2021 World Series Atlanta Braves vs. Houston Astros

third time neither game 1 starter has gotten through three

damnit Swanson why didn't you ever do that against Milwaukee

Wow,at the Morton news

Morton out remainder of WS from that comebacker

whoa, that really sucks for him

surprised that error on the would-be double play didn't cost Atlanta more. typically that's something that turns a game around

You want to talk about tough: Charlie Morton struck out Chas McCormick, got Martin Maldonado to line out and struck out Jose Altuve pitching on a broken leg.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 27, 2021

how the hell is that possible

Is a fracture the same as broken?

yes

Well that was a goofy infield hit

How can they not get him out ar home?

Weak arm, horrible throw

Lol that would’ve been out in nearly every other park

Rosario is an amazing player, what the hell are the Garidians thinking letting him go

*Guardians

Gardenias

because rosario will be a free agent in 10 days

Game 2

Much better start

Last night I forgot about 4K, today I signed in and watching my first 4K sporting event

Pretty sweet to look at tbh

Last year's Super Bowl was not available in 4K for Android TV they have upgraded that this year

feel like that's an out basically always in the regular season, cool that they finally got this right

Maybe this is a hangover from the Jays' near-miss, but I haven't had any interest in this series thus far.

(I'm always posting about not watching a lot of baseball, but I usually make an exception for the WS.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/10/28/braves-chop-world-series-atlanta/

When the World Series shifts to Atlanta for Game 3 on Friday night, television viewers will see a pocket of resistance. While other professional sports franchises have backed away from or removed ties to Native American imagery, the Atlanta Braves have retrenched. In late innings and key moments, fans yell a faux war chant and swing their arms in a ritual known as the “tomahawk chop.” At Truist Park, which opened in 2017, a giant neon tomahawk beyond the center field fence slashes along with the crowd. Fans can dine at the Coors Light Chop House overlooking right field.

After years of colleges and high schools retiring Native American mascots, sometimes as required under state law, the past 18 months have seen a change at the highest level of sports. Under pressure from corporate sponsors in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the national reckoning it sparked, the Washington Football Team ditched its former name, which is defined as a slur. The Cleveland Indians, who already had banished their caricature logo, will be known as the Guardians starting next year.

With the World Series spotlight on the franchise for the first time since 1999, the Braves are viewed by advocates as a holdout amid an overdue cultural shift, clinging to a name that offends and dehumanizes a minority group out of deference to fan loyalty and branding.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Crystal Echo Hawk, CEO of advocacy group IllumiNative. “It used to be, ‘This would be almost impossible; this would be millions and millions of dollars’ — all the things the teams traditionally have thrown up as these barriers and these excuses. Now we have two major teams who have gone through this and literally thousands of schools across the country. The time is now. … It’s just really mind-boggling to watch Atlanta really dig in on this.”

Commissioner Rob Manfred made MLB’s stance clear with comments ahead of Game 1 against the Houston Astros on Tuesday, saying baseball is marketed locally and the sport must align itself with the preferences of local consumers. He said the Braves have done a “phenomenal job” of outreach to local Native American communities, the largest of which supports the Braves financially and culturally.

“The Native American community in that region is wholly supportive of the Braves’ program, including the chop,” Manfred said. “For me, that’s kind of the end of the story.”

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the largest local tribe in the Atlanta region, has a long-standing relationship with the Braves, Principal Chief Richard Sneed said. It once manufactured tourist items such as tomahawks and bows and arrows, which it sold to the Braves to offer at souvenir stands. As revenue from its ownership of a casino pulled the tribe out of poverty, its relationship with the Braves changed. It is now a corporate sponsor.

The Braves declined to make anyone available for comment on the name but emphasized their efforts to connect with Native Americans in the area and honor them with exhibits at Truist Park.

Sneed viewed his tribe’s relationship with the team as “a platform” to tell the story of Cherokee culture. In July, the Braves held Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Night at Truist Park, where Sneed said tribal elders were treated “like royalty.” This year, the Braves sold T-shirts with a word that translated roughly to “ballplayer” in Cherokee syllabary; the proceeds supported the tribe’s language immersion program.

...The Braves are not alone in pro sports; the NFL has the Kansas City Chiefs, whose fans also do the chop. But baseball, both inside and outside Atlanta, has ceded ground in the debate. As it evaluated its name, Cleveland canvassed Native Americans and found “the name can make it especially challenging for children to find a place for their Native identity in the community around them.” In 2019, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that seeing the tomahawk chop was “disappointing.”

“I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general,” Helsley said during the Cardinals’ National League Division Series matchup with the Braves that year. “Just depicts them in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual. They are a lot more than that. It’s not me being offended by the whole mascot thing. It’s not. It’s about the misconception of us, the Native Americans, and how we’re perceived in that way or used as mascots.”

hi, i'm joe buck! before we start playing game 3, i just wanted to say,

Team names are only part of the issue. Fans have attended Braves games in redface and headdresses. Echo Hawk and Payment noted that opposing fans will use slurs and offensive stereotypes. “Somebody starts blurting out, ‘Scalp the Indians,’ or, ‘Feed them whiskey and send them back to the res,’ ” Payment said.

“When you think about the global viewership of the World Series and you suddenly see tens of thousands of fans engaging in that behavior and suddenly you’ve got that being mimicked back to our children and our communities, it is so deeply offensive and harmful, and it makes our children oftentimes feel ashamed of who they are,” Echo Hawk said. “We are constantly reduced to these dehumanizing caricatures and stereotypes and not seen for who we are today.”

