Statement...How Sweep It Is

Although it is tough to read too much into an early season series against your divisional rival, the sweep of the Nationals (gnats) this weekend was sweet. I know this as well, if the Braves would have gotten swept the fans would have freaked out so I think it is a great time to get excited about this team. Hopefully that also means the fans will show up at The Ted regularly.

The game Friday night set the tone clearly for what was to come. The Braves looked baffled by Detweiler, but once he came out it was game on. The improbable comeback finished off by Pena, who has been better than good since his first AB this season. Saturday Gattis took a high fastball and somehow drove it out of
the ballpark and Sunday was just a arse whooping. The player that has been overlooked by some that has been huge is Chris Johnson, have to keep in the lineup everyday.

My favorite part was the Braves said exactly what you want them to, its just one series, its still early in the season, etc. The gnats on the other hand seemed agitated and dumbfounded. Espinosa even made it clear that the gnats are still the better team regardless of this series.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/13/stephen-strasburg-and-danny-espinosa-are-not-impressed-by-the-braves/

So take out of this past weekend what you will, but I believe the Braves are in their heads a little bit and there will be 15 more games to look forward to. #peachclobbers

The LAW

So back in the day when I blogged somewhat regularly I mentioned that we were expecting our first child in October and we did not find out the sex of the little one, it was all going to be a surprise.

Well on September 21st we welcomed Lola Ann Wilson to the family. She is absolutely perfect and cannot imagine our lives without her today. The first six months have flown by and we are really look forward to this summer and getting her to the pool and beach. Hopefully she enjoys the water as much as her mom and I do.

Here are a few pictures of her. We are at the stage now of about to crawl, so it will be fun times around our house very soon.

Hillbilly Rap

Other than sports my next biggest passion or obsession is music. With that being said I have noticed a lot more country artists going the route of country rap. I am mixed on it for sure, but can say that I do like the two songs on Jason Aldean's newest album, Night Train. Tradiional country has been gone for a while now and if this is the new thing for a while I think I can hang with it. I do however remember back in the day in Tejas at a Neal McCoy concert him busting out a rap, I actually still listen to it every now and then. I will say though it is beyond cheesy and I should get made fun of for liking it. I bet I have a certain friend though that will only ask one question, do they write their own songs??

The Only Way I Know is a simply song that is good, it does not hurt that is features Luke Bryan and Eric Church as well. However, this past weekend I heard 1994 for the first time and must say it could be my new favorite for right now. It has been stuck in my head since then. I believe it is time to get the boys back together and get ETA back to work. Here is the video, enjoy......Joe....Joe...Joe Diffie!!! Is it bad that I want a Teach Me How to Diffie shirt??

Jerseys?

Congrats to Louisville, couldn't have happened to a classier coach.............sarcasm.

Good game that again was officiated poorly as hell. But all I really wanted to say was have we come to a place where this is considered a uniform/jersey?

These look absolutely turrible! Please get rid of these and do not bring them back....ever. They look ridiculous.

Integrity of the Game...

I keep hearing about how instant replay in baseball will take away from the integrity of the game. Well my take is simple if the umpires keep missing calls isn't the integrity of the game being thrown right out the window already????

Every major sport has some form of instant replay. NFL is much better with replay. NBA is better now at the end of games with replay. NHL replays goals. Even tennis has freaking replay. I get that there is replay for homeruns, but what about safe/out calls, fair/foul.... I get that baseball has a lot of judgment calls and that makes it tough to have replay, but there is more than one umpire. My only request would be to make it less like the NFL rules where they make instant replay a game with challenge flags. Give the manager the option to challenge a play anytime in the game, if they get it right give them one more, but on bang bang calls the umpires can also use discretion and replay more than just HRs. Bud your commish tenure has had plenty of downs, do something here to get some more positive pub for the game. As far as balls and strikes unless you use technology there will always be some bad calls, but in the event of what happened the other night the umpire should not be so damn proud and ask for help from the others to let him know that was clearly a ball.

