Tag: ballparks

The epitome of “not mad, just disappointed”

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: The Atlanta Braves break ground on their new ballpark, slated to open in 2017.  It’s new name?  SunTrust Park.

I love the Braves.  I hate SunTrust.

What I’m dealing with here is a perfect conflict of interests.  A catch-22, if you will.

A little backstory: I used to work for SunTrust corporate.  Making signage, assets, collateral materials; all sorts of marketing materials that the company used at their over 3,000 branches across the eastern seaboard.  It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it was for a reputable brand, paid decently, and I worked with some decent people.  After about three years, the company decided that in-house designers were unnecessary, and is so often the case, felt that they would rather pay external companies way more money for the same services, but minus the obligation to pay for benefits.  So they outsourced myself, eight other designers, two copywriters, an editor, among 1,100 other employees throughout the entire company in 2007.

Continue reading “The epitome of “not mad, just disappointed”” →

Ballparks: Danville, Virginia

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It only took three years, but finally everything worked out as they should of, and I was able to make my long-awaited visit to sleepy Danville, Virginia, where I could get to see the Danville Braves rookie-level squad.

With Danville visited, I can now say that I’ve seen every single level of the Atlanta Braves minor league system, to which I am very pleased with.

Photos: Minor League Baseball in Kodak, Tennessee

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I chose to visit Kodak kind of on a whim.  Initially, I was planning on making Asheville a day trip, where I’d go straight back to Atlanta in the wee hours of the night, but when I found out that the Mississippi Braves were playing against the Smokies, I decided to make my one day trip into a two day one, because Kodak is just 90 miles from Asheville, as opposed to driving the 290 miles back to Atlanta.

Despite the fact that Kodak is a small town seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I was still really excited by the idea of going there.  There’s something ironically amusing to me about small towns in the middle of nowhere that I look forward to.  I guess I like the experience of seeing what those deep out into the country are like, and if they can handle when an English-speaking Asian guy comes romping into their towns, trying to see what’s up.

Continue reading “Photos: Minor League Baseball in Kodak, Tennessee” →

Photos: Minor League Baseball in Asheville, North Carolina

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

So, Asheville.  I was looking forward to visiting this place more than about any other place I had thought about visiting throughout the 2014 baseball season, because to my understanding Asheville was a town known for interesting dining, lots of local breweries, and it happened to be a place within reasonable driving distance that had a minor league ballpark I’ve never visited, AND they just so happened to be giving out a bobblehead, AND they were also playing against an Atlanta Braves affiliate.  Needless to say, it was the no-brainer of no-brainers that I would be looking forward to this particular trip.

Much to my expectations, Asheville was a lovely place that I enjoyed a great deal.  The drive to get there wasn’t the least bit difficult, and it frankly just felt good to get in my own car and drive somewhere I’d never really been to before.

Continue reading “Photos: Minor League Baseball in Asheville, North Carolina” →

The weekend I’d been looking for

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Prior to the start of the baseball season, this past weekend was one particular weekend that I had mentally earmarked as one of weekends that I was looking forward to the most.  Sure, I have ambitions and plans of grandeur when the summer arrives, and in a perfect world, I make every flight, the weather is never an issue, and I’m able to tackle four new MLB and six new MiLB ballparks before the start of July.  However, things haven’t worked out so kindly throughout the span of the last few weeks, and be it poor weather, unlucky flight conditions or both, a lot of my trips have been derailed and ultimately cancelled, leaving me kind of distraught, and with more time to brood and go crazy.

But this past weekend was undoubtedly the one weekend I was looking forward to immensely, because it combined several things going for it that if they all worked out, would lead to a successful good time.

Fortunately for me, with the weekend now a time frame in the past, I can say that basically everything did work out, and it was a successful good time, and I’m quite pleased with it, to the extent that it’s worth writing about, because frankly, I think a lot of my posts throughout the last few weeks have kind of had an undertone of disappointment or an unhappy sentiment to some of them.

Continue reading “The weekend I’d been looking for” →

I kind of hate that the Braves did it like this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Atlanta Braves executives organized, planned and brokered deal to move team from Atlanta to Marietta, completely in private.  Admits fear that if the public knew about it, it would have been shot down – which is very likely true.

A notable storyline transpiring in Atlanta these days is that the Atlanta Braves baseball club is planning on abandoning their current home, Turner Field, and moving north into Marietta, where a new ballpark will be constructed.  Long story short, there’s a small amount of people, and a whole fuckton of people that aren’t.

Continue reading “I kind of hate that the Braves did it like this” →