2011 "Love Notes": Outfielders

At the end of 2008, I wrote an end of the year wrap-up on each player in the organization. 2009 was skipped, and last year I decided to write “love notes” instead of a semi-objective wrap up for each player. A few people have wondered if I’m doing the same this year – why not? So here are short little notes to the boys, from one of their biggest fans. Ya know. :)

Names taken from baseball-reference.com, hope I didn’t miss anyone...

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#14
Dear Marteeeeen,

Staph sucks. I know – ask the scar on my jaw. Next year will be better. Thanks for making two of my friends so happy by throwing them baseballs.

Love,
Lauren

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#13
Dear Nate,

I really did enjoy the return of your Pittsburgh hair this season. Hope you heal up well and return to form next year.

Love,
Lauren

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#22
Dear JHey,

Sitting in right field so often this year, it was so fun to watch you interact with the fans. You made so many people cheer!

Love,
Lauren

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#20
Dear Ske,

If I had worn a He-Man shirt at one of the BP experience days, would you have come over and said hi then? Probably not, still. Oh well. I enjoyed your sound bites on Braves Live, especially when you called yourself a big teddy bear (in spite of looking “scary”).

Love,
Lauren

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#24
Dear Mike,

Your infusion of speed in our team got a lot of us excited to watch every game. Also, at the Moylo Show thing? You looked like you probably smelled the best of everyone downstairs.

Love,
Lauren

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#1
Hey Jordan,

I did not appreciate paying for parking at the CNN Center to get you to sign an awesome picture I took of you, only to find out you left 2/3 of the way through your autograph session. Not cool. (Not even gonna talk about anything else.)

Hmm.
Lauren

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#17
Dear ConSTANza!

Loved watching you run (always), loved watching how awesome you were with the kids at Family Field Day. You can stay. :)

Love,
Lauren

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#4
Dear Joe,

I hope you heard our “GO JOE!” GI Joe cheers earlier this year. I was truly sad when you left the big club.

Love,
Lauren

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#17
Dear Tiny Matt Young,

You’re still taller than I am. :)

Love,
Lauren

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#23
Dear MattE!

There are no words for how excited I am that one of my favorite former Braves came back so soon. I love how hard you play the game. Next year: goatee. Yes? Yes.

Love,
Lauren

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#4
Dear Antoan,

Socks UP + speed = I’m a fan. Hope to see you in Atlanta again soon!

Love,
Lauren

Game Day Pictures: Braves vs Rangers 6-18-11 (and Jonny Venters autograph signing)

Afternoon view from section 233L.
Shade was important today, and Stubhub is awesome.

1. I almost never leave games early, and somehow, I've left two games early recently. I blame this one on going the previous night, the super rain delay, and...

2. Alison and I went to the CNN Center for the Jonny Venters autograph session that morning.

3. He was awesome, of course.

Since I have Jonny's autograph on a few things and I think autographs are kinda dumb anyway, I didn't take anything for him to sign. Instead, I printed a few pictures I'd taken of him as a little present (my fave was the worst, photographically speaking - it was the one from the 4/17 game my friends fondly call "Deer Jonny"). Alison didn't have anything either and we had planned to just ask him for a picture.

SO bored, waiting in line

Lady passing out tickets (one autograph per person) was nice; lady guarding Jonny, not so much. We felt very rushed and even though Jonny greeted us warmly, his guard lady was still giving us the angry face so we barely had time to get a picture and move along. He seemed surprised the pictures were all for him -- don't be, doll. All for you. You're awesome.

My fave Brave! ❤

After a little bit of discussion, Alison wanted to go back in line again. She felt weird coming to an autograph session and not coming away with an autograph, and she had a funny idea with a gift I'd given her earlier in the day. Me, on the other hand, I was good. I am pretty sure when we went back, he could tell I was like, *sigh*. Can't believe I'm doing this again.

Well, while we were in the (teeny) line (btw, where was everyone?), a guy asked us if we had anything for JV to sign. No, I don't, I said, and he handed us sparkling gameday programs. Cool! When we got to the table again Alison told Jonny why we were back and he grinned when I flopped the program on the table. I was kinda making a face - the real-life equivalent of :/ - but I said that I meant to tell him earlier to have fun in Arizona. ;) His face perked up a little and he tried to shrug it off, but come on, hon. We all know you're going to the All-Star Game, and if you don't, it's going to be a tragedy. I told him we're putting the good vibes out there! He's totally going.

As soon as we were finished I got pulled aside by blog reader Kolbi, who was so fun to talk with, and I got to see and speak with a couple other blog readers too. Hi y'all!

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After eating the innards of a free Moe's burrito (thanks for the homer last night, BMac!), we headed to the Ted for BP. Let's look at pictures! Click to enlarge, as usual.

Bye Joe. :(

Ske & Rossy

Sherrill, ?, Linebrink

JJ! "A lifetime of care", haha! ❤  

Hi Beachy

There are more Kimmeh shots in the full album than of anyone else. When you look in there you'll see why. ;)

MikeMinor's back in the minors now, but he pitched pretty well up here!

Several of these shots too - they were right in front of us.
(Sort of - we were in the shade of the terrace. Day game sun and all!)

CUTE

CUUUUTE

I am a super-curious person and I always wonder what they're talking about... but then I think twice and you know? I probably don't want to know. :D

Bye boys...

Game time!

JHey at bat

My friendly Ranger from the night before

DLowe!

HIT A DOUBLE!

Getty Images Photo - I loved this SO much.
ATLANTA - JUNE 18: Carolyn Lowe cheers as her husband Derek Lowe #32 of the Atlanta Braves hits a double against the Texas Rangers at Turner Field on June 18, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia.
(His daughter's pretty cute too!)

