FanFest Comes and Goes

I stopped by the Braves Winter FanFest for a couple hours today. It was a decent day, kinda cold and windy, but not too bad. I stopped by the ‘Fest mainly for a clubhouse tour, and a stroll on the field, but I only got one out of two. They were apparently not set up for the clubhouse tours, which was a bit disappointing.

I’m not a big autograph hound so I wasn’t really going to get any signatures, and good thing because the lines were monstrous. The line to get Smoltz’ signature wound about a third of the way around the back of the stadium, at least three hundred yards or so.



The picture below was the line to get Renteria’s autograph. Not a bad sign for the new Brave.



One of the best events were the Q&A’s with Braves players and coaches. I saw John Thompson and Joey Devine answering questions as I walked in. Later on John Smoltz and Roger McDowell took to the stage to answer questions. I realized as I was standing there that I should have brought a pen and some paper so that I could write down some of the more interesting things they were saying and relay them to you here, but I forgot, damn. I’m sure the AJC will do a good job of relaying the important quotes. The fans were asking a bunch of questions about how hard the players thought it would be to keep up with the Mets after all of their off-season acquisitions. I also recall that one of the last questions Smoltz answered during his Q&A session received the most applause. He was answering a question about when he first got serious about baseball as a kid. He ended it by saying that ‘[parents these days push their kids too hard in little leagues, and that they should just let them have fun and be kids. High school is the time to get serious about sports.]’