The Atlanta Braves’ organization wades into their crowd of fans for moral injunction. The fans’ values are the Braves’ values and the result has been a baseball team engulfed in political melodrama all season long as it advanced toward the World Series. The Braves’ fan base, which is among the most conservative and white in professional sports, want the “chant” … Read More
The Atlanta Braves Have Become The Atlanta Rays
Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Charlie Morton got a taste of irregular baseball in Tampa Bay when he played for the Rays. He saw the “run prevention” model at work, and what a revelation it was. A team with a paltry payroll controlling high dollar teams and making it to the World Series in 2020 and giving goose flesh to the … Read More
The Mets Showed Us The Value Of Freddie Freeman
It is the opening week of the college football season, which means it’s time for Georgia fans to enter their exasperating purgatory, you know, stuck between good and great in their tortuous pursuit of a national championship. The Bulldogs’ Alpha status is in question, always, in Week 1. I should be leading this issue of Ball Atlanta with UGa vs. … Read More
Major League Baseball Was Right About The Spin Doctors
I can be a little slow on the uptake some days and, you know, push on an open door. I have to be reminded to be a little smarter. On Friday, I told Braves manager Brian Snitker that a source at Major League Baseball sent me data that showed offense is up since MLB started checking pitchers for hidden sticky … Read More
The Ambassador Will See You Now
Vince Obsitnik wants us to know that we are the ultimate arbiter of our health care. You do not go to the doctor for a thumbs up or thumbs down when you want to know with heart surgery looming, “Can I run the 5k and then a 10k two days later?” You put your thumb on the scale, too, and … Read More
Stadiums Going Cashless For A Good Reason
The reason Arthur Blank and the Falcons and the people who run the Braves have gone to cashless policies at their stadiums is more disturbing than I thought. It has nothing to do with making lines move faster and going with the times. Two stadium workers, who have worked at Turner Field, The Georgia Dome, Truist Park, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium … Read More
The NFL’s Oldest Strength Coach Has Something To Say
The cans of cement he lifted as a 110-pound 15-year old, the weights he hoisted over his head in the ‘52 Olympics, the world records in lifting, Clyde Emrich said it was all savings for his “health bank” for a rainy day. It’s a rainy day. Emrich, 90, has colon cancer, but he won’t quit his job with the Chicago … Read More
Not Over The Hill. King Of The Hill
Rich Hill is the youngest of five children…by 14 years. He probably walked around the house with “The Baby” tagged on his forehead, which probably got him an attitude of “Yeah, I’ll show you who the baby is….” and he was forced to do more and do it with emotion. Is this when “Psycho Rich” was propagated? His catchers have … Read More
Reheating Geezer Jock. Skippy Mattson Is an Inspiration.
I know. It is inelegant. Geezer Jock. It is a test of your sense of humor and sense of spirit. It is the idea that age does not have to be oppressive. Age is merely a competitor. Maybe you read Geezer Jock when it was a glossy magazine from 2006-2008. It built a subscription base of 100,000 before the recession … Read More
Street Racing Getting To Be Epidemic. How To Fix It
You hear them. I hear them. We usually don’t see them, but we hear them. The urban racers are all over Atlanta. We, in our grocery-getters, look twice before making a turn. At least, I do. Speed is mainstreaming. The racers showed up mostly when the streets were empty during the Pandemic and they are not leaving. They make a … Read More