There's a reason why I call Brian McCann "Baby Jesus."  Aside from the adorable chubby cheeks and the lovability towards our All-Star catcher, he's simply a phenomenal baseball player.  Without question the most talented catcher in the National League, and arguably one of the best in all of baseball.  But aside from his incredible skills and talents on the field, we should all know and respect that Brian McCann is a human being with a heart of gold and a person of great charity.

No, I'm not talking about the time McCann gave one of his spare 60" plasma televisions to Tommy Hanson and Kris Medlen, but much, much better.

Brian McCann, along with his wife Ashley are spokespersons for the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research, which is a non-profit organization for, you guessed it, childhood cancer research.  And in order to raise money, Heap put together a good ol' fashioned "celebrity" softball exhibition game for his charity.

Now the reason I put celebrity in quotations just a moment ago is because after the experience, there really weren't many celebrities present.  Some people don't even count professional athletes as celebrities.  It was kind of a stretch, overall, but present were a handful of professional baseball players, a few retired Atlanta sports figures, Kip Pardue (from one of my all-time favorite movies, Rules of Attraction), but then the rest of the people there were pretty much all Atlanta radio deejays and other Clear Channel employees, a whole lot of Delta employees, and a handful of folks from some brewery or something.  Not really "celebrity," but it was for a good cause, but I thought I'd point that out, because I'm a snarky internet basement blogger, here.

Regretfully, I had a pretty lousy day at my job, and I guess looking back on it, it might've had something to do with the fact that it was Friday the 13th, and I'll admit that the drain on my day did effect my mood going into this shindig, so if I sound especially cynical tonight, I dismissively apologize in advance, because I won't want to write this later, because I'm still wrapped up in trying to crank out 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month.

As expected, the two biggest draws of the event was the presence of event organizer, Brian McCann himself, as well as teammate, all-star third baseman, Chipper Jones, rocking the awesome hunter-orange knit cap, and the extra-urban sweat pants.  But there would be some surprise appearances from several other players that went unmentioned:

Such as Kelly Johnson, who looks like he's doing his best impression of Dita, the character Mike Myers portrayed on Saturday Night Live's "Sprockets" skits

And of course, you can't have a charitable event that warms your heart without Mr. Charity himself, Tim Hudson

But the biggest surprise was the appearance of former Brave, Andruw Jones.  Since I'm one of the few people that actually still listens to 99x, I found out that Andruw was going to be at this thing the day prior, but it was still a surprise to actually see him again.  I wonder if he still has his home in Alpharetta with his collection of European supercars that are all silver, still?

Here are a bunch of children hanging over the dugout, acting way more poorly behaved than the two children pictured way above.  I swear, it must be the weather or something, or the fact that it's a college campus that doesn't (legally) sell alcohol, but the sheer number of kids present at this event was borderline retardation.  But 90% of the time, I know better than to blame the kids as much it should be the fault of the weak and spineless parents who let their brats go running around and making the atmosphere less than preferable for other people.

Anyway, one of the marquee events was that there was going to be a mini-home run derby with several player participants.  First up was Kelly Johnson.  It was funny, given all the constant debates here, and the 2B controversy experienced over the last season, the MC (who btw was that fat imbecile, Jeff Dauler of the Pujols-awful Bert Show) said "starting second baseman," and my first thought was "whoa, Martin Prado is here too?"

Kelly launched either three homers or one and then the money ball, and finished with a score of 3.

Here's Andruw taking his cuts, and he proved that he could at least hit some slow-pitched softballs a good distance.  I was hoping for, more than anything, to see a mighty Andruw-whiff, and see him screw his left leg into the fake turf pad.  It's nothing personal, I still like Andruw as a guy, but I was always amused whenever he struck out so dramatically.  He finished with a score of 6.

Huddy taking some cuts.  I can't remember if he hit only one homer (to the power alley), or if he managed to hit the moneyball as well.  I can't quite recall.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, but the biggest surprise for me was that our minor-league hulk, Cody Johnson also appeared at this event.  Now fans like us all know who he is, and are not the least bit surprised when he was smashing some absolute moon shots out of Georgia Tech's Chandler Stadium, but if people present didn't know who he was previously, they've all got a new name to pretend like they're savvy about baseball with their co-workers now.

Seriously, here's a grainy shot of the outfielders all running to the wall and going "o shit" as the ball futility soared out of the park, and probably into the frat houses' yards across the street on the other side of the wall.  Maybe even smashed some windshields of any idiots who actually thought it was a good idea to park there.  In the end, CoJo finished with a 6 as well, tying Andruw.

They went to a three-swing tie breaker, and Cody was unable to hit one more, while Andruw pulled the first pitch he saw, and the former Brave won the home run derby.

As for the game itself, I took some photos, but most of them came out looking like crap, so I won't bother posting them, but here are a couple of shots to share:

This is Mrs. Chipper.  It's like you see her, and notice that she's carrying a hunting bag, and everything makes sense.

Huddy came up to bat only once, and he laced a single off of Brian McCann, who was pitching for his team.  He had the biggest grin on his face after safely reaching first.  It looked like he would've attempted to steal, but Kelly Johnson came up and homered him in shortly afterward instead.

