Possible Very Tannned, Naked Guy Interrupts A's-Braves Saturday

((HT: Jeff Shapiro's Youtube/Deadspin))

The HQ knew people who attended this game at Turner Field Saturday night and wondered two things:

1) How long it would take for this to surface and,
2) Just how much liquid courage was involved...

Judge for yourself...


Whiteguy Productions has the look from behind home plate- and it appears the guy was REALLY NAKED!


No word on any ID on the streaker and what he has been officially charged with- public trespass and indecent exposure would be a good start...

DEVELOPING: Georgia State Wants Turner Field

The talk had gone down about a month ago that Georgia State University was really interested in the Turner Field property that will be vacated by the Atlanta Braves when they move to the suburbs for the 2017 season.

It's now official...in proposal form, anyway...

Janel Davis and J. Scott Trubey over at the AJC got the look at what the university wants to do for their future. They want to turn Turner Field into a 30,000-seat facility for sports and build a mixed-use development around it.

The Braves lease allows them until Jan. 1, 2016, to officially give notice to the Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority of whether it will exercise a five-year option on using the property. The lease expires Dec. 31, 2016. Beyond that, the lease gives the Braves options to extend for four successive five-year periods.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is looking for answers from the Braves at the earliest possible time so he can move on the ideas that are coming across his desk- and it looks like GSU's stadium/park/dorms is the leader in the clubhouse.

The one quote from GSU President Mark Becker:

“We are focused on the future for the best possible use for Atlanta and honoring the history and tradition of (the Braves and Olympics),” he told Davis and Trubey.

The team has gone through tough sledding in Division I in, now, the Sun Belt Conference and need a boost of energy to be a relevant part of the athletics landscape. This could do it for the future of the university proper...

Here's the look after their spring game last month...
((HT: Georgia State Athletics their own selves))

Braves Getting Lessons From Yankees On New Ballpark

((HT: 11Alive.com))

The Atlanta Braves front office is trying to figure out how best to build (and properly monetize, naturally...) their new ballpark- whether it's Turner Field II is currently unknown...

Our friends at WXIA-TV got to take their behind-the-scenes tour with them to figure out what is needed, how much is needed, and what to cut out as they build...

So, expect less seats for premium effect, not a whole lot of parking, even less public transportation access, and a lot of headaches for the fans as they commute to one of the more-highly trafficked areas in the entire town...

Enjoy...

Surprising No One: Braves New Suitors Approve Deal

((HT: 11Alive))

The Braves are moving to the suburbs and this was the next phase in the shoe-horning of the process...

Not really surprising anyone, though...

The Cobb County (GA) Commission approved the deal that has too many holes and too many elements in flux...

But, what the heck...
After it was done, the standard statement was released by the Fulton County Commission Chairman along with Atlanta City Council members, Atlanta Central Progress, and the Atlanta Fulton County Recreational Authority- all aggrieved by the move and disappointed by the proceedings: Ever since our county received the disappointing news that the Atlanta Braves plan to move out of Fulton County at the conclusion of the 2016 season, Fulton County Commissioners and Atlanta City Council members have expressed a desire to keep the team here in Atlanta. Tonight's vote by commissioners in Cobb County agreeing to move ahead with efforts to bring the team there are certainly a disappointment , but political and economic leaders in Fulton County still believe the Braves could and should have a viable future in Atlanta. We understand the team's concerns about economic development in the area surrounding Turner Field. We believe there are still solutions civic and business leaders could pursue in conjunction with the ball club to keep the team as a thriving part of our community. We hope to have a dialogue with the team to make that case. The Atlanta Braves are a proud symbol of a great city and we still hope to keep them in Atlanta.
The traffic issues are still bad BEFORE construction and a move was considered...

So, what now...???

CONTINUING: Braves To The Burbs... Atlanta Plans To Blow Up Turner Field

((HT: WSB-TV))

So, that's the plan...

Which, really, isn't much of a plan...

After the AJC's Doug Roberson floated the idea that Georgia State University could have signed on to be the new Turner Field tenant, the city of Atlanta has decided (for now) to raze Turner Field after the Braves decide to move to the suburbs come 2017...

