BRAVES NEWS
Search to fill Braves managerial spot appears to be “two-horse race”
The Braves are doing their due diligence in searching for the next permanent manager of the major league team, and right now there are two leading candidates: Interim manager Brian Snitker and former San Diego Padres manager Bud Black. Will the Braves go with Bud Black — a name that’s been connected with the Braves since the final days of Fredi Gonzalez’s time as manager, or will Atlanta keep the clubhouse happy by letting Brian Snitker stay on? The answer could be coming soon.
Ted Turner wasn’t at the final Braves game at Turner Field
Every significant Braves luminary was at Sunday afternoon’s Turner Field swan song — every one except for the man for whom Turner Field was named after. Ted Turner himself was actually absent, and the Braves actually had no idea why he didn’t show up. Mark Bradley of the AJC tried to figure out why the former owner of the Braves decided to sit this one out.
We still don’t know why Ted chose not to attend the Ted’s closing, but it’s a matter of record that he has long been a supporter of downtown Atlanta. He once had a penthouse atop CNN Center. When Hawks’ executives considered vacating the Omni and building a new arena along Georgia 400, he vetoed it, saying he wanted to be able to walk to games. Sure enough, Philips Arena sits where the Omni did. (TBS sold the Hawks, the NHL Thrashers and Philips to the Atlanta Spirit in 2004.)
Wish I could shed more light on this for y’all, but at least we know Ted was invited to the Ted. I couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t have been. Heck, I fully expected him to pull the “1” off the “Home Games Remaining” sign in left field. John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox did it instead.
Braves finish 2016 with 22nd-best attendance in baseball
Well, the good news is that the sellout on Sunday afternoon pushed the Braves over the two million fan attendance mark for the season. The bad news is that this was only good enough for 22nd place in attendance this season. They’ll definitely see a bump in attendance next year due to the new stadium, but the obvious hope is that with the team (hopefully) exiting the darkest part of the rebuild, attendance will go up as the Braves pick up some more wins on the field. We’ll see what happens.
MLB NEWS
Blue Jays win AL Wild Card game without facing Zach Britton
With runners on first and third and one out, Edwin Encarnacion hit a massive three-run walk-off homer in the 11th inning to give the Toronto Blue Jays a 5-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles and give them a rematch against their good friends from Texas, the Rangers.
What’s interesting is that Encarnacion hit the dinger off of Ubaldo Jimenez. This was after O’s manager Buck Showalter chose to use Brad Brach, Darren O’Day, and Brian Duensing in high-leverage situations. So, where was Cy Young candidate Zach Britton? He was hanging out in the bullpen so that he could be used for a save situation. Welp. If you’re an O’s fan reading this, all I can say is that we’ve been there before and everybody here at Talking Chop feels your pain.