J.R.

Thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole. Wound up watching Phil Niekro's rather disastrous last start from 1987.

Once the Braves leave there will once again be no actively-used MLB park in which the Cubs have won a postseason series. (Tiger Stadium was the other.)

There are myriad sources on this matter (search for "Atlanta secession" and read up on Atlanta's black mayors.) The northern communities are by no means lily white nor are they racist in the classical southern sense (or 8 Mile Road northern sense,) but there is a clear conflict between whiter greater Atlanta and the black majority metro.

I am supremely irritated with the Braves' stance that Turner Field was "a facility that was built for three weeks of use for the Olympics." The team was involved with the project from day one, and the baseball-only portions of the park were intended to last for generations. The sightlines are great throughout - they are trying to invoke memories of Montreal's Stade Olympique and it is completely disingenuous. The 20-year lease seems laughably short in hindsight, but at the time the Braves had no trouble filling their old stadium for big games and Turner's ties to the Atlanta political scene made a move out of the city an unimaginable prospect. Now the team is controlled by outside interests, and the people in Marietta-Buckhead-Gwinnett County hold Atlanta in utter contempt and are too happy to stick the city with the whitest of elephants. Those charged with MLB's diversity concerns cannot be pleased with the team's flight to the white majority communities that have been at war with black majority Atlanta for years. The abandonment of the historical capital of African-American wealth by the team of Hank Aaron really casts a pall over baseball's fledgling effort to appeal to black fans. The area around Turner Field is a mess. However, it seems plausible that the team could buy it all up for pennies on the dollar and develop it as they see fit. Wrigleyville this is not. The team is making a completely defensible choice, but it all seems like such a waste. Atlanta LOL.

Yes, trains. I should have clarified - I have taken the MARTA bus to TF in the past, and it is S-L-O-W.

The Dallas-Fort Worth comparison is perfect. Turner Field does not have a MARTA stop, and this could be a very well produced ruse to get one. However, the reality is that the vast majority of the Braves' crowd does not live in Atlanta proper.

I have seen them for sale at the convention in years past.

Game has resumed.

There is no perfect solution so long as the ridiculous blackout policies remain in effect.

The same games that air on WCIU are carried by stations in Iowa and downstate Illinois.

Of course it's not exactly like the value dates, but it is similar in that people who ordinarily wouldn't get a chance to see the games are brought into the audience. The value dates were for many years the only shot fans had at getting into the park for cheap. Not so much now that demand has turned to mush. I will always side with the cheap jackass in the boonies with bunny ears.

It's an investment in fan outreach, like value dates at the box office.

I see it as a plus - it keeps games on free TV for fans throughout the midwest. I'm not within range of one of those stations, but I can get the games on an opposition feed - what's the big deal? I like that they are throwing games at folks who can't pony up for an expensive cable package, a rarity in modern big-time sports.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/764/lillymolina.gif

Ignorance abounds. http://i40.tinypic.com/2cho003.jpg I love it.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/02/dusty-bakers-bullpen-mismanagement-costs-the-reds-another-win/

Yep. Arne Harris' direction left much to be desired by the late 1990s.

Moreland.

I don't think anyone has forgotten this.

Seems clear to me that a twin structure will go up in right once the rooftop deal expires.

Camden Yards also has "regulations" for signage, and they have held up for 20 years. That video screen could look a lot worse. I like all the green.

Yep. I also like Alou's homer in Game 7 - Wood's blast let me believe, but Alou's convinced me that we were gonna win.

I held tickets for a time, but it seems to me that whatever price I wind up paying to see Game 7 will be less than the cost of holding seats for 81 games through the brutal years. Of course, I'm well outside the radius that allows for quick jaunts to the ballpark - if I lived nearby and could use them regularly it would have been different.

Let's keep with the theme! - They left out the best part of this one - Scully's "dowager queen" intro. - Biggest [expletive] up until 2003. Now, if only they would post the second game of the 1998 NLDS. I hate the Internet.

Boom?