And turn them into middle class homes...

Mayor Kasim Reed, at his inquisition this morning, decided to say that he wasn't going to stick the city of Atlanta taxpayer with the price tag for a new Braves barn (but he'll be more than happy to do that with his new Falcons stadium...)

Here's Reed's Q-And-A on the Day After...

OSG Opinion: The Real Reason the Atlanta Braves are Moving

Turner Field/Courtesy: Me

So…as I sat at my desk today at work and read about the Atlanta Braves announcement they were moving to Cobb County (Atlanta suburbs), I thought to myself "Hmmmm…if the county is paying the ticket, does that mean I now own part of a stadium".

For those of you who don't know: (a) I have a real job. Blogging doesn't pay the bills, Brother Jon, Brother Wilkie and I do this when we have time. (b) Yes, I live in Cobb County, roughly about 10 minutes (or 4 miles to be exact) away from where the new stadium is to be built. and © I work across the street. Or nearly. My offices are less than 1/4 mile away from where all this will take place.

Just felt like sharing.

Anyway.

There's already been an incredulous outrage. "How can they do this?" "Why leave a perfectly good Turner Field? It's less than 20-years old?" "Who's paying for it?" "Why are they being so greedy?"

All questions we have answers to:

First off, they (the Braves) can do whatever they want. Their lease on Turner Field ends after the 2016 season. No, they don't own the stadium. Never have. The city of Atlanta built it for the Olympics in 1996, then renovated it for the Braves to play in '97. The team pays rent and is responsible for any work done on the place. They'd don't get to share much of the profit.

Two. Turner Field. Sure, it's a nice stadium. It's got good seats and sight lines. They've worked to get some very good restaurants to open stands in the building. It's pretty easy to navigate and on the surface, is in pretty good shape.

But it's in a crappy neighborhood. It's hard to get to. It has limited parking. It has panhandlers and shady characters trying to convince you to park in their homemade lots.

And most importantly, there are NO businesses around the stadium.

Third. We're all paying for it to an extent.

Yeah, sure, the Braves are chipping in $200 million, but it's roughly 1/3 of the cost. And don't think that won't be rolled into your ticket prices for a minute. And as I said in the beginning, I'm paying for it. My wife and I are honest to goodness Cobb County taxpayers, which means it's coming out of my pocket.

And unlike a lot of others, I'm okay with that.

Fourth and most importantly, the Braves are not fooling anyone. Well, that's not totally true. They aren't fooling those of us in the know.

This is about revenue. Plain and simple.

The Braves need to be creative to raise revenue's. Unlike most MLB teams, they don't have the Billion dollar TV contract the Dodgers do. Never will. They are stuck with a crappy deal with Fox Sports South they can't get out of.

The team has a limited payroll from it's corporate owner (Liberty Media) for that very reason. It's also why they've almost always been good, not great. They can't compete for major stars.

No, don't kid yourself. The stadium is important to this deal, they'll get most of the revenue from that and the parking. But the big reason for doing this is the development around it. It appears they will have the property rights for the surrounding development. And the team has made it abundantly clear, they have plans to develop it. Quickly.

Ground is scheduled to be broken in mid-2014, the stadium should be ready in 2017.

Oddly enough, that will be mere months ahead of the Atlanta Falcons who are getting their new stadium (paid 2/3 by the team) later that year.

Just because we enjoyed this song:

Bomb Dropped: Braves Leaving Atlanta After 2016

For the suburbs...

The Braves' lease at Turner Field expires after the 2016 season, so the Braves are leaving for the northwest part of the city limits and will anchor a 60-acre mixed-use development...

As John Schuerholz reminded anyone willing to listen, there are reasons- all financial…

((HT: WSB-TV))



The team is set to meet with Governor Nathan Deal to discuss their plans... and there is no set time to talk to Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed about their plans...

Especially, since he seems to be talking to the Falcons and only the Falcons about their plans these days...

In Schuerholz's statement regarding access to the ballpark will be greatly improved with the new location of the ballpark.  A majority of Braves fans who buy tickets to a game reside in the northern suburbs.

