Happy trails, Turner Field

September 27, 2016July 24, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sandwiched in between two hectic weeks between two, two-week vacations were a lot of catching up on sleep, catching up at work, catching up on home maintenance, and my favorite, catching up on paying bills. In spite of the fairly busy schedule with not a lot of free time, there was one thing that I felt very strongly about wanting to do: catch one more game at Turner Field.

Now I’ve made no secret of my general disdain for the Braves organization and their pursuit of cash-greener pastures in Marietta. I’m still disappointed that the Braves failed to lose 100 games for the second straight year in spite of superior draft positioning. And I still feel disgust every time I read anything about blatantly transparent greed and corruption involving the development of ScumTrust Park.

But this is a time to set all those loathsome feelings aside, and to take an evening to enjoy a place where I’ve spent countless nights watching baseball, at various points of my baseball fandom.

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Photos: Progressive Field, Cleveland, Ohio

July 30, 2016August 14, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

[2020 note]: the following is a photo dump that was never accounted for, from my baseball park trip to Cleveland, Ohio, to visit Progressive Field, the home of the Cleveland Indians in 2016.

This was a ballpark that had long eluded me, due to the fact that it was in Cleveland, and there were never many ideal flight options when I had my flight privileges, and after I lost them, it seemed like it might never happen. But seeing as how my dad had gotten a new car, it seemed like a good idea to have some father-son bonding time, and we made a road trip to Ohio from Virginia, and got to knock this ballpark off my bloody list.

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A little bit of retribution?

July 27, 2016July 22, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In short: Cobb voters choose to not reelect chairman Tim Lee, the man primarily behind the under-the-table deal which agreed to bring the Atlanta Braves to Cobb County

Unfortunately, Cobb residents will still be on the hook for much of the burden that Great White Flight ScumTrust Park will create, but at least they can have a tiny bit of solace in knowing that they denied Tim Lee’s plight to continue on as chairman of the county.

I like how the media tries to downplay the involvement of the conception of ScumTrust Park in Lee’s defeat, and uses words like “partially.” It’s entirely because of ScumTrust Park and the deception used and the trust broken that it all symbolizes that led to this development. Lee had been chairman for the last six years, and stayed put because nothing seemed broke, so the apathetic Cobb voters didn’t want to fix anything; but then he brokered the Braves deal in secret and with zero time for constituent opposition, shattered the trust of all residents, and is now seeing the effects of how far you can push a population before they push back.

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Braves Burgerizza, owned

July 13, 2016July 22, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So, in an attempt to entice even the most jaded baseball fans into the dying home of the likely worst-team in Major League Baseball, the Atlanta Braves rolled out a bunch of crazy food items to try and appeal to the appetites for garbage food instead of competitive baseball. Among them was this ridiculous cheeseburger, with two pan pizzas as buns, dubbed the “Burgerizza.” I may have posted about this prior to the start of the season, but I can’t exactly go back and check since my site is still down.

Well, in the case of me, it worked. I knew that I had to go to a Braves game, if for anything at all, to eat this delicious-looking abomination. This is also why I’m fat, but that’s beside the point.

Admittedly, I had some reservations about it, because a month prior, I had failed to defeat one of the other Braves food abominations, the tater tot waffle. It was just so starchy and carb-y, and filled me up so quickly, that I could only make it through 3/4of it before tapping out. In terms of mass, the Burgerizza was larger, and at $26, it was more expensive, which meant that I was risking throwing away even more money in case I couldn’t complete it.

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Oh look, moar proof

July 7, 2016July 22, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Bloomberg: The Braves Play Taxpayers Better Than They Play Baseball

For all the words I’ve spent talking about how the Atlanta Braves are a bunch of money-grubbing immoral crooks in regards to the covert planning and execution of the construction of ScumTrust Park, I’ve neglected the other branches of the Braves organization, namely the minor leagues. And despite the fact that I far prefer minor league ball over the trash at the major league level, as far as the Braves are concerned, it turns out that they’re no less despicable in other towns too.

Now I knew about the swindling of the people done in Lawrenceville, when it came to bringing the Triple-A Braves to Gwinnett, since I know people who live up there, who don’t like baseball, who are less than impressed with the idea of having to pony up extra pennies on their daily purchases, to finance a ballpark.

However, it turns out that both the Low-A Rome Braves and the Double-A Mississippi Braves are also instances where the Braves moved teams to their current homes, after basically strong-arming their previous residences, giving them a tiny window to meet gargantuan demands, and when they predictably fail, pulling the teams and moving them to towns that had been prearranged to build ballparks at the cost of taxpayers, with hopeless promises of local financial stimulation, and a benefit to all parties, but then failed and saddled debts on the public, while the Braves and conspirators are last money in, first money out.

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I hope the Braves fail here

June 15, 2016July 20, 2020 ~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

TL;DR – Atlanta Braves fail to secure new Spring Training home for 2018 and beyond; are now banking on good faith that Disney will allow them one-year extension

As if the Braves couldn’t swindle enough people in Georgia already, apparently they’ve been trying to find a way to swindle people in Florida too. The Braves’ agreement with the Walt Disney ESPN Wide World of Sports as official home to Atlanta Braves Spring Training home expires after the 2017 season. And with the vast majority of the teams in the Spring Grapefruit League all having moved to areas where they’re all close to each other, the Braves would like to become one of the cool kids, and relocate to where they can be close to other teams, and not spend so much of their Spring Training time on buses or driving long distances in order to play their scrimmages, from Orlando.

Naturally, the Braves want to build a brand new facility, or rather, have a brand new facility built for them at the expense of local taxpayers, in preferably places like Palm Beach, or Sarasota, where large clusters of teams call home come Spring Training. Hilariously, alleged talks with these regions have not progressed nearly as quickly enough for the Braves to be able to actually project where they will be training come the 2018 season.

And I hope it remains this way, and that the Braves don’t actually get another fucking sports facility built for them, because fuck more new sporting complexes.

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