Schafer bustin' it down the line

Very long rain delay. They took the tarp up and put it back down.

During the delay they showed more of "The David Ross Show", and this time Rossy interviewing Meds. From our seats at the top of the terrace section we could see the little TVs but couldn't hear anything...

...and this is all we could see of the jumbotron. See the overhang above?

Hey Braves, know what would be helpful on these Rossy interviews? Subtitles. No one he's interviewed is difficult to understand, but it's so loud in the stadium that I've never been able to hear an entire interview, and I've been to over 20 games this year. Club level, terrace level, field level, outfield pavilion - never been able to hear. Thanks. ❤

We went home before the game started up again. We were tired, and we didn't win. (Okay, that part makes me feel a little badly -- the boys need encouragement no matter what. But it's not like they could hear us all the way up where we were!)

Full Album Here

See you at the Ted soon! :)

Game Day Pictures: Braves vs Rangers 6-17-11

Hey, Josh Hamilton.

The best part about writing a blog is meeting readers from all over, and the very best part is when those readers become real-life friends. One of the first blog readers I met, Jo, drove up from Tallahassee with tickets from her boss for us to attend last Friday's game. See, he knows she's a HUGE Rangers fan -- almost as much as she's a Braves fan -- and it was amazingly cool of him to buy us tickets practically on top of the visitors' dugout for this game. Thank you for sharing, Jo, and thank you Mr. S!

We did arrive early for batting practice, but the tarp was on the field when I arrived (Jo was still on her way) and some Rangers were out in left field playing football. Here's a tiny video (I was on the phone with a non-baseball friend, and I hate my camera that refuses to focus) and some pictures follow...

Antlers!

Yoshinori Tateyama, Matt Harrison has the chin goat, I don't remember the beardy beard, and the bald guy is CUTE and is one of their trainers, according to Jo.

Claw!

Human goal post

Sadly, Jo missed her boys playing football, and it was raining when she arrived so we were planning on grabbing some dinner. She wanted to see the bullpen and if Delgado might be warming up yet, but I told her it was definitely too early. As we peeked out of the concourse, what did we see? Some of our pitchers throwing in right field! Jo: HUDDY!!!

Oh, did I mention it's Huddy t-shirt night? Yes, we got Huddy t-shirts. They're pretty sheer and scratchy, but we're happy they started giving out t-shirts again. I think the last one I got was a Smoltzie!

MEDS

The back end of our bullpen (ha!)

Hmm. Jonny wins here. A friend says it's just the angle, but I'm just happy there's no dip can ruining the picture this time. ;)

Come back soon!

Catcher Huddy!

Good boys, signing autographs

Remember how I mentioned our seats were just above the Rangers' dugout? Well, they were on the home plate side, and before the game started, on the left field side, Jo spotted CJ Wilson.

Jo: OMG. There's CJ.
Me: Go over there!
Jo: I don't have anything for him to sign! I don't have anything for him to sign WITH. I left my camera in the car!
Me: I think I have a Sharpie. Oh, I do. I don't know why; I never ask for autographs... I loan it to people... Here. Go over there!
Jo: He can sign my iPhone? Will you take pictures? OMG. I'm going.

And with that, she was gone. And that's how I met CJ Wilson on the side of the dugout.

CJ: "You know they don't take back signed iPhones, right?"
Jo: *giggle* "I know..."

Wow, I look ridiculous. Tired eyes. I'm going to start making photobomb faces, I think. Y'all who have met me - I don't look like this in person, do I? I don't think I do... He makes this same straight-line smile face in all his fan photos, I think -- it was identical in Jo's pic. Also, he's very thin.

The signed iPhone :D

Calling her mom :)

She asked me if I was this excited when I met Brian McCann the first time, which made me laugh. I said no (sorry Mac), but that's because it was at a golf tournament and he was just really nice and a normal guy. I was super-nervous about meeting Javy, and that was years after my JavyLove was at its peak, haha. I think he's the only one I was truly nervous about meeting. The rest have mostly just been fun. Anyway. CJ was pretty much exactly as he comes across on Twitter. :)

The full album is full of some pretty good pictures from the start of the game forward. I'll try not to overload you, but take a look!

Going to warm up

Cute Trainer again with Nellie Cruz and... I don't remember who he was stretching. Michael Young? Mitch Moreland?

Elvis Andrus and Josh Hamilton sign autographs

While I was taking pictures of Elvis, apparently Kimmeh was very near us and I missed him! Just saw him as he disengaged from the net and went back to his side. Aww, bye!

JJ: May's NL Pitcher of the Month! Congrats!!

The Braves official photographer Pouya Dianat making two of my faves grin!

Stretch

Mitch Moreland (my new Rangers fave) and Michael Young

Rookie Randall Delgado pitched pretty well!

Lots of requests for Josh Hamilton pics - there are more in the album!

CJ

(knows he's pretty)

alright already...

MM

Oh hi, Rossy. What a nice distraction.

Mac!

MAAAAAAAC (/CABravesFan)

Hi Ske

Cristhian in!

The rail watches Freddie's homer fly out!

Ian Kinsler caught me taking pictures of him playing with his hair. I nodded at him and the camera like, "good pic!" (...it wasn't) and he gave me a big grin. The Hair Boys amuse me.

The ladies in front of me were picking out mug shots in the menu they liked. The ones I caught? DLowe, Mac, and EO.

If this was Joe Mather's last at-bat as an Atlanta Brave, I hope he heard me yell, "GO JOE!" ...because I yelled it as loudly as I could. :)

:(

As I tweeted, Josh Hamilton stayed after and signed autographs for everyone he could from the second his postgame interview ended until 4 songs into the fireworks show. Very cool.

Full album here. Thanks again, Jo! See you again soon; can't believe we've only seen each other twice this year!