Payment imagined a stadium full of fans implored to act as if performing a minstrel show. The public response would be swift and condemnatory, and the ritual would be halted immediately. The only difference with the chop, Payment argued, is that society fails to recognize Native Americans as part of the U.S. population.

“We have objectified Indians as a relic of the past,” Payment said. “A lot of people don’t have a clue we exist still. They don’t think about how it might affect Native American youth or people.”

Payment believes those who want the Braves to keep their name already have lost and don’t know it yet.

“It’s just a matter of time,” he said. “Some of the people involved with the decision-making of the Atlanta team are going to look back and say, ‘Oh, my God.’ The grandchild of the owners today are going to say: ‘Boy, Grandpa was a racist. He didn’t realize it, but he was a racist.’ I think it’s just a matter of time.”

-- now let's play some baseball!

Someone make a new hot stove thread please. I can't think of a funny title.

Sources: The Padres and Bob Melvin have agreed to a three-year deal to make Melvin the next manager in San Diego.

— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) October 28, 2021

Holy moly I didn't think he was leaving Oakland for a long time

Apparently the A's are cutting costs again. He made too much money.

Didn’t they extend him not long ago? I think dude would just rather manage a team that is spending money.

Yeah he was signed for this year, and yet they let the Padres take him without compensation. Curious

They also have a huge class of arbitration-eligible players:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/09/athletics-trade-rumors-payroll-arbitration-olson-chapman-manaea-bassitt.html

these could be the final three games of pitchers hitting

we'll still have ohtani

wanna say I'll miss it but I suspect it'll be one of those things I just never think of again

yeah, it'll probably be fine. but really, end of an era

To not experience the joy of a Todd Stottlemyre running the bases, that'll be tough.

Logan Webb hit a home run in his last at bat in the regular season

oh yeah, the Giants had Madison Bumgarner too

i will miss the old rules and strategy but yeah most of the time is sucked

Just in case my post makes no sense, I finally found a good clip of this:

https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/video/stottlemyre-on-his-famous-slide-c2372168183

One of my favourite baseball moments ever. Love Stottlemyre's "Yup."

I like pitching duels

Good call, I would have called that a strike

Didn't matter, why swing at that pitch

Big moment

Should have the third baseman got to that ball?

No

I'm bored obviously, anyone want to join me tonight?

Huge out

Wow

3 2/3

5

xp yet another moral victory for the Crew

so what do we do now for five months?

I think Freeman has edged ahead of his statistical twin Paul Goldschmidt for the HOF.

xp -- get caught up on a LOT of movies.

i actually got curious about something kind of dumb – but have spent the last couple weeks setting up a custom league in OOTP, with each team's roster being every team's all-time greats. I want to see how many times out of 100 (or so), the Yankees dominate the AL, whether the Giants or Dodger turn out more successful and if middle of the road teams like the Jays or Brewers can pull off any first place finishes. I'm about 80% done constructing the lineups.

also i had that same thought last night about Freeman! when setting up rosters for this dumb league I realized Freeman might be the best 1B the Braves have had for any extended period.

Checked an all-time Braves team, and it looks like Freeman for sure; only competition is Fred McGriff for a much shorter time frame.

Big surprise--Freeman and Goldschmidt's postseason stats aren't all that dissimilar! Goldschmidt looks even better, but only half the PA and no titles:

Freeman -- .290/.393/.525, 9 HR (183 PA)
Goldschmidt -- .282/.351/.624, 8 HR (94 PA)

Both with Excel Sports Management...Have they ever been seen in the same room together?

All sorts of Braves-related oddities from Jayson Stark today, including:

• How many teams have started all three outfielders in the game they won the World Series who were literally playing for some other team halfway through that season — or at any point during that season? Who out there guessed none? Good guess!

• And in a related development, how many teams have ever won a World Series in which not a single one of their Opening Day outfielders played in any game of that World Series? That would also be none.

I think Freeman has edged ahead of his statistical twin Paul Goldschmidt for the HOF.
― clemenza, Wednesday, November 3, 2021 11:55 AM

Even with Freeman having a solid year, and quite possibly headed to another WS, Goldschmidt has reasserted his edge: frontrunner for MVP, leading all three slash categories at the moment (plus runs and hits), not making news with agent problems. These two guys are something else.

goldy looks promising

JAWS
  First Base (23rd):
    55.5 career WAR | 42.3 7yr-peak WAR | 48.9 JAWS | 5.8 WAR/162
  Average HOF 1B (out of 23):
    65.5 career WAR | 42.1 7yr-peak WAR | 53.8 JAWS | 4.9 WAR/162

Honestly I think stories like freeman’s agent problems, might actually help goldschmidt. Anything to get his name out there would help.

Goldschmidt remains the most anonymous future HOFer I can remember. No idea what he even looks like

I think if he played on my team I still wouldn't remember what he looks like

Honestly I think stories like freeman’s agent problems, might actually help goldschmidt. Anything to get his name out there would help.

I literally just finished rewatching the Sopranos episode where the struggling rapper hires Bobby Bacala to shoot him ("somewhere fleshy") under the same rationale!

Hahahaa!

goldschmidt a 49th-round pick out of high school and eighth-round pick out of texas state

bless