This was one of the games of the Civil Rights Weekend series. And it a great one. Their Joe Blanton (that Lauren loves) and our Jair Jurrjens (that Molly and Laura super love). So our Party of Five girls included: Lauren, her cousin Emily, Molly, her friend Jess (love her!), and me. Molly and Jessica got up early, early, early, and drove all the way to the Ted from Alabama in order to make batting practice. Those are true Braves fans, right there.
JJ (much to Molly’s delight) was starting that day, and it had slipped the minds of both Lauren and I that because of this, Rossy would be starting, too. This “new” development elicited a reaction of glee (we LOVE Beardy Rossy), much to the chagrin of Jess, who loves BMac. I think, though, as the game went on, we may have made Jess a little bit of a Rossy fan, too. [Though, I just want to note, we all love Mac, too.]
I know that there has been a lot of text, and most of you don’t care, you just want photos, so here we go. Parker requested some Eric Hinske photos, and since he was the only one that commented on my last post, I’ll start with Ske.
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| Braves’ resident He-Man, Eric Hinske |
Yes, the Dude is thriving here in Atlanta quite well. While he might not play every day, he makes it his business to make it a difficult decision to remove him from the lineup. [In 31 games played, 63 at-bats, Ske is hitting .349 with 22 hits, 4 of which are homers. Check Baseball Reference for more stats… needless to say, He-Man’s off to a good start.] And don’t worry, Parker, I DO have more Hinske pictures.
Back to text. When we got into Turner Field, THEY GAVE US ATLANTA BLACK CRACKER HATS! I love it. And it actually fits on my head, and I don’t look weird! Lauren took a picture of it.
We decided to sit closer to the home bullpen (RF) instead of left centerfield (as usual) because the team wasn’t really out yet. I announced to everybody in our group that if Prado comes out to the OF though, that I was moving. Here is the first thing I saw in RF:
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| "Nice hair." |
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Freddie Freeman! | Brooks Conrad! |
I like watching baseball players throw baseballs. Look at the way both players stand! The mechanics of a throw are very interesting to me. Oh! Also, this was awesome. Brooksy demonstrated several ways of fielding a ball given different situations while a coach watched. And then you saw the coach making suggestions or motions. This is the kind of thing I like to see when I’m at BP. :)
Two of our comedians/hams. :)
I don't know why the next two photos REFUSE TO BE CENTERED
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| Dan Uggla: In Search of a Nickname |
I need input here. What do we call Dan Uggla? “Popeye” because of his swoll arms? “Love Barrel” because he’s compact, knows how to wear a uniform, and barrels down the basepaths? Or, my personal favorite (I’m so proud of myself for this), “Huggla” because of all of the above and you want to hug him? I guess we COULD just go with “Danny” or “Danny Boy.” ;P
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| JOE MATHER |
So my friend Christianna (Chris for short) and I share a fondness for lanky Joe Mather. Please note that I haven’t spotted any gross tobacco tins in his pockets. And yes, I do have pictures of his face (in profile mostly), but I sit in the outfield during BP, gimme a break.
Is this too many BP pictures? TOO BAD. THERE’S MORE.
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| Marteen taking BP | Kimmie’s getting that grounder! |
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Yes, you are seeing that correctly. Eddie Perez does indeed have a bat in his back pocket. Not a ball. Not a water bottle. Not batting gloves. No. A bat. Discuss amongst yourselves. Be sure to either include me in the conversation or at least CC me. Thanks.
I’m finally done with Braves BP. There are a ton more pictures I wanted to talk about, but there’s still Phillies BP, the game, and the Ludacris concert! Plus there are some different stories at Lauren’s blog… and you can always email me if you find a funny picture and you want to know if there’s a story behind it.
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| Kris Medlen! |
Let’s just leave Braves BP behind with a little Meds love. We love you, Kris Medlen. Come back soon… and please get back on Twitter. It’s not the same without you.
Phillies BP. I essentially ONLY took photos of Roy Halladay, Kyle Kendrick, Cliff Lee, and Antonio Bastardo. If there are Phillies fans here looking for other Phillies players, you’re out of luck. And if you’re a Braves fan who hates those guys, well… You’re out of luck, too. Because I adore them. Blue Jays fans? Here’s our Doc mentoring a young pitcher!
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| Roy Halladay + Kyle Kendrick | Cliff Lee + Kyle Kendrick |
Can we discuss this giant grin on the good Doctor’s face? I adore him. Kyle Kendrick basically picked Doc’s brain the whole time at batting practice. It was neat to watch them interact. What a lucky guy he is. Not only is Roy Halladay one of his mentors, but his OTHER mentor is known Yankee-killer Cliff Lee. Are you kidding me? I mean, there he is, picking Cliff Lee’s brain, too. (Yes, I took many pictures to record this.)
Also, I would like to note that in Lauren’s post, she claims that I love Doc and she loves Cliff Lee. I would like to state, for the record, that I also love Cliff Lee. A lot. But not as much as I love Doc. And I’m not sure either of us loves Cliff Lee as much as my friend Steph, who is a huge Indians fan…
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Let’s take a minute to talk about Antonio Bastardo. Originally, my favorite Phillies reliever (omg, I just typed that, what’s wrong with me???) was Ryan Madson. That has now changed. This guy. This guy is where it’s at! Cori? You’re welcome. Molly, I know you got some good photos, as well!
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Ok. Now back to the teaching session.
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This is getting a little bit out of hand, don’t you think? I might’ve overdone it for one post and I tried really hard to keep it down, too! So I’m going to stop here, and I’ll get out the gameday pictures and the subsequent Ludacris concert pictures out to you soon.
LINKS
- Game Day & Concert post (unfinished, will post link soon)
Note: I don't know what is going on with the formatting in this post... why some of the photos are fine being centered like they should be and why the others are shooting me the bird and telling me that they do what they want, screw you. I've been fighting with it for longer than I care to actually say, so I gave up. This is what I'm posting, and that's that.
One more note: I’m beginning to feel like a clone of Braves Love. Just wanted to mention that I’m not trying to be… obviously. And it is quite apparent that she and I run our blogs differently, since she cares more about making timely posts, and I just do it when I have time. Sometimes, though, I feel like all I ever make are game day posts because I simply don’t have time to make other posts… because I’m too busy trying to get game day posts done (in the midst of, you know, life). So I may just start making less game day posts, from now on, and more graphs, doodles, and rants. It’s a bit less stressful (for something that is supposed to be fun), and I get to work on my text a bit. Looking back on my oldest posts, I feel like I had more things to say… but not, all I seem to have to say is in a caption of a photo. This isn’t a Facebook album or Tumblr, you know?
What do y’all think, readers? What would YOU like to see on this blog?
