As the Braves Turn

Scored Braves tickets this afternoon at 5 pm. With rain in the forecast I didn't bother asking anyone, besides my kids. While there I chatted with buddy Howard Evans (red bill, next to the guy in the Freeman jersey). Figured the team store would be crowded before the game, so I went for the ice cream...which isn't served until the game starts. Below: Walter Banks is honored for 50 years of service.

Stayed at my seat until the tarp was pulled back on the field. Had asked Johnny and Marshall to come sit with me. By the time I made it to the long line for the team store, the game had been canceled. 

Took 25 minutes to weave through the line inside the store, but I was on a mission. Only then did I learn to tickets were no longer good. By then the crowd had cleared, and they were closing the Third Base Gate.  

Had a Braves t-shirt and cap in the car to wear. The cap seems huge, but with my big noggin it doesn't look too bad.

Last night I heard where some other pitcher was going to be eligible to be promoted to the Braves today, and Minter was a like candidate for demotion. Minter’s performance had gotten even worse in recent weeks. Sometimes when a player goes to Gwinnett, they never come back. Expect the Braves GM to trade for a reliever or three before the end of the month.

Seems to be a lack of good pitching throughout major league baseball. Relief pitchers want to throw as hard as possible, since they’re almost always only pitching one inning at a time. Starters are only going five or six innings. You’d think a pitcher wouldn’t want to walk a batter. I don’t have high expectations for the Braves to trade for an All Star reliever (or starter). There just aren’t that many out there, that teams want to trade.

While it’s been bad not being able to get Braves games on my TV package, at least I haven’t been able to see all the late inning collapses. The last two years the Braves have led baseball in come from behind wins and holding late inning leads. Not this year. Ian Anderson, Tucker Davidson, Mike Soroka on the DL. Also lost Acuna, d’Arnaud, and Ozuna. It’s hard to replace one or two key players. Almost impossible to replace six.

Braves just four games out of first place. Hard to give up on the season, and right now they’re not. These next two weeks will determine whether they can make a run. But if they’re still only four games back on Labor Day, they still can make a late surge. Freddie could be player of the month, he’s been playing so well.

I expect the Braves to re-sign Freddie Freeman early in the off-season – not during this season. Interesting that the Braves just traded two minor league first basemen. Sounds like newcomer Joc Peterson had been negotiating with the Braves before Marcel Ozuna had been signed, so Peterson signed with the Cubs. A good chance Peterson re-signs with the Braves during the off-season, sez me.

The Braves will have several options at catcher this off-season. If needed d-Arnauld can be re-signed. Contreras has a huge upside, and there’s another young catcher in the Braves system who’s supposed to be even better, the guy with the long name. Several players are lighting it up in Gwinnett, including catcher Contreras and young Drew Waters.

Counting my eggs before they’re hatched: bought a ticket to the August 8 game with hopes of securing a season ticket special dual bobblehead, of Hank Aaron and Chipper Jones. The ticket always secures me a Braves satchel. Just what I need, considering how much I like my current backpack.

Forbes notes how the bobblehead craze is stronger than ever, citing the Braves as a prime example. Teams like bobbleheads days because fans arrive early, and eat inside the park.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rayglier/2021/07/02/the-atlanta-braves-and-the-still-vibrant-bobblehead-craze/

REGGIE JACKSON  [SABR Bio] posted a sparkling 1.018 OPS and 189 OPS+ in only his second full season in the majors. He also led in strikeouts in 1969. Born in the Philadelphia suburb of Abington, he went to Arizona State University to play football. In the 1982 AL MVP vote, One year he received a single first-place vote to prevent another player from being a unanimous MVP choice. While Robin Yount was the clear winner of the 1982 AL MVP vote, Jackson’s performance with CAL earned him exactly one first-place vote from Jim Golla of the Toronto Globe & Mail. He said he felt, “Jackson deserved the honor because of his ability to carry a team the entire season and to lift himself up to the occasion in the stretch, making the other players around him that much better as well.” and Yount didn’t?!].

Denison: Australian officials would like us to rebrand shark attacks as "negative encounters." The swimmer bitten by a great white shark near San Francisco last month may not agree. American Christians are under unprecedented pressure by our secularized culture to compromise biblical truth and morality. But the inescapable realities of death and eternity beyond the grave demonstrate conclusively that every person needs to know.

Death is the greatest unknown. Nonbelievers do not believe anyone has ever come back from the other side, so they have no empirical way to know what happens when we die. Do we simply cease to exist? Are we reincarnated? Do we spend eternity in heaven? In hell? Our post-Christian society has devised a solution. Postmodernism has taught us that our reality is the reality. Truth is "our truth." Therefore, if we don't believe there is an afterlife, we don't need to be concerned with an afterlife. The man who declared to me "I don't believe in hell" was convinced that his opinion settled the matter. This is illogical in the extreme, of course. Denying that cancer exists doesn't keep me from getting cancer. Even more, this is a satanic deception.

One more satanic deception: sharing the gospel is "imposing" our beliefs on others. Postmodern secularists have convinced many Christians that tolerance is the highest value, that telling people they risk eternity separated from God in hell is intolerant and bigoted. In fact, it is just the opposite.

When you go alone you can go fast. When you go together you can go far - African proverb