Heap's Half-Second of Hot-Dogging

Heap is on the brink of stardom and me thinks he's aware of it. He hit a bomb about 512ft in that Little League park they got in Philly. He then pulled a GriffeyJr circa 1993 as he stood and watched the ball sail out. He quickly became self-aware of his hot-dogging and went into his regular HR waddle around the bases. C'mon Heap! Live a little!

Lowe was magnificent. Keebler hit a HR in his first ML at-bat, and OMG Francoeur silenced his critics!!1

This is absolutely hilarious! (not the team but a video)

I cracked up so bad

The highlight of the season is near

Finally we have something to look forward to... shame we can't trade our senile manager for a couple of batting cages, though

Base hit to right field! .... Francoeur bobbles it!

Two batters later:

... and there's a base hit to right field! Francoeur up with it....

The baseball world is laughing at this team. Sit back, crack open a cold one, and hope nobody trips on a banana peel.

8 Year Old Likes Braves and Baseball Like.. A Lot

Here's a story about an 8 year old kid who knows a lot about baseball. He's decked out in Braves gear (Andruw jersey, *shudder*) and seems to be a pretty smart little boy. He's also too young to understand the pain and anguish of watching Braves games because he is in bed by 8:30PM. Lucky him.

At least we're not the Pirates.. YET

This story made me feel a tad better. Apparently one of our "aces" could've been had for much less than Renteria. If the Pirates weren't such a joke, we would not have met our Curacaoaoian quota. OH NOEZ!!1

From mlbtraderumors.com:

From the What Might've Been File: the Tigers offered Jair Jurrjens for Jack Wilson about a year ago. Nice to see that .500 will not be a goal for the Bucs, by the way.

Detroit offered Jair Jurrjens for Jack Wilson just last July (2007). And the Tigers were not blind to Jurrjens, either. Even at the time, Detroit really liked him and saw him as being ready for the majors very, very soon.

So in essence, Atlanta received a decent pitcher and super Gorkys because the Pirates are silly.

Hot Topic: Former Braves wives special edition!

I wrote about Francoeur and how googling his name brings up all sorts of weird "related searches". Well, here's another one I stumbled upon. Google Salty, like this.

Here are the "related searches":

ashley saltalamacchia

saltalamacchia longest name

And when you do a search in Google Images here:

Related searches:saltalamacchia wife

From VelcroVernacular, here are the top 10 Braves wives past and present (Kotsay's wife not included).

Anyway, boo hoo. Salty apparently didn't want to be traded last year.

Other bits from the article:

-Gonzalez about to blow his elbow again

-Soriano is resting so he can blow out his elbow again

-Hampton blew up years ago.

-Bobby Cox STILL senile. He discussed DH-ing Chip and Tex with no mention of McCann. So whenever Campillo pitches again, McCann's 385OBP will sit down.

"I'm still better than Corky Miller"

Sure you are, Frenchy. Sure you are.

http://www.jeffbfrancoeur.blogspot.com/

Why is Corky?

Why? Why is Corky? Why is he? Why must he be? Whatever the bleep he is should not be!














I understand giving McCann a break every now and then. By "every now and then" I mean once every 15 days. But if you MUST take out your .304 AVG/389OBP All-Star catcher, at least put him in the DH spot when you're playing interleague!!

One more year of senility.

The new badass in town

5 for 10, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 4 R so far

oh, and that Charlie kid wasn't too bad either


The Braves are on ESPN tonight. http://www.FireJoeMorgan.com

Really? ....... REALLY?

Chipper hit in the face by own batted ball

What next? Oh, this. ..... OK. Touche, baseball gods.

Today's theme: Hibernation Mode (TM by bravesjournal.com)

I have been in Hibernation Mode (see: BJ) and so have the Braves. The way things have been going for them I really couldn't find anything to talk about, hence, the lack of posts.

BUT

It's only a game.. meant for our entertainment...and as such, let's have some fun with this.

Glavine had never been on the DL during his 31 year career and he's now doing his second stint until mid-July.

4 of the projected 5 starters are hurt and/or done.

Some of these losses have been RIDICULOUS (Kelly's drop, HBP in the 11th, etc, etc, etc)

Bobby Cox is old, senile, and still going to be running this sinking ship next season.

Knock knock

Who's there?

The Atlanta Braves

The Atlanta Braves who?

