Also, Checking in on
Two Public Donald Ross Designs
in North Carolina
In-brain soundtrack: Skyrim theme song
Can check: Green Man IPA
Golf hole living rent-free in my head: 5th hole, Golspie Golf Club (par 4, 292 yards)
Blooper, mascot of the Atlanta Braves and perpetrator of crimes against humanity.
Mascots are a lot like the Paper Mario Nintendo games: I want to like them, but I’m not exactly the target audience anymore.
Not that my favored sports teams make it easy. Ole Miss has spent the past few decades waffling between an Antebellum slaveowner and various anthropomorphic carnivores. The Washington Capitals have a bald eagle named Slapshot who looks a lot like one of the Muppets, but at least I can account for his whereabouts on January 6th. And when it comes to the Green Bay Packers, I’m a shareholder, and I don’t even know if they have a mascot.
Compared to Blooper, though, they all have the charisma of Sean Connery in a smoking jacket with a dram of scotch.
Blooper, as you might have the good fortune of not knowing, is the Atlanta Braves’ mascot, apparently the product of the focus group from Hell. He is vanilla ice cream’s answer to the Phillie Phanatic, with the personality of a houseplant. I’ve probably been to 10 Braves games since Blooper’s 2018 debut, and each time I’ve had to restrain myself from punching his generic, insipid face.
Lately, Blooper has taken his terrorism to a new level. In August, Alan Jackson Bobblehead Night will descend on Marietta — and the Braves want you to know it. So every night, the Braves’ subscription-only streaming service airs a promo commercialonce per inning. It is this commercial for which Blooper spent the past eight years saving his worst. To the tune of “Chattahoochie,” Blooper and his thralls pals dance about in choreographed shenanigans whilst tubing, riding in the back of a pickup truck (a crime for which, in a just society, he should be thrown in prison), and otherwise priming viewers for Alan Jackson Bobblehead Night.
To review: for $150 per year, you can watch the universe’s most punchable figure frolic to the tune of a throwback from the godless country music craze of the early 90s, and you can do it nine times per night.
Section 40-8-79 of the Georgia Code criminalizes riding in the bed of an uncovered pickup truck. Imprison this monster.
As in any oppressed citizenry, revolution was inevitable.
“I’m about to rip my eyes and ears off,” one happy customer tweeted. “Y’all are literally ruining Alan Jackson for me,” another tweeted 34 years too late.
Eventually, Braves Vision posted an apology of sorts. “We’re aware of certain ads running much more frequently than we’ve scheduled,” the service said. “We’re working with our ad server to identify the issue and fix it.”
I’m not holding my breath, but perhaps I should, in the hope of self-inducing a coma until the atrocity passes on August 6.
Subscribe now, and you can ignore the next two asks. Deferred gratification!
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Speaking of the early 90s, I stopped in Atlanta last week to watch the Braves beat the Pirates 6-3. As of this writing, they hold the best record in baseball with the second-best runs differential, and they are eight runs short of leading the majors in scoring. That is to say that an early October meltdown is inevitable. I’ve seen this movie many times: they steamroll their way through the regular season, just in time for their hitting to go as cold as a Kaitlyn Collins retort.
Don’t let your unscarred children fall for it. I’ve lived it nearly uninterrupted for 35 years. Fool me you can’t get fooled again.
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Truist Park on a comfortable June night, as seen from Section 137, Row 11.
My evening with Blooper was a stopover on a drive to western North Carolina, which has become an annual early-summer haunt for my family. By the looks of things, recovery from Hurricane Helene’s flooding in September 2024 has been successful.
But as two historic golf courses can vouch, the recovery remains incomplete. They are two municipal tracks designed by Donald Ross: Asheville Municipal and Black Mountain (another muni and the subject of a Lying Four essay in 2024). At Black Mountain, the front nine’s repair remains incomplete. At a glance, they seem to be a year away, at least; the excellent fourth hole, on the front nine’s lowest point, is still a mess. The Asheville course’s first nine holes also are closed, with a projected 2027 reopening. (Keep in mind that golf course construction timelines often prove overly optimistic.)
Black Mountain’s par-4, 353-yard fourth hole, as seen in less untended times.
Still, if you find yourself in the neighborhood, pay a visit — especially to Black Mountain. Municipal golf courses rarely get all the public funding that they really need, so greens fees are more important than ever.
The courses’ long road to recovery might end up being the subject of a future Lying Four piece, if my law practice ever slows down to a pace where sanity becomes a non-zero possibility.
. . .
Lying Four is preparing to ocarina like ocarinas have rarely ocarina’d before.
Parting thoughts…
A remake of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will release later this yearon the Switch 2. It is the GOAT of video games. All other opinions are wrong. If you need something from me, then you’d better find me before the game comes out; after that, I make no promises.
Why was I not made aware that there’s a new Spider-Man movie coming out this summer? And why is it not the third Spider-Verse film?
Let’s cool it on the talk about Shohei Ohtani being the greatest player of all time. Yes, he’s having a historic season, both at the plate (hitting .301, on pace for 27 homers and about 90 RBIs) and pitching (a 6-2 record with an ERA under 1.00). If the pace holds, he would register a staggering 12.8 WAR for the season, andt would be Ohtani’s second time with a WAR of 9.0 or higher. That’s cute. Babe Ruth — truly the game’s greatest player, ever — tallied a WAR above 9.0 ten times. Ruth also revolutionized the game in ways that advanced stats are still vindicating 100 years later. Ohtani is a singular figure in baseball history. By any rational measure, that’s plenty good.
On Tuesday night, Madison Central High School’s favorite son, Braden Montgomery — playing in his first major league game — delivered a 10th-inning walk-off home run against my Braves. Hard to be mad about that. Just don’t make it a habit, kid.
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That’s all for now. If you enjoyed this read, then forward to a friend and beg them to subscribe. Resort to violence, if you must.
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Lying Four is a free, periodic newsletter published by Will Bardwell, author of the eponymous golf blog. In addition to golf-related commentary, the newsletter addresses other sports and notable pop culture happenings.
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