How's that for a long title?

In the span of the last two days, I have watched four Braves games, and watched the Braves lose all four times.  Needless to say, for those of whom are familiar with the way I do things, at times like this, I try to lighten the mood, and try to provide a distraction, until the next game comes around.

It sounds cliché, and I'm sure nobody wants to hear it, but believe it or not, it's still early, and there's time to turn things around.  And I'll keep saying this until the start of May probably.  But it's true.  But anyway.

While the Atlanta Braves were out of town this weekend, the city of Atlanta was still privy to some Braves baseball.  Formerly the Richmond Braves, the AAA-affiliate of the big club was moved to Gwinnett County (Lawrenceville), Georgia, for better or worse.  And this weekend was the Grand Opening homestand of your 2009 Gwinnett Braves.  I attended Friday's as well as Saturday's games.

Including this one, there are a total of 31 pictures.  I hope you're not on dial-up.

Aside from my initial trepidation with the move, as I was a big fan of having Braves baseball being available in my former home state of Virginia, with family and friends in Richmond.  But after there was nothing I could do about it, I began to embrace the concept more, and with the gradual annoucning of a new ballpark, as well as the creation of what at the time seemed like a monstrous AAA roster, things were looking good for the G-Braves' inaugural season.

To emphasize how much I looked forward to the G-Braves home opener, I actually purchased the ticket for the opener before I purchased a single ticket for the Atlanta Braves.

So Friday, I was the dubious recipient of every artist's worst pet-peeve: the "I'm going to drop off a huge workload onto you at 3:30 pm on a Friday afternoon, and expect you to get it done by end-of-day."  Now I know most of you couldn't give a crap less about my workday, but the relevance for mentioning it was the fact that due to it, I ended up heading out of the office late, and wondered if I was even going to make it on time for first pitch.

In short - no.  This picture here, is what I sat in for a good bit of time.  The sad thing is that Gwinnett Stadium is less than a mile from where this is, and it took me about another 40 minutes before I even crossed the gates.  To say that Lawrenceville is ill-equipped for this kind of traffic is an understatement.  I was festering and fuming in my car at this point, pissed at my job, pissed at Gwinnett County, and pissed that nobody was moving.  But it was all out of my control at this point.

Now I'm sure that after the novelty of the G-Braves wears off, the traffic and parking situation will improve, but for opening day, this was the kind of fustercluck that surrounded the ballpark.  People parked in the overflow lots, and eventually resorted to illegal parking, and parking in grass all over the place.  The cops could do nothing about it, either, except simply comply.  The turnout of opening day clearly overwhelmed their expectations.

Fellow fellas, this one's for you.  I mean, it was such a long walk, I was still feeling some residual rage from being stuck in a car for so long, that I needed to be cheered up.  This did the trick pretty well.  She was walking in front of me for so long, that it would've been criminal for me not to share the eye candy.

Obligatory exterior shot.  You know, I don't know whether or not this is the front or the rear entrance, but there's nothing I noticed on the exterior here that screamed any bit of "HOME OF THE GWINNETT BRAVES" or any sort of identiy like that.  I'm guessing that the county had many ideas in mind for this venue in the future, so it would best to not G-Braves-ify up the joint with its identity, even if they were the primary tenants.

I walked in just in time to see David Hernandez pitching against gondeee's mancrush here, Brooks Conrad.  Conrad had a rough night, which seems to be the norm I hear, with a 1/5 performance with three strikeouts.

The lineup card that is pasted on the wall near the entrance.  I tend to not buy into the hype too much for certain prospects, but I was curious to see with my own eyes the hub-bub that everyone is making such a huge deal out of in, Matt Wieters.  But due to my tardiness, I missed Wieters's only AB of Friday and Saturday, as he was apparently pulled for precautionary reasons after it.

Some Latino outfielder guy in the system, I think his name's Blanka or something.  Apparently, he's got some Major League experience under his belt too.  He doesn't have a lot of power, but he's a good OBP guy with a decent eye and takes walks.  And yes, I know I used this joke earlier in the OT, but f-off, I'm using it again.

1B/DH Barbaro Canizares, holding Justin Christian at first.

A theme I thought about throughout the game was "Something new, something old"  Despite it being a new ballpark, here was something I'd seen before - our old pal, Charlie Morton.  I really had hoped to see him make the first pitch, but like I said, tardiness.

Here's a wide shot to show that it's daylight for one, and reflect on the general attendance at the time.  I'm sure that a good portion of people like I was, was still stuck in traffic at this point, or hanging out at one of the concession lines that were slow, miserable, and slow.  Just like the county couldn't have prepared for the volume of cars, the concession stands couldn't possibly have prepared any worse for the onslaught of hungry patrons wanting their hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken tenders or fries.

