Tag: baseball
How an Atlanta high-tech baseball startup is helping players improve
At Maven Baseball Lab, hitters and pitchers undergo a 12-swing or 12-pitch assessment under the eyes of 16 cameras, which produce data on biomechanics, spin rate, vertical break, and more. Maven’s client list includes Braves players Matt Olson, Max Fried, and A.J. Minter, along with other MLB stars like Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt.
Editor’s Journal: The greatest pitching performance I’ve ever seen came from a 9-year-old
Nine-year-old Jesse Merrill was the Jackie Robinson of my hometown. Like much of the Southeast, my little West Georgia town caught baseball fever in 1966 when the Braves relocated from Milwaukee to Atlanta. That spring, two Little League teams were started to play in the county league.
High schoolers play like the pros at the Braves’ Native American All-Star Baseball Showcase
50 high school baseball players of Native American descent, representing 23 tribes from 16 states across the U.S. and Canada, participated in the third-annual Native American All-Star Baseball Showcase at Truist Park. The players went through pro-style workouts with former Braves players as their coaches and talked to MLB and college scouts. On Sunday, they played a showcase game against one another, with many family members of the players attending and cheering for both teams.
The Braves home opener is just one game in a long season. But to the fans, it’s everything.
On Friday, the Atlanta Braves opened up their Truist Park account with their first home game of the year. The game itself is just one of 162 and in the win-loss column, the result has little impact on the outcome of the season. But the experience for Braves’ fans matters more than any other regular season game in the year.
In 1974, Hank Aaron broke the most hallowed record in baseball. I can still hear the echo.
It was 50 years ago this month—April 8, 1974—that Henry Aaron hit his 715th career home run off pitcher Al Downing in Atlanta, breaking Ruth’s 39-year record. When he finally reached that summit, it seemed less a cause for celebration for Aaron than reason for a long sigh of relief: The chase was finally over.
Fans ate 550,000 hot dogs at Truist Park last year—and 8 other interesting facts about the Braves ballpark
Truist Park: The home of the Braves is an enigma. It’s an artificial mecca of baseball that displaced Turner Field to the chagrin of many, but now draws some of the best crowds in baseball. The stadium itself is a beauty, with faux red brick that creates an old-school ballpark feel in a sea of corporate office parks. Let’s leave behind its contradictions for a moment to focus on Truist Park and the great baseball played there since 2017.
Ronald Acuña Jr. takes flight
Former Braves coaches Ron Washington and Eric Young Sr. mentored Acuña to an MVP season in 2023. Can the young outfielder thrive without them?
The man in the yellow hat: Meet the owner of the Savannah Bananas
Jesse Cole owns seven yellow tuxedos. He shows me during our Zoom interview, adjusting his camera to fit an open closet door into the frame: sure enough, six canary-yellow tuxes, hanging at the ready. He’s wearing the seventh while we speak—top hat included.
The Braves’ OutKast night was everything we love to see in baseball
Even for fans who missed out on the instantly iconic bobblehead—which featured Big Boi and André 3000 sitting in a red Cadillac, decked out in custom Braves jerseys and caps—OutKast night at Truist Park was a grand slam.
Up to Bat: Five Southern baseball teams that are in a league of their own
Governed by the maxim “we make baseball fun,” the Savannah Bananas have sold out every game since their founding in 2016. Following their own eccentric brand of play, dubbed “Banana Ball,” the team eschews anything that could make the sport feel sluggish.