I think the biggest problem I have with umpires is their approach that they cannot do any wrong on the field, how hard is it to ask for help? How hard is it for the other umpires to conference to get the call right? No one is buying a ticket to see Angel Hernandez completely butcher a game behind the plate or at 2B.

At the end of the day everyone wants to get the call right, but having a press conference afterwards to say I missed it does not do any good. Keep hearing the umpires deserve credit when they admit they messed up. Why, that does not fix the mistake in the game? There is no accountability and clearly not an annual review process. Here is a replay of the strike 3 call from the Texas game and some other let's say not so good calls from the past too.

One Week In.....

The Braves' season is one week old and there are already some things taht are pretty obvious. First, this team will lead the majors in strikeouts. They had 40 plus in the 3 games series with the Phillies alone, now I realize the Phils have pretty good starting pitching, but damn. Second, this team will be at the top of the NL in homeruns. The downside of this is falling in love without it to where you live and die by the long ball. I will say though from my standpoint I do not mind it, because it brings excitement to this team. Justin has been awesome his first 6 games, however he does have one single, 5 HRs and the rest are Ks. Third, the new look roster has not disappointed. BJ is coming out of his slump, mainly due to some added pressure of being the newest rich kid in town. Justin as I mentioned above has been quality, Chris Johnson has been a good addition and can help at 1B with Freddie on DL, Laird has been hitting the ball good to kick off the season too.

Lastly, they have more passion than in years past, at least visually. Chris Johnson missed a pitch and about destroyed his helmet after being thrown at a first. Freddie was beyond pissed that he was put on the DL and let it be known. This is something that fans have asked for from this team for years. I do not mind it at all and do not think it will take away from what they are trying to accomplish.

I know its early in the season, but this coming weekend series in DC can be big to set the tone. This team can easily compete for the National League pennant, question is can they win the division?? We all witnessed what can happen when you leave 162 games of work up to a one game playoff. Infield fly my ass! Fredi has his work cut out for him, no reason not to win this season with this talent.


Side note: they should have rocked these hats this Spring.

ETA Debut

For a long while now me and some of my friends have had this ongoing dialogue about starting a band. This was before most of us even owned a guitar, drums, etc. So towards the end of last summer I started taking guitar lessons, Jason had an acoustic and bought a new electric guitar and Kirn bought a set of electric drums. So every once in a while we would all get together and it never failed that we would talk about music and what each of us are doing individually with our guitars or drums. Well finally at our couples' baby shower for Baby Wilson we discussed it and agreed that we should try to play at least one song at KirnFest on September 8th. So the shower at that point took a turn towards how can we be ready and if we are going to play a song we need a band name. Throughout our discussions we came to an agreement that we would attempt to play The Black Keys' song "Your Touch." The band name discussion was a whole different one, as in the past we also joked around and said we would be "Cheap Sunglasses" or "Cat's Pajamas." So we started to discuss how most band names are just two random things put together, e.g. Vampire Weekend. Kirn had one he had thought of one time and once he said it I think we were sold, End Table Artwork. Once we could cut it down to ETA for short it made it even better.

So we now had a gig date and needed to practice, so we decided to meet at Kirn's house that week. I sent a text over to Patrick, brother-in-law, to see if he was interested in coming over too as he has played guitar for a while. I won't get into all the boring details of each rehearsal, but it took one session to realize that with all four of us we had a band (Kirn, Jason, Patrick and me).

Leading up to KirnFest we decided we should add a second song and not tell many people so it would be somewhat of a surprise. So we talked about a handful of songs and finally agreed to attempt Tommy Tutone's Jenny (867-5309). It was fun to add this type song and knew that everyone would sing-a-long as well. We probably had a total of 6 practices and did not even have a mic or PA until the practice the day of the show, so we were all a little nervous heading into that night.

Well once the time came for us to do our thing we set our stands, plugged in amps and met in the back for what we hope to become a pre-show ritual. We gave each other some encouragement and passed a small bottle of Jaegermeister around. I think I can speak for the group we had a blast and cannot wait to keep playing. So that is the story which led us up to this........enjoy!! (Follow us @eta4L)