Archive for February, 2009

Greetings commenters!

Yesterday and today our staff has unapproved hundreds of comments on blog posts by David O’Brien. The size of the pages had grown so large that it was slowing down our servers for folks commenting and reading David’s blog and all our other blogs.

There was absolutely no judgment that went into picking the comments to unapprove, our database administrator is simply unapproving the oldest comments leaving the newest available for viewing.

This is a great problem to have! We love that you love reading David’s blog and commenting on David’s blog and we definitely don’t want you to stop. We’re working on adding paginated commenting which will limit the number of comments appearing on the first page of David’s posts, and you’ll be able to click through to read all the comments on each post.

Once we have this working we’ll re-approve all the comments we’ve had to unapprove.

Slightly technical explanation: I will attempt to use a baseball analogy so bear with me …

Continue reading From the geeks: What’s happening with your comments »

Editor Note: Folks we’re having technical problems so to continue the conversation on this topic please go to http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2009/02/19/griffey-to-atlanta-nevermind-2/

Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — Uh, oh.

Ken Griffey Jr. crushed the Braves’ hopes Wednesday night, and did a pretty good number on my evening, too.

Two days after Griffey told a close friend that he planned to sign with the Braves — which we reported in the AJC, to the chagrin of Griffey, his agent, and the Braves — the outfielder reversed course and decided to go to the Mariners, the team he played for during the first 11 seasons of his illustrious career.

It’s the fourth time in four months the Braves fell short pursuing a star they thought they had a good chance to get (including one, Rafael Furcal, they said they had an oral agreement with) and now general manager Frank Wren will have to look elsewhere to boost an outfield that had just 27 homers in 2008.

It was a stunning reversal …

Continue reading Griffey to Atlanta? Nevermind »

Editor’s note:   Folks, this is a repeat of Dave’s earlier post.  We’ve had to start this new thread for you to comment because of a problem with the load on our servers with the number of comments.   I promise we’re working on fixing this.

Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — And so we begin Day 4 of the Junior Watch, and if Ken Griffey Jr. isn’t officially a Brave by the end of the day, please shoot me.

OK, I guess I should say I don’t mean that literally. You never know what sun and amusement park & strip-mall proliferation might have done to the minds of some Orlandopolis-area gun owners who’d jump at a chance to use a bike-riding Crusading Everyman for target practice.

But you get my point. We need closure, and soon. It’s the first day of full-squad workouts, and all we’re focused on is Ken Griffey Jr. and when he’ll be here, or even when it’ll be announced that he’s a Brave. (Well, that and when Tom Glavine is going to sign, which also is inevitable, from all I’m …

Continue reading Waiting for Griffey’s arrival.. »

Editor’s note: Please go the latest blog posting and comment here. We’ve had to shut off commenting here because of technical problems. We’re working on them. Don’t blame Dave.

Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — And so we begin Day 4 of the Junior Watch, and if Ken Griffey Jr. isn’t officially a Brave by the end of the day, please shoot me.

OK, I guess I should say I don’t mean that literally. You never know what sun and amusement park & strip-mall proliferation might have done to the minds of some Orlandopolis-area gun owners who’d jump at a chance to use a bike-riding Crusading Everyman for target practice.

But you get my point. We need closure, and soon. It’s the first day of full-squad workouts, and all we’re focused on is Ken Griffey Jr. and when he’ll be here, or even when it’ll be announced that he’s a Brave. (Well, that and when Tom Glavine is going to sign, which also is inevitable, from all I’m told.)

The Braves haven’t announced he’s signed or even a …

Continue reading Waiting for Griffey’s arrival…. »

  Lake Buena Vista, Fla. – I could tell you about how beautiful the weather is here at Dark Star and how impressive Kenshin Kawakami played on the golf course yesterday with Derek Lowe, Jeff Francoeur and Brian McCann, but let’s be real: You folks want to know about Ken Griffey Jr. and Tom Glavine.

 Especially Griffey.

  First, though, let me tell you that not one, but both Aussie relievers have agreed to come on the old blog to chat with you folks at about noon. Peter Moylan and Phil Stockman, two of the funniest blokes you could hope to meet, will field however many of your questions they can handle in about 15 minutes (we’ll try to keep them longer, but they’ve got a tee time just after 1 p.m.)

 OK, now the Big News:

 Griffey’s expected to make a decision and sign this afternoon, and I’d be very surprised if it’s not with the Braves. I’m told the details have already been worked out, though the agent will meet with GM Fran Wren once more this afternoon. Don’t know …

Continue reading Blogging live from Braves training camp… »

  Lake Buena Vista, Fla. – When I walked into the Braves clubhouse this morning and saw a full Seattle Mariners equipment bag in the empty locker stall next to Chipper Jones’ stall, I had the same reaction that Chipper had an hour earlier.

   Ken Griffey Jr. is in the house.

   Then I thought about it a moment and remembered it’s been quite a while since Junior played for the M’s, and, well, he probably wouldn’t be traveling with his stuff in that bag, even if it was just to drive from his Orlando house to Dark Star at Disney.

  The bag belonged to Greg Norton, whose locker is two down from Chipper’s. Norton played for Seattle last season before he was traded to the Braves.

  What was Chipper’s reaction when he saw the bag this morning? Hoss said he looked toward both ends of the clubhouse with raised eyebrows, and looked into the little equipment office around the corner just to make sure. No Junior.

  But did his heart skip a beat when he saw the bag?

  ”No,” …

Continue reading A Griffey sighting at Braves camp? Where? »

  Lake Buena Vista, Fla. – So I asked Chipper Jones today about possibly hitting cleanup instead of his preferred No. 3 hole, and he didn’t scoff or look at me like I’m an idiot. That was encouraging.

  Instead, he kept lacing his cleats and said in that slow drawl: “We’ll make the decision based on personnel. If we get a 3-hitter I’ll hit cleanup. If we get a cleanup hitter, I’ll hit third.”

 Well, folks, at this point available cleanup hitters would appear to be in short supply.

 If the Braves get Ken Griffey Jr., which it appears they have a strong chance of doing, then he’s not likely to hit fourth. Not at this stage of his career, and particularly not if he’s used in a left-field platoon with Matt Diaz.

 Griffey has his second-most career at-bats from the cleanup spot, but it’s a distant second to the 3-hole, where he’s had more than 7,600 of his 9,316 career at-bats. He hit third for 327 of his 490 at-bats last season, and actually had more …

Continue reading Chipper at cleanup? Vegemite at Daytona 500? News at 11 »

 Welcome as we go kicking and screaming into the new world of the Wordpress format, where we’re pleased to start things off by announcing Liberty Media’s surprising decision to immediately double the Braves’ payroll and, more importantly, splurge for all-expenses paid trips to the San Diego/L.A. trip for three Braves/MIB blog denizens to join me in SoCal Aug. 3-9!

  OK, none of that is true.

   Well, except for the part about us starting today on the new Wordpress format.

  And this blog is a very rough version of what’s to come, because I don’t have a good grasp of the technology and because the bold-face and italics functions don’t seem to work very well, at least when I preview this page.

  We’re giving it a first run today before we head to Florida for spring training on Friday, reporting for assignment one day ahead of pitchers and catchers, who are due in Saturday. Folks, do you realize we’re going to be in Florida 50 freakin’ days this spring …

Continue reading What is a fair offer for Glavine? »