the filthy gross fake news Democrats which equals Ted Turner being trash to an unfortunate majority of the unwashed right-leaning troglodytes of the country, but I would wager that the life and business dealings of Uncle Ted affected even those shitheads in a positive way, whether he provided employment, entertainment, or through some of the many philanthropic endeavors he was a part of, and in spite of the fact that people these days tend to dislike those with wealth, I can’t really run off many scandalous and negative things about Ted Turner off the top of my head.

Personally, it’s one of those things that I never really thought about, as far as whether or not I was a fan of the guy or not.  In one hand, he has money and is rich therefore I should be inclined to lean towards disliking the man, but in the other hand, other than the day he decided to cede control over his own company and sell to AOL Time Warner, which ultimately killed WCW and made the Braves into the soulless corporation it is now, there’s really nothing that I found particularly offensive about the man.

The man put Braves baseball into the national spotlight, force-feeding the country through TBS, contributing almost entirely to why the Braves have such strong brand recognition and pockets of fandom throughout the entire country and beyond.  Ted Turner was one of the only people in the world to really go toe-to-toe with Vince McMahon and not only challenge him in the wrestling industry, but punch him and draw blood, before the pendulum would eventually swing in the other direction, but let the record show Ted Turner’s success.

And of course, like many who live in the Atlanta area, I too had my stint(s) with the Turner company, having worked for Cartoon Network for two of the more noteworthy years of my career, as well stints with Turner Sports as well as NCAA.com.  Many in Atlanta joke about how you can’t really say you’ve ever lived in Atlanta unless you’ve worked for some of the big dawgs of town, like Coca-Cola, Delta, The Home Depot, or Turner, and I remember the feeling of professional pride I had when I was issued my first @turner.com email address when I was brought into Cartoon Network.

Rich as he was, Ted Turner never seemed to be of that devilish, moustache-twirling kind of evil asshole as many rich white guys are often seen.  The man seemed to genuinely care about the City of Atlanta, and dumped tons of money into the arts, culture, city projects, and was always reliable to find a way to get his name on all sorts of charitable causes throughout the city.

Whenever I’d have friends in the car, it was night, and we were headed southbound towards Midtown, I’d always refer to the 17th Street bridge, going under it, and when you emerge and the Atlanta skyline is unveiled to your eyes, as the mouth of Ted Turner, because there’s just something about seeing all the high rises and lit up buildings as you emerge from underneath a bridge that always seems kind of magical when you see it.

I actually saw Ted Turner once, a long time ago, when I was at a Ted’s Montana Grill; naturally I saw a strikingly attractive older woman, but then right behind her was a man with white hair and a white moustache, and it dawned on me that it was Ted Turner.  I remember thinking, man, he’s way shorter than I thought he was, because whenever he was on television, he was always in his power suits and framed real tight to make him look like a massive, giant man, but in reality, Ted couldn’t have been more than like 5’8.  But all the same, for a rich guy that most snarky people would assume would be too good to eat amongst pleebs, even at a joint named after him, it was refreshing to see him actually at one of his own restaurant’s locations.

Unsurprising, there’s not really anything substantial about this post, but I guess what it really all sums up is that Ted Turner was Atlanta, and his passing really means something to Atlanta, whether or not people want to admit it, and I just wanted to share some not-negative words about a guy that had a lot of contributions to things that were important in my life, and that I appreciated who he was, and what he meant to the city I live in.