Exactly

Answer: This Team

Clue:

Your Atlanta Rockies

Jayson Stark, who last year said Andruw is overrated (no complaints here), is saying that the Braves are this year's Rockies due largely in part to the horrible 2-76 record in 1-run games. I guess the torture of putting up with this team will pay off if they go 37-1 to finish the season.

Who is positioned to be this year's Rockies?
A year ago this time, four of the eight playoff teams (Rockies, Cubs, Phillies, Yankees) were at least 5½ games out of the playoff spots they eventually won. Then the light bulb flicked on. So the question is: Which team this year is most likely to come from even a couple of games back in the pack and show up in October? We heard nominations for the Indians, Blue Jays and Dodgers. But our pick would be the Braves. They have a better run differential (plus-48) than six of the eight teams that would make the playoffs if the postseason started today. They rank first or second in the league in batting average, ERA and rotation ERA. And the biggest reason for their .500-ish record (28-25) is their 2-14 record in one-run games. But that's a record that figures to improve dramatically once they add John Smoltz, Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez to their bullpen. "I'm going to predict this right now," said one NL scout. "I think Atlanta wins that division."

Full article here plus a few paragraphs of Chipper and the .400 chase

Belated Mother's Day Story

(from left) his mother, Mariluz Almenares, sister Yunay and wife Minerva.

Before the Braves start they're double-header, in honor of Mother's Day here's a story about Yunel Escobar and his mother. If anything it should open up our eyes and help us realize that living in the US of A ain't so bad....... no matter how many road games the Braves lose.

UPDATE: I've been informed that it is now EX-wife Minerva. Now that Yunel is big time I guess he's opted to sew his royal oats.

Teixeira no longer a Brave

SI.com has this story which pretty much says Teixeira is going to sign with NYY or NYM after this season. Boo.

AJC.com suggests signing Furcal in the offseason and moving Kelly to 1st. I suggest winning the World Series this year and then rebuild next year a la Marlins.

JoJo looks like a MLB pitcher; Adam Dunn looks like Will Ferrell

JoJo was just swell last night. Half the team is going down with injuries so it was nice to see Hudson's 3-hitter and JoJo's non-implosion.

Oh, and wow. Really?

TBAATIL delivers yet again with the Smoltz interviews (naked Julio Franco included)

Click here for an interview that John Smoltz did on 790AM The Ticket in Miami, FL. A little background info on the interview:

-Smoltz plays golf with Tiger Woods (duh)

-Smoltz and the host Dan LeBatard are pretty good friends. Smoltz refers to himself as an Atlanta brave while LeBatard is a Florida coward. Nice little play on words.

-The last few minutes with the Julio Franco story is a staple of 790 The Ticket. They play that story all the time. It is hilarious. Listen to it a few times because the guy's accent is tough to understand at times.

-Jon Sciambi used to have a show on 790 The Ticket but he quit in order to focus on baseball.

McCann's B-day Present For Chipper

There was no better bday present other than McCann's belly flop into third base last night. Braves Love has the videos for your viewing pleasure.

I Went To A Braves Game That Had More Than 4,000 People

During my time away, I did a lot of traveling and lo and behold I found myself driving through downtown Atlanta. I attended my first game at Turner Field on Friday (reminder: I live in Miami). Here's what I remember from the experience:

- Braves fans are weird. They will boo just about anybody (Andruw, Glavine, etc) that isn't in a Braves uniform anymore.

- Braves fans like to drink and be sloppy. While waiting in line to buy tickets, the #44 shrine to Hank Aaron was covered in beer cans and filth. It was kind of sad to see his number trashed.

- FEMALE Braves fans like attention. Other than the ladies at Braves Love and Velcro Vernacular and their respectives friends and families, female Braves fans are attention-greedy posers. During the whole bit between innings where the fans dance and they are put up on the jumbo screen for everyone to see I saw a girl take a picture of HERSELF. Somewhere out there is a girl with a picture of herself taking a picture of the jumbo screen while she is ON the jumbo screen. Wow.

Other quick notes:
- Andruw and Furcal colliding on a pop-up was not as funny as I thought it'd be.
- I used to hate Boyer but now I think he's OK. He throws pretty hard so good for him. Acosta is OK in my book now too.
- I like the way Blanco and Kotsay play in the OF. Very smooth.

All in all it was a good experience. This write-up of the Turner Field experience is pretty much what I experienced.