One gripe off the bat I have with Gwinnett Stadium is the no-outside food rule they have.  Turner Field does not have this stingy rule in place, because they understand that families have expenses of their own to concern themselves about that they don't saddle them with the necessity to buy expensive ballpark food on top of admission.  I tend to try and eat healthier than ballpark food, but on this night, I really had no choice.

Aside from the opening picture, I would say that this is my favorite picture.  Gwinnett Stadium right as the sun is setting, taken from the outfield fences in LF.

Logan, lol.  Boone Logan, that is.  Not Logan Schafoeur.  I wonder if Boone will be a dick and have this jersey waiting in his locker when Schafoeur gets demoted while Blanka gets called up in his place.

The home team dugout.  They have the luxury of having one wall being really high up, so that gawkers can't really speak to them as easy.  However, they're still stuck with two other walls in which people can jeer and kids can beg for baseballs with relative ease.

The portly mascot for the Gwinnett Braves, Chopper the beaver.  I still have no idea why a beaver, and the only thing that I think has any relation is the proximity to Beaver Ruin Road, which is a few exits down in Gwinnett County.  I'm a transplant, and I live in Fulton County, I don't know my Gwinnett history!

The sky looked really awesome here.  The one good thing about a smaller minor league park is how easy it is to notice, because there is no gigantic obtrusive third and fourth decks of seats to block out the beauty that is a nighttime sky.

You can literally watch the night creep into fruition here.  I took this shot because it was probably about as full of attendance as it was going to get.  I'm glad to see that the G-Braves limited seats filled to relative capacity, because even the Atlanta Braves and their excess of 55,000 seats looking mostly empty on opening day is kind of embarassing.

Bjönes and Reid Gorecki waiting in the wings while Blanka takes his at-bat.

Another wide shot showing the park at night, with the lights and the scoreboard illuminated.

Just moments after Bjönes doubled Blanka in to score, Barbaro Canizares christens Gwinnett Stadium with its first ever official home run in the 5th inning.  As shown above, the crowd is going absolutely crazy, and the blast made it just over the left-center wall.

Some slightly blurred shots of Canizares touching them all, and celebrating with teammates.  It was a joyous occasion, because Hernandez had been pitching well, and the G-Braves had broken through and tied the game up.

But it didn't last long.  Remember something new, something old?  Well, in the new ballpark, the new team went into the 7th inning, with a tie game.  Jerome Gamble, had pitched a scoreless 6th inning, was brought back out to pitch the 7th.  He apparently decided that he didn't feel like throwing anymore strikes, and three walks later, he left the game with the bases loaded, two out.

In relief - something old.  Manny Acosta.  If he was going to prove that he was major league ready, this is the kind of place where he needed to do it.  I thought he looked okay in his first few pitches, but it wasn't okay enough, because he faced a full count.

Something old.  Nolan Reimold of the Tides saw a 3-2 fastball right down the pipe and hit the second ever home run of Gwinnett Stadium, of a grand slam variety.  This was no ordinary slam either.  This was like an Albert Pujols off of Brad Lidge in the NLCS kind of blast, which probably bounced onto I-85 after soaring out of Gwinnett Stadium.  But hey, look at the bright side.  Despite giving up the slam, at least Acosta threw a strike in that scenario, and didn't walk in a run.  Because WALKS.  KILL.

Something old - just like they do at Turner Field, G-Braves fans begin to GTFO out of dodge the moment things look bleak.  The mass exodus in the 7th inning was on!

The rest of the opener went by pretty quietly.  I took this shot with bigjoe in mind, because he's so fixated on SWAGGA.  And I also lol'd when Joe Borchard came up to pinch-hit in the 8th inning, and actually plated in a run with of all things, a suicide bunt.

Juan Perez, warming up in the bullpen.  He looked decent in his mop-up inning.  One walk, one hit, one strikeout, and nothing else.

A parting shot from Gwinnett Stadium's outfield on Friday's game.  7-4 was the final, but I'm sure you already knew that from yondaime4's awesome nighly minor league recaps.

This is the hell I avoided by parking in an overflow lot.  And this was after the mass exodus of the 7th inning.  G-Braves parking is going to be a bitch this season, I can already tell.  For Saturday's game, I deliberately chose the overflow lot first, despite arriving early and having my literal pick.  I'd rather walk a little before and after, and have the peace of mind of hopping in my car and going, instead dealing with this nonsense.