The team now has a website: homeofthebraves.com which explains "Some" of the details...

Map of who buys tickets to Atlanta Braves games

"And, Good Morning to you, too..."

More when we know more…

We know more--

The new stadium, projected to cost $670-plus million with $200 million coming from the Braves, the rest it appears will come from the citizens of Cobb County.

The location of the stadium, a somewhat hilly swath of land bordering an office park and an interstate highway. But the location also offers the team the ability to build a mixed used development next door, which many believe to be the true motivation for all of this.

Braves executive Derek Schiller says the new facility, slated to open at the beginning of the 2017 season, would seat 41 or 42,000 fans.

In a Monday morning press conference, Schiller and team President John Schuerholz also added that in order to do what they termed "Necessary" work to Turner Field, it would cost the team nearly $150 million in infrastructure work, work on a stadium they lease, not own.

And for those who say--"But they won't be in Atlanta anymore", well, actually they are. The location sits in the 30339 area code, which technically harbors an Atlanta mailing address.

WXIA-TV gives us more TV details:

Bat Boy Actually Deals With A Bat

((HT: MLB.com))

And by that the HQ means the nocturnal thing that hangs upside down inside caves and things like that...

Last night in OSG HQ over at Turner Field, Braves infielder Paul Janish scooped up the bat (the winged kind) in his glove and gave it to a Braves bat boy.



The HQ doesn't know whether or not to give Janish and the, ahem, bat boy who handled a LIVE BAT any attaboy or "what were you thinking?" kind of hat tip...

We'll just take survival as the good first step...

DEVELOPING: Fan In Serious Condition After Fall At Turner Field (UPDATED: Reports Have Fan Dead)

((HT: 11Alive.com))

In a stormy night at Turner Field in Atlanta, a fan attending the game fell a reported 30 feet and is in serious condition at a local hospital...

The Braves released a statement:

There was an accident earlier tonight at Turner Field with a spectator falling from the upper level. The spectator has been transported to the hospital. The Atlanta Police Department are investigating and we refer all media inquiries to them at this time.

There is no immediate word on what caused the fall...

This is not the first time that a fan has fallen from the upper deck to the lower levels at Turner Field. In May of 2008, police reported that alcohol played a part in the death of Justin Hayes as he fell 150-feet to his death in a stairwell.

Here was the report at the time as his friends disputed the police conclusions...
((HT: Associated Press))


More when we know more...

2215 UPDATE: Here's the update from FOSG Ken Rodriguez...
((HT: MyFoxAtlanta))
Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

2300 UPDATE: The unidentified fan has, according to various reports, died from his injuries...

WSB-TV is reporting now that the fall from the upper deck was more in the neighborhood of 65 feet...

They are also saying that the fall happened in the rear of the stadium from the 400 level and the fan ended up in the player's parking lot. Homicide investigators are currently on scene. The fan died at Grady Hospital, according to John Hager with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office.

And here's coverage from WXIA-TV
((HT: 11alive.com))
Tuesday AM UPDATE: The fan is identified as 29-year-old Ronald Homer of the Atlanta suburb of Conyers. Police report that Homer fell from the upper level and landed on an air conditioner in the player's parking lot. The Associated Press is saying this morning that Homer's mother had a telephone conversation with her son just before the accident. It's the third death at an Atlanta sporting event in the past year. Here's morning coverage from our friends at WSB-TV

The Braves Waffle House Streak: Am I The Jinx?

We finally made it to a Braves game Saturday night.

Granted, it may...or may not have been the best time to go. The Braves had been on a roll, 14 straight wins, good hitting, good pitching and a little bit of good luck.

The Braves fan base: They've been coming out of their closets, jumping back on the band wagon and just generally ecstatic the hometown team is 14-plus games ahead in their division. They were looking for any change that might mean the streak would end.

((Disclaimer--Yes, for those of you who live in the South, the Braves are not just "Atlanta's" team. You can go to Birmingham, Jacksonville, Raleigh and most any small southern city, most everyone is a Braves fans))

Back to our story...

