Few more articles for the end of 2011

What a bittersweet year. Here are a few new articles you might want to read...

Braves Insider: Hudson's injury was front and center

Hudson threw a one-hit complete game shutout in the second game of a May 4 doubleheader [my birthday! thanks huddy! - lt], but his back stiffened during his May 20 start and he missed his next turn. An MRI then showed no damage to his sore back -- or so the media was told -- and he started once again on May 30 versus the Padres.

We have to remember that 1. the media doesn't know everything, and 2. incorrect information can be fed to the media so fans will think differently - or not think about a situation at all.


According to Bradenton.com, you can take lessons from a future Brave right now:

Ongoing: Tyler Pastornicky, a two-time Minor League All-Star and current Atlanta Braves prospect, will be conducting professional hitting lessons in the Bradenton area. All ages and ability levels are welcome. Information: (941) 716-4890.

And here are a couple of articles on future Braves pitcher Jaye Chapman:

Chapman primed for next baseball step

Chapman eyes opportunity to make Braves roster

(Love this kid - can't wait till he's in Atlanta full-time)


Did you miss Fweddie's gay tweets? I sure did...

link

If you don't have MLB Network or missed Kimmie's GIBBY, here you go:




FABF Sherrill is officially back with the Seattle Mariners

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In other news, everything's in the works for the new website/blog. Domain name purchased, web developer working on formatting, etc. Should be up by Spring Training. EXCITING.

And in case my parents are reading... my mom always says that birthdays that end in 5 and 0 are the big ones. It's a REALLY big anniversary today - hope they have a wonderful one!

Hello November

I hate November. It's just bleak. No Braves, no Hawks this year, everyone's gearing up for Christmas when it's not even Thanksgiving yet. I just went to New York for a Big Gay Halloween (thanks to a fabulous friend of mine), and while that was so fun, coming back to the harsh realities of NOVEMBER suck. Here are some things that have happened lately...

You can vote in the GIBBY (Greatness in Baseball Yearly) Awards. Through December 4, vote here as often as you can for the following Braves:

• Rookie - Freddie Freeman
• Closer - Craig Kimbrel
• Setup Man - Eric O'Flaherty and Jonny Venters are both nominated. How to choose?! I guess if I was going straight by the stats I'd have to vote EO, but I want my Jonny to win everything always. :(
• Must-C Walkoff - The 19th inning winning "hit" by Scott Proctor. I loved that game.
• Must-C Fan Moment - Great catch by a Braves fan!

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Hinske's back next year! Nate is not. 2011 Braves who filed for free agency: Alex Gonzalez, Scott Linebrink, Nate McLouth, George Sherrill, and Jack Wilson. I would like Gonzo and FABF George Sherrill to return for 2012. I'm glad Ske is "excited" to stay with the Braves. :)

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I forgot my camera! Yay for camera phones.

While in NYC, I talked my friend into going to the MLB Fan Cave! You can't see much from the outside and they don't allow fans inside, but we did see Mike O'Hara walking in. On the side of the building there's a touchscreen that allows you to take a picture and email it to yourself. So here we were on Halloween afternoon!

2011 "Love Notes": Pitchers

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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#15
Dear Huddy,

It was so nice to have a starting pitcher we could fully rely on every time you took the ball. Will you please retire a Brave? We want you here forever.

Love,
Lauren

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#32
Dear DLowe,

DLowe’s never gonna read this, who am I kidding. Heh. But, I like his "Low" songs and his crazy hair and how he gets streaky hot pink when he pitches.

Love,
Lauren

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#49
Dear JJ,

2012 is going to be a healthy year. I’m positive. Also, your sparklesmile is one of the best on the team – maybe THE best.

Love,
Lauren

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#37
Dear Beachy,

What an incredible year you had, and you somehow managed to get hotter every month. How did you do that? Some of your teammates need tips.

Love,
Lauren

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#48
Dear Tommy,

Did you ever see the Tommyball? It is one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen, and I love that Rossy noticed all the things I did – in the same order! It’s pink! The hearts! Your tongue is out! hahahaha

Love,
Lauren

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#36
Dear MikeMinor,

You’re too good to spend another year in AAA. I hope we have a rotation spot for you in 2012. Also, I like your face.

Love,
Lauren

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#40
Dear Randall,

LOVED the Socks Up and your incredible composure! Bring them back next year!

Love,
Lauren

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#50
Dear Cristhian,

You were one of our bullpen MVPs. See ya next year. :)

Love,
Lauren

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#57
Dear Teheran,

You were great! Excited to watch you pitch again next year!

Love,
Lauren

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#43
Dear Proctor,
I kinda felt bad seeing you sitting in the bullpen downstairs all by yourself, but...you didn’t help us win very often. There was that one awesome walk-off stumblehit. That wasn’t bad.


Love,
Lauren

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#39
Dear Jonny,

My fave. Am I allowed to just type you a million hearts? Hey, it’s my blog, I can do whatever I want! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Love!
Lauren

PS – Socks up! ❤

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#52
Dear FABF Sherrill,

I hope you return next year, and I’m sorry if you heard me call you FABF at the beginning of the season. I mean it in a complimentary way! 100%!

