FanFest - Day 2 Updates

Written by Colin on January 13, 2008 – 4:32 pm

The BravesBlast crew just arrived home from FanFest.  The second day was MUCH more subdued than the first day, and we all enjoyed ourselves.  The major factor here was that there were significantly fewer people there today, making all the lines bearable and the attractions more accessible.

We enjoyed meeting a couple friends from MySpace, hitting whiffle ball batting practice, and getting pictures made with McCann’s Cans.  Rue, one of our staff, got her picture made with Buddy Carlyle and she is quite ecstatic.

Some highlights:

• Jonathan enjoyed proving his 60 mph fastball was 2 mph faster than Colin’s.
• Colin hit a whiffle ball straight back at the girl operating the machine - hit her straight in the leg.  She was shocked.
• Rue really, really, really enjoyed getting her picture made with Buddy Carlyle
• Watching John Smoltz pitch for a home run derby
• Colin asking Frank Wren a question at the “Ask the GM”
• Meeting BravesBlast fans
• Meeting McCann’s Cans

We enjoyed the “Ask the GM” session with Pete Van Wieren and Frank Wren.  Colin took the opportunity to ask him about the transparency we’ve seen with the Mark Kotsay deal - Wren confirmed he thinks we’ll see more and more transparency between front offices and the fans as bloggers and electronic media continue to impact the situation.

Highlights from Wren’s session:

• Julio Franco is still a free agent.  He wants to play through age 50, but they have discussed a minor league managerial position with him, potentially in a year or two.
• The Kotsay deal is not finalized - I guess pending physicals or something, but it’s almost there.  Looks like it’ll happen, from the cues we got.
• The goal is to get Teixeira to sign a contract extension before the end of the season - looks like we want to lock him up for a long time.
• Javy Lopez is looking good - sounds like he’s made some strides defensively and offensively to be in shape this year.  He trained pretty hard this off-season on his own and Wren is confident that he’s a possibility to be a strong backup catcher off the bench.
• He’s not looking to resign Greg Maddux for a reunion team.  Go figure.
• He seemed to be a little upset at the criticism received for the Tom Glavine deal - Glavine had 23 “quality starts” last season and looks to be a great addition this year.  He’s confident in that - I’m not questioning him.

We’ll have a full recap tomorrow including suggestions for improvement and what we thought about the event as a whole.  Thanks to everyone who came up to us today - we enjoyed meeting all of you!

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