A goodbye and thank you to Atlanta Braves fans

After a six-year journey, the road for this Atlanta Braves fan has taken another fork.

There may be nothing on this planet I love more than Atlanta Braves baseball. I was brought to the game by my great-grandmother, who loved the Chicago Cubs, but she had such high esteem for Hank Aaron that I dove into learning all about him. My elementary school mind saw a connection from Hank to the team’s star at the time, Dale Murphy, and I was hooked.

For nearly 35 years now, I’ve claimed the Atlanta Braves, and yet I’ve never once had a zip code that placed me anywhere near south of the Mason-Dixon line. TBS helped to nourish my love of the Atlanta Braves through dark times in the 1980s and a lot of wonderful times in the 1990s and ever since.

I began posting on message boards when I was in college, back when ESPN actually had legitimate message boards in the late ’90s. I even ended up the moderator on one of those message boards for ESPN for the Braves for a spell before I broke off to another board and another board, and one day I got an email from Jeff Schafer stating that he’d read some of my posting on one of those forums and thought I could make a good writer for Tomahawk Take.

My first piece was in June of 2013, an examination of the upcoming offseason, the Atlanta Braves payroll obligations, and what that could mean for that season’s mid-year trade deadlines. Then, in my second piece, I hammered into one of the two areas that became passions for me – minor leagues, and the draft. That second piece examined the Braves drafting, which was criticized at the time, and whether it was all that bad.

Along the way, I decided to attempt to write scouting reports, had a former major league scout email me and offer to mentor me on what I was missing in my looks. I’d soon find that to be a very common experience in the scouting and prospect writing community as I fanned the flames of my passion for evaluating players. At one time, any player in the Atlanta Braves system that had played in full-season ball had a video scouting report in the minor league database that we kept on Tomahawk Take, and those were all my handiwork.

I’ve had the chance to chat on my front lawn with a former editor of Tomahawk Take here in South Dakota. I’ve had a chance to wave at a TT reader as we both attended a Twins/Braves game in Minneapolis, and I’ve found myself humbled by the amount of times someone heard my name and immediately knew who I was.

Through my journey with FanSided, I wrote here for Tomahawk Take, took my first editing position with the Twins blog, Puckett’s Pond, and then ended up taking a position editing the general baseball blog, Call to the Pen, where I had been writing since 2016. In July, I was asked by Jeff to consider returning to Tomahawk Take to edit as he was leaving the site.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Braves News: How the Braves got their name, mailbag, more
• Atlanta Braves Mailbag: New Year’s Edition
• Braves News: Atlanta makes a pair of trades, prospect debuts, more
• Atlanta Braves History: How the Red Stockings became the Braves
• Braves News: Atlanta Braves acquire Eli White from the Texas Rangers

This is the 680th piece I’ve written for Tomahawk Take. Overall, I’ve put together 1,955 articles across all platforms for FanSided. This one will be the last.

I’ve had the incredible opportunity to meet some amazing people along the way who have nurtured my writing ability, my editing ability, and helped me focus my passion and use it to inspire others in their writing. In the end, there’s nothing I would not do for one of the writers in my stead to help see them grow and potentially find that big break they’d been hoping for in the baseball industry.

I began with Tomahawk Take before I had even proposed to my wife. Writing allowed me to process through many things, including my grandfather’s passing just before I took off on a baseball-themed (of course) honeymoon (where we nearly saw Max Scherzer throw a perfect game – and he still got a no-hitter!). In December, we adopted our first child after fostering for over two years, and in two weeks, we’ll finalize the adoption of three more kiddos.

My life is full, so don’t worry about me staying busy! You’ll see me pop up writing somewhere in the near future for sure. I’ve got a personal site that I’ve purchased and never set up due to the busy-ness of my other writing…now it’s time.

Last, but absolutely not least, I want to thank you, the amazing readers who took in hundreds of thousands of words of my drivel over the last six years. It’s been an honor to cover the Atlanta Braves for you, to hopefully provide some level of insight for you, and most of all, to interact with each of you that’s reached out in comments, on social media, and even via email. I’ll miss it.

[ other editor’s note:  all the best, my friend – you’ve had a great ride, and we’re all better for your tireless efforts!  – Alan C. ]

Go Braves!