I'd been nervous all week. No, I'm not superstitious per se--but I was quite concerned. Concerned the Braves were going to be on a roll come Saturday night and secretly hoped they lost before them. I was worried the night that the Lovely Bride and I showed up, the streak would end.

Baseball fans as a whole are a superstitious lot. If their team wins after they turn their ballcaps backwards, they'll continue doing it. If they are watching at home and sitting on the couch, they won't move if their team is winning.

Oh, wait, that's me.

The latest superstition/craze/lucky change for the Braves--The new Waffle House stand at Turner Field. The Braves fortunes seem to have miraculously changed when the southern Interstate highway exit icon made it's first appearance near section 128 at the Ted on July 26th.

The Braves hadn't lost since.

If you aren't familiar with Waffle House, think of it this way. They are a smaller, faster, less clean version of the stereotypical northern diner.

And no, I am not kidding about finding a Waffle House. Drive on any Interstate in the Southern U.S, you'll find the sign seen in the picture to the left on at least 75% of the exits. And most any southerner will know exactly what you are talking about if you order hash browns and say "make mine-Scattered, smothered, covered and chunked (my favorite)".

The first indication that Saturday was not going to be the Braves night, if you bought into the Waffle House theory at least, was the crowd. There were a good 35-40,000 at the game, it was a typical hot and humid August night.

But the Waffle House was nearly empty. The above photo shows the amount of people there less than an hour before 1st pitch.

The second sign was a little more obvious.

The rain.

Sure, it's rained a lot in Atlanta this year. Heck, we've about hit the yearly average rain total, with 4 months left in the year.

The delay was about an hour and after a first inning that featured one hit by each team and an amazing, diving catch by the Braves Jason Heyward, whatever hadn't gone out of whack for the day--did.

The game was an old-fashioned nail-biter. Braves rookie Alex Wood was good. Six innings of shutout baseball, he only gave up 3 hits.

But Marlins pitcher Nate Eovaldi was better.

If you don't know who Eovaldi is, you aren't alone. But he was peppering the plate with 95-98 mph fastballs and nobody could touch them.

Nobody.

All the while I sat there in the right field corner with the Lovely Bride and was nervous. Sure, I enjoyed the game. And yeah, I really enjoyed the Holeman and Finch burger that we had before the game.

((Sidebar--If you've never had an H&F Burger, I can't recommend them enough. The pub that makes these only sells 20 of them a night at the pub--after 10p.m only, the ones they make at the stadium though are damn good))

Anyway, as the game went on, all I could think about was the Braves losing. And yeah, sure, it was a largely meaningless August game featuring the best and worst teams in the NL East.

But it wasn't that.

I didn't want to be called the Jinx. I didn't want to be the new variable that caused the Braves to lose.

Sure, I know if you applied that rule, than roughly 30,000 people could no longer attend games. But that wasn't going to affect the grief I was destined to catch.

And so it went to the 9th inning. The game was a 0-0 tie.

That's when it happened.

Marlins shortstop Adeiny Hechevarria hit the first pitch he saw from Braves reliever Jordan Walden all the way to the centerfield wall. Suddenly, he's standing on 3rd with nobody out.

A couple pitches later, Walden uncorked a pitch that landed against the wall behind the catcher. Hechevarria scored and it was 1-0 Miami.

By then I knew.

The first two Braves hitters in the bottom of the 9th were soft outs. And then catcher Evan Gattis (el iso blanco) poked a single to left field.

There still was a chance.

Until the next batter walked up to the plate. That batter, Paul Janish, a great fielder who can't hit, struck out looking.

And just like that it was over.

The streak ended. The Braves lost and my phone lit up like a Christmas tree.

--sigh--

But I am not deterred. I will not be The Jinx. I will not be a guaranteed Braves loss.

In fact, we'll find out if the theory holds just next week. That's because we have tickets to next Saturday's game against Washington.

Waffle Ball: The Story Of A Win Streak...???

((HT: Meganniager))

Simply put, the Braves haven't lost a game since the introduction of a Waffle House at Turner Field...

Make the conclusion you will...
But it's now been put to song...


Safe to say, the Braves are leaving a lot of teams scattered, smothered, and covered these days...