Love,
Lauren

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#38
Dear Anthony,

I liked watching you pitch. Come back next year, yes?

Love,
Lauren

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#34
Dear EO,

If the Braves ever drop you before you’re ready to go, I might cry. ...Okay, not cry. But I would be very upset. How can you be so awesome at pitching and such a nice person and so pretty all at the same time? You’re breaking all the stereotypes in my baseball brain! ❤

Love,
Lauren

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#53
Dear CoryGearrin,

You thought I was 22 when we met before the season started? Hahahaha. Yeah, that made you one of my instafaves.

Love,
Lauren

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#54
Dear Meds,

You didn’t have to throw gum at us, parade-style, to get us to come to your line. Obviously we’d rather play with you than, well, most of the team. :D

Love,
Lauren

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#46
Dear Kimmie,

SO MUCH I want to say here, but in the interest of brevity, you had a great season. I enjoyed every minute. Please keep posing for pictures in BP next year (you’re the best at it, you know) and please reconsider the girly teal swirly vines and lotus flowers that accompany your closer’s intro. The song is great! The graphics are not. Just...talk to someone. :)

Love,
Lauren

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#56
Dear “Jairo”,

Your hair is delightfully fluffy, and I won’t lie, I always wonder if Jairo Ascencio is your real name.

Love,
Lauren

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#59
Dear Vizzy,

You had the most wonderful intro song. Come back next year!

Love,
Lauren

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#58
Dear Moylo,

You’re awesome. Remember how I said I’d stop making fun of the teef? I can’t. We can see them across the stadium. Sorry. :D

Love,
Lauren

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#19
Dear Linebrink,

I spent most of the year joking that your wife and I were the only ones cheering for you, because the stadium was always so quiet when you entered the game. I always cheer for all my pitchers. Good luck next year.

Love,
Lauren

Game Day Pictures: Braves vs Dodgers 9-3-11

I feel like I already told the good things from this day (here, in the BFFD post), but I guess y'all want to see the gameday pics I took too. :) There are a bunch in the album -- I'll just add the ones below I have comments on.

Going slightly out of order, I want to start with this horrible video:



Alison: I hate this game.
Me: Yeah. [later] This is the worst game ever.

I've said it before: Hi/Low is seriously the worst in-game "entertainment" I've ever seen at any level of baseball. Is Marteen better or worse than BMac?! Well, no matter how either of them are batting right this second, it's going to make one of them feel poorly. Let's not do that to our Braves, okay? [Jenna Voice] Seriously. [/Jenna]

OK. Now that that's out of the way, here are some pretties. BEACHY WAS SOCKS UP ON HIS BIRTHDAY, Y'ALL.

He got so many birthday cheers :)

And a snugglehug from Marteen!

Best day ever? Maybe.

Happy birthday, pretty.

Yes, I see your socks. We all see. ;)

Some more boys? Oh yeah, there were more boys out there...

This might be the cutest pic I've ever gotten of Sherrill.

Sometimes I wonder if these boys are actually out there to shag fly balls.

MattE & Rossy

Oh, more SocksUP - I forgot these. Loved this...

Hey! They all gotta mess with my Jonny, don't they. :)

These newlyweds got a ball from Matt Kemp! You may have seen them on MLB Network or the Braves' twitter. :)

Her dress is pretty. I love ruffles but I look like a babydoll in them sometimes.

Seats were behind home plate but we started the game by the bullpen. Gave Faye her pic that Jonny had signed earlier that day, caught up with our usher friends, and -- get this -- saw a little girl wearing the Braves Love dress people keep texting me from Target.

Her parents were very cool, obviously. Hi little girl! I love your dress!

Stretch, boys!

Hee hee. Hey Mike.

zzzzzzzzzz

Good luck bumps!

❤

Faye and Cristhian had a cute exaggerated-gesture convo

WRITE YOUR NAME ON SOME THINGS FOR US PLZ
Oh wait, those two shirts are pretty awesome. :)

Mug shot looks like Phil Mickelson, doesn't it?

Good times. :) OK, to the real seats!

Watch out, Mike!

For Catherine

For Molly

:)

rail

I'm so glad this one (kinda) turned out.

baseball card

As I was editing this picture I thought, "I wonder how many MattE pictures I've taken / edited over the years. ...I don't care. I will never get tired of his weirdo lean-back." :)

stupid net in the way

Ske looks BIG.

That was a compliment!!

Geez, sorry. ;)

Oh hi, lovvie.

JV's looking thinner. :(

'Billy, I don't throw 100 mph from my ear!'
Well, that looks close to me. :)

I don't like the coloration on this B&W version as much as EO's. I tried a lot of different things with it - it just wasn't working. It's a nice picture, anyway.

stuff

He's like a little bulldog. :)

Varvaro in!

Rally caps on!

It just wasn't enough, though.
Braves lose, 2-1.

