Braves' Faithful?

Ever read Faithful, the Stephen King / Stewart O’Nan day-to-day dialog about the Red Sox’ 2004 season? I loved it. The authors read the book on CD. O’Nan went to tons of games and related his personal experiences of shagging BP home runs and vying for parking lot autographs. King suffered from his Maine home, taking several trips south to Boston for games.

It would be fun to do something similar for the Braves season. My accountant friend follows the team closer than anyone I know, and goes to every Friday home game. He is a unemotional stats/numbers/salary cruncher, and understands the business aspects of assembling a team. Another friend goes to almost every weekend game. He writes for the Baptist Press, but he’s still cool. My writer friend in New York also follows the Braves closely. Too bad we don’t have a book deal.  

I didn’t dig too deep into the AJC comments, but it seemed like the overall reaction to the trade was mostly favorable, considering the loss of the beloved Prado. Martin plays hard, and the resulting injuries caused him to miss a lot of games in 2011. Wren seemed to be given positive credit. Even Rowland’s Office didn’t slam it too bad. I finally bookmarked RO on my cell phone, so I’m reading it more.

What do you think the batting order will look like? Simmons, Heyward, Justin, Freeman, BJ, McCann, Uggla, 3B to make it righty/lefty? We had discussed how Delgado lacked the killer instinct, and I think he is not a big loss. We retain all our top prospects, so even if the brothers are inconsistent, the trade seems like no huge loss. I’m hoping the brothers will be happy to be together, and drive each other to play well.

The Lincoln book was good. Guess I should rate it. Along with many of the usual details, Killing Lincoln chronicled the last few days/battles of the Civil War and added extra info about Grant and Booth. Based on several interesting bits of historical information, O’Reilly wondered if Secretary of State Stanton was somehow involved in the conspiracy, pointing to large untraceable payoffs, etc. Lots of info on Lincoln’s absent bodyguard, who had a poor work record and was drinking at the bar next door when the shooting occurred, then disappeared into the night. He was never punished for his misdeeds. Hadn’t heard of that new film.

The Torre book is full of good stuff. I’m on the library waiting list for several books on my GoodReads list. Funny that the book written my JFK’s mistress was available…I’m picking it up today. I meant to tell Will about GoodReads. He seems to be reading a lot more than he used to.

      

Just this morning I remembered about Anna’s longtime ballet friend Molly, whose family C & A went to Chicago with several years ago. Anna dropped out when ballet became a 4-5 night per week activity, but Molly stuck with it, dancing in the Atlanta ballet’s Nutcracker. Now she’s auditioning for the Boston ballet. Will’s Living Science classmate, now a student at Stamford, dances in the Birmingham Ballet.

Nothing big on tap for the weekend.