On Saturday's game, I decided to leave my camera at home, since I had already taken a ton of pictures the night prior.  But since karma is such a bitch, good opportunities arise, and I am left with my 2.0MP phone camera to futily shoot pictures.  The effect I was going for here, is Jesus himself, Tommy Hanson, making a solemn walk from the bullpen to the dugout.  And you can clearly not be able to see his name and number from this crap photo.

Little did bigjoe realize that his ideal Atlanta Braves outfield would actually take shape, but down in AAA-Gwinnett?  From left to right - Brandon Jones, RF, Gregor Blanco, CF, Joe Borchard, LF.

I had tickets to Saturday's game, because I figured that I would be able to get to see Jesus pitch on one of those days, but it turns out that he's scheduled for Sunday, and it's also due to rain then, too.  Effing figures, huh.

As for the game itself, I got to see Todd Redmond pitch, and all I have to really say is that he pitches slower than Pedro Astacio with runners on base.  After about an hour, it was still like in the third inning.  Several times, Redmond and Colina had to convene and go over the signs repeatedly before even a single pitch.

Something old - the Tides jumped to a 3-0 lead, and the G-Braves fought their way back to a tie-game.  During this time, Brandon Jones GIDP'd, had an RBI base hit, and then combined them both by plating in a run with a bases-loaded GIDP that negated the RBI.  The crowd, kind of went nuts, because the G-Braves weren't losing anymore.

A funny story is that there was this drunk guy in front of me at this moment, and he was absolutely infurated at the scoreboard operator.  I mean, like severely pissed, and was screaming and yelling that the score did not read 3-3 after the GIDP'd run.  I couldn't believe how hostile he was getting over it.  He was all like "WHO DO I CALL," and whipped out any G-Braves literature he could get his hands onto, and started dialing numbers on his cell phone.  Finally, he lost his head, and literally left his seat, climbed over his chair, and walked off to look for someone to bitch out about updating the score.

So for the next few at-bats, the scoreboard only had faces and names, and no actual stats.  The relevance of me mentioning this is in the top of the 6th inning, Francisely Bueno had worked his way into a bases-loaded jam.  He managed to get the first out via foulout, and people felt that a GIDP would get him out of it.  And while he was working on Carlos Rojas, the scoreboard ticked back on, and the crowd gave a sarcastic cheer for it.  At this time, Blanka and Borchard actually diverted their attention from the play at hand, and Bueno must not have been paying attention, because the next pitch he threw, Rojas hit it way over Borchard and Blanco, and was already rounding second.  Borchard's throw ended up taking a funny hop or was deflected by Conrad, because the ball went sailing into the G-Braves dugout, and Rojas trotted on home after plating the three previous runners (who by the way got on via hit, beat-the-throw hit, and walk).  So it's not going to count as a home-run, but let's face it - it pretty much was another grand slam, and to further rub the salt into the wounds, it was of the inside-the-park variety.  Something old.

After that happened, there was nothing I could do but quietly get up, and leave.  I lol'd to myself while walking to my car, as I could hear "now batting, third-baseman, Brooks Conrad," and in less than a minute, it would be like "and now batting, left-field Joe Borchard," implying that Conrad had either popped out early, or struck out on three straight pitches.  I heard a G-Braves inning come up and go down instantaneously.

I feel like I'm losing you, the reader, with the above wall of text, so here's a courtesy image to get your attention again.  During the Saturday OT, I mentioned something about a really hot Coors Light girl - this is her.  Pujols, those large eyes, those luscious lips, goddamn

But yes, this was my Gwinnett Braves Grand Opening Weekend experience.  All in all, it was a good time, despite the outcomes.  In conclusion, I don't think I'm going to head out to Gwinnett Stadium all too often, because it's far as hell and my car is dying, doesn't allow me to bring in my own food, and now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen the AAA-Braves win in person.

The numbers:
Distance from Gwinnett Stadium to Turner Field:  35 miles
Distance from Turner Field to my house: 20 miles
In conclusion:  far as balls

So yeah, I like Gwinnett Stadium, and I appreciate MiLB, but I can't see myself making my way up there, unless it is 1) a quiet weekend, 2) an interesting promotion, and/or 3) compelling prospect cameos/matchups

*This fanpost was drafted on Saturday the 18th, and I'm just too lazy to change any comments based on Schafoeur's awesome Sunday, the 11-1 blowout win over the PIrates, or the G-Braves getting swept to open up their park, even with Jesus pitching.  I post on Monday morning to give bored people at work something to read.