The Gwinnett Barves

A little bit of backstory: the Atlanta Braves are one of the few organizations in baseball that owns the majority of their minor league affiliates.  It’s why all the teams they own are called “Braves;” the Danville Braves, Rome Braves, Mississippi Braves and Gwinnett Braves.  At one point, they stressed the importance of naming all their teams Braves, so that they could really reinforce brand awareness and strengthen their identity to all parts of the Southeast in which they resided in.

This was a stark difference to the vast majority of the rest of Minor League Baseball, who had team names that were often more whimsical and often identifiable to their specific towns/regions, like the Montgomery Biscuits, Modesto Nuts, Las Vegas 51s, Buffalo Bisons and Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp just to name a few.  It was almost a rite of passage for young players to work their way up the ranks, through teams with less than prestigious names, before they had the chances to hope to play for one of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises.

Personally, I’ve always felt the Braves were an organization of squares, to name all their minor league franchises Braves, in such a calculated and serious-business manner.  Like their 18-year old rookies in Danville might be able to close their eyes and imagine that they’re in a 35,000 attendance ballpark in Atlanta and suddenly translate playing like a major leaguer in their rinky-dink park that maybe 35 people are actually at.  Or that their fans will automatically love the Atlanta Braves solely because their favorite players in Jackson, Mississippi were ultimately traded to the White Sox or Diamondbacks.

Anyway, what prompted this post was this news that I saw that the Gwinnett Braves are taking suggestions for new names for them to use in starting in 2018.  The Atlanta Braves are finally opening up to the idea of naming one of their Jesus affiliates something other than “the Braves.”

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I wonder if SK Telecom T1 hates international fans

One of the main reasons why I enjoy professional League of Legends so much is because it’s simply something that Koreans are absolutely, irrefutably the greatest in the world at.  I’ve watched and had my heart crushed enough times at watching Koreans excel but fall short in a variety of international contests such as baseball, soccer and various Olympic sports to know how much I actually want to see South Korea win things, and in professional League, I not only have such, but because I also play the game recreationally, I have the ability to relate and understand how the players are playing and to appreciate just how good they really are.

Needless to say, over the last four years or so of watching professional League, I’ve witnessed Koreans dominate the scene without any legitimate concern that the ride is going to end any time soon; and personally, I love it to no end.

Obviously, a discussion about professional League of Legends dominance cannot be had without mentioning SK Telecom T1, the be-all, end-all when it comes to the entire esport.  Three-time World champions in an arena that’s only six years old, winners of countless tournaments both domestic and international, and after yesterday, two-time winners of the Riot Games Mid-Season Invitational, AKA mini-Worlds.  The bottom line is that SKT wins big and wins often, and their dominance over the scene is pretty overwhelming.

In other sports, this kind of suffocating excellence often prompts discussion over whether their constant winning is a detriment for the sport as a whole, and the League scene is really no exception.  SKT has been on top of the League scene for nearly four full years now, with only hiccups in Season 4 and the first Mid-Season Invitational, where they failed to win, but won just about everything else otherwise.  Suffice to say, it’s not really that big of a surprise that there are large swaths of League fans out there that have simply gotten bored of SKT’s constant winning, and have turned their allegiances against them.

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