And there were a lot of homers.  At least by anyone who plays baseball.  Kelly homered, McCann homered, Cody homered, and Andruw homered . . . twice.  The only ones who didn't homer were Chipper and Huddy, and for the matter, each only batted once.  Chipper must've injured himself or something, and Huddy saw no point as soon as it was someone else pitching.

The brunette is Mrs. Heap, and what looked like a case of sharing some first-base coaching duties turned out to be a girls' club ploy, as the two of them chatted up whomever was playing first base at the time, and the next thing they know, radio personality Jenn Hobby is marching down to first base with nobody covering it.

And this is Jenn Hobby.  She might also be on the dreaded Bert Show, but she's still a cute little thing that I certainly don't mind looking at.

But yeah, the game.  This crappy shot is still probably my favorite one, because it's something that nobody will probably ever see in the history of human kind ever again.  Pitching, Kip Pardue.  At that very moment, playing first base, Cody Johnson.  I promise you, none of you will ever see such a tandem ever again.  Ever.  Again.

lol Willie Harris.

And a surprise pinch-hit appearance by Ron Gant.  It was a crucial at-bat too, with runners on, with Mr. Muscles to break the game open, but instead, Gant pops out in this blur, to third, to end the inning.  His team (McCann's), ends up breaking the game open later on instead.

Seriously, it was a little lopsided.  The red team had Chipper and Huddy who both took one at-bat each, but Heap's team (blue) had him, Kelly, Cody, Andruw, and Kip Pardue, and each were getting multiple at-bats.

Okay, this is something I have to get off of my chest.  And I'm sorry, in the apologetic way that I don't really mean it, if the guy pictured here is a member here, but you're about to be made into an example.

Now I like stats, sports trivia, and I can be a veritable wealth of pointless and useless sports information.  I know Andruw always wanted to play shortstop, I know that Chipper came up as a shortstop, and I know that Huddy played in the outfield at Auburn.  I also know that Heap played second base when he was really young, and that Kevin Nash played basketball at Michigan State before turning to professional wrestling, Sam Bowie was the guy drafted before Jordan, and that Allen Iverson was the first scrambling quarterback to come out of Newport News before the Vick brothers.

But as Pujols as my witness, I do not like, or ever like, when people like Napoleon Dynamite here feel the need to interject themselves into my whimsical conversations at the ballpark to tell me shit I already know.  The smartest-guy-in-the-room routine works great on the internet, but not so much in the real world.

To add on to this little rant, I really do appreciate stats, analysis, and the great educational debates that are had here, or any discussion forum on the internet.  I've learned more about baseball stats and analysis than I'd ever though I'd care about throughout the last few years, and it's great.  But while at the ballpark, it's stuff I just don't really care to hear about.  Something about being present in person that strips the game down to something that can be enjoyed at such a base level, instead of through a wealth of numbers.

I had a guy tell me about how Joe Mauer was on the verge of winning the "sabermetric triple crown," which in short, is the fact that in 2009, Joe Mauer's "slash" stats (avg/obp/slg) were higher in all three categories than anyone else in baseball.  I looked at him for a few seconds, and then turned back around to watch baseball.  And then in between innings, when he wasn't looking, I sent a text message to a friend to tell them how lame it was to drop advanced statistical discussion with a complete stranger, regardless of if they could follow it or not.  There's just something about talking about sabermetrics and advanced stats, that just isn't my cup of tea, in person.  On the internet, it's fine, because here, we're all nerds, so it's okay to nerd it all up here.  But not so much outside the basement, because you just kind of end up looking . . . well, nerdy.

/end rant

Anyway, why did I entitle this "Andruw Jones wants his job back?"  Because he was playing like Frank Wren was in attendance, or that he was auditioning for a job or something. 

• He went and won the home run derby. 
  
• In Chipper's only at-bat, Chipper popped it up to left field, and since it's co-ed slow-pitch softball, there's usually a weaker fielder in the corners, but Chipper being Chipper, the cerebral thinking-man's hitter, goes for the weak spot, but didn't account for Andruw Jones to do his best impression of Jose Reyes, and run all the way into the left field from almost second base, and cleanly record the put-out.
• Andruw homered twice

Not impressed?  Well, they happened to be from both sides of the plate.  Apparently, Andruw thought maybe some switch-hitting could get him back in favor.

Anyway, because Andruw Jones stole the show, Heap's team won something like 11-7.  The event overall was a little mediocre, but it was cool to hang out with Lizziebeth and 10-4 for a little bit.  Obviously, since gondeee didn't make any effort to rally the troops, nobody really knew anyone, but I did bump into Lauren T. on the way out. 

Too many kids, not enough celebrity, no booze, overall ehh.

And speaking of gondeee, I got home, where I had left my cell phone, and this is a text message I received:

  "I'm bailing on the game, I need to get drunk instead."

lol'd.  At least he can still feel good knowing that his $10 admission went to a good cause, as did all of us who attended, and that's why we did it.  We love Brian McCann, and want to support his good cause.