Full album here. Happy weekend, lovvies! :)

Game Day Pictures: Braves vs Diamondbacks 8-20-11

Jenna voice: "Really?!"
Oh, we moved up to a higher row. :)

Thank you for sharing your other season ticket again, lovvey. You're great. And thanks for mocking how excited I was that Jonny was on the cover of the gameday program (or as I jokingly affectionately call it, "the menu") by intentionally ripping yours to see my reaction. I appreciate that. ;)

We went early for beepee, of course. It's Saturday! Beautiful weather. Click to enlarge, you know the drill...

JHey in left field! What up!
When I got there, Jenna said JHey and Kimmie had been racing.
Me: Oh! Who won?!
Jenna: ...JHey.
Me: Well! You never know...
Jenna: Lauren.
Me: Yeah, I know. Heh heh.

Don't try to distract me by making your hat all cute. I know what I see.

Now, earlier in the season I saw him walking through the bullpen with a ring in his pocket and didn't say anything because I was hoping - HOPING - he was taking it to someone else. But no. He just filled up his lip. Right here. Now.

PLEASE STOP, ALL OF YOU. YOU CAN GET CANCER. AND DIE. AND YOU WILL GET HOLES IN YOUR LIPS AND GUMS AND YOUR PRETTY TEEF WILL FALL OUT. Do you want to see some of my older relatives? I can show you their mouths. It's not attractive.

Soapbox over for today. I just don't want my Braves to, you know, die. Yes, I know this isn't the riskiest activity they participate in; it's just a safe one to discuss in public forum. ;)

(Talking out of the other side of my mouth, I think it's kinda cute that he used Jonny's. Or I think it's funny that he used Jonny's and doesn't keep his own in his own back pocket. Is he afraid it would ruin the view? I do gripe that the ring ruins a lot of my Jonny pictures, haha.)

Wish this was in focus!

Ah, this one is :)

And so's this. Heyyy Alison & Molly.

DLowe wants to make sure you see this sign.

All these men, yelling for a ball. Just stop. Let the kids have a go.

Nice shades, Mike. :)

How much time do you think they spend working out their upper backs and shoulders? Probably none. It's probably just there, naturally. They just woke up like that and were like, hey! I should be a pro athlete. Yep.

Aww, someone go keep O company...

I babysit a toddler who makes this exact face when he wants a cookie.
It's adorable.

This is almost such a cute picture.
I have to take pictures in another direction now.

"Hey Huddy, want some of my blow pop?"
(Braves Love Facebook)

"Think we can get the day off to go to that?"

"Man, what's the matter with you?"

*wait, something happened...*

I'll bet Meds would go with them. :)

Huddy caught a fly ball awkwardly; it knocked his glove off. He was fine.

These guys kinda got tired of BP and started strolling in - no joke.
BP wasn't over!

Pay attention, boys!

You're fine. ;)

Okay, since at the time I didn't care much about any of the Dbacks (now Aaron Hill is a Dback and I like him! awesome) we didn't watch Dbacks BP. We went shopped and talked to some people and got some food... you know, the usual. Here are some pics and videos from the actual game...

BMac got a prize!

Bourn and Freddie five some of the bullpen men

more shakes

Are they intentionally not embarrassing the rookies this year?

Look at the kids already lined up in the corner near the 'pen, hoping.

BEACHY

Beachy!

His face and arm look very thin.

Lookit. Thin.

That rosin bag doesn't seem to mind.
I suppose most girls wouldn't, either. ;)

You know who I bet could tell some great stories, but I don't think he ever would? The bullpen catcher, Alan Butts. Really. There's no telling what he's seen and heard. :)

DLowe's such a good cheerleader. He rally-clapped the length of the dugout. :)

Doesn't the Dbacks pitcher kinda look like Joe Blanton? He was socks up, too.

LOLNate, giving Chipper I Love You Fingers after Chip drove in Bourn!

iPhone wallpaper, anyone? ;)

I feel like I've been neglecting you today, Rossy. It's not intentional!

Love it when Roger's obviously just telling a funny story.

Michael Bourn made a sick catch. Oh wait! There's gotta be video...

Yes. Gorgeous. I love Beachy applauding. When they replayed it on the jumbotron, the bullpen was still applauding...

It really was that good.

Great job!

Got video of Cristhian's intro, too - have I posted it here before? I really like it. Oh well, here it is...

Uggla homer, awkward forearm bash prep

And Freddie goes back-to-back!

Huggla's ready for his smoochhug. :)

Graphic on Braves Vision read: "Braves are 25-11 when Ross starts." :)

Oh yeah, another dumb fan streaked the field. This one was just wearing a Gary Sheffield jersey, not a wedding dress. If you're gonna do it, do it right. ;)

Linebrink. I really wish more fans would cheer when he comes in.
SUPPORT YOUR BRAVES.

good game, good game

brave swin

on a roll!

I'm usually packing up to leave as soon as I get shots of the final scoreboard and the player of the game, but I saw someone swinging two gloves and some Socks without one and I laughed to Jenna, "That has to be O messing with JV again."

Of course it was. ❤

Full album here. Good times!