MadduxFanII once stated that he does not lament The Adam Wainwright trade, and this is his thread to expound and expand!!

Mrs. Meta

Mrs. Meta

Well-known member
"You know, it's funny, I've never really lamented the Wainwright-Drew trade too much. It was objectively terrible, of course, but Drew was so good in 2004. It was a genuine thrill to watch him that year, and I'm glad I had that opportunity."

In my mind, MadduxFanDos is legitimately one of the most iconic members of our online community, going back to Braves Center and I believe fanhome, as well.

He won't remember this, but I remember a particular exchange that was had between himself and Bill Shanks. Wherein, Bill asked him to give him a break. And MFII simply replied, "earn one."

Oh my actual god.

The vicarious victory that I felt in that moment was beyond description. Because, in hindsight, it was in the early days where you could see Bill"s lust for unlimited power begin to take shape.

But... this isn't about him.

We know who this is about.

And I, for at least for one, would love to hear him expound and expand on his thoughts regarding the ultimate sacrifice for that one season of John David Drew.

For as we know, Adam Wainwright turned into a very much Hall of very good starting pitcher, who maybe, with better health, could have challenged for the Hall of fame.

Anyway, before I pass the microphone over to him, I'd like to share my own personal most memorable highlight of JD drew. At first, I was thinking it was his game winning home run that followed Nick Green's game tying home run.

However, there was another play that stuck out in my mind, and I knew it occurred when he was in right field. And oh my goodness, thanks to youtube, I found the play. Here's the time stamp:


It's the bare hand pickup off the carom and strong throw to Marcus Giles that stuck out of my mind.

So I have to think, and I have to ask, was it plays like this that defined that genuine thrill that was watching JD Drew in 2004?🥹🥹🥹

And, as a quick addendum, I'll add this;

I'll always wonder how he would have turned out if we had had the funds to re-sign him. Being a local kid and all. Or maybe, maybe JD really was just playing for that contract, and we would have seen his fate play out similarly to how it did with the dodgers...?
 
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If Schuerholz would have ignored the economics of baseball that he so ardently bemoaned and decided to re-sign Drew, it wouldn't have been so painful. Drew as absolutely stellar in his year with the Braves and although he got banged up a bit after leaving, he still put up good numbers. Of course, if the horrid economics of baseball hadn't prevented Schuerholz from re-signing Sheffield, the Drew trade wouldn't have happened.
 
Mrs. Meta said:
But... this isn't about him.
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Well it is now.

With all the happenings in the world over the last 20 or so odd years that I have been a part of this evolving community, I feel it's prudent to get our story out there.

More people should know there was once a site where a lot of Braves fans gathered to discuss Braves baseball and to get "insider information" from a local sports writer with connections to the Braves FO. More people should know of the heated arguments and overall fierce state of affairs that pitted scoutheads vs statheads posting endlessly on the importance (or lack their of) over OBP, hits, ERA, BA, and OPS. And more people should know how one man used shiesty journalism tactics to promote his new book and seize complete authority over a community in such a way that forced a mass exodus, the likes of which had not been seen since the Protestant Movement.

Who should we elect to tell our story?
 
Carp said:
Well it is now.

With all the happenings in the world over the last 20 or so odd years that I have been a part of this evolving community, I feel it's prudent to get our story out there.

More people should know there was once a site where a lot of Braves fans gathered to discuss Braves baseball and to get "insider" from a local sports writer with connections to the Braves FO. More people should know of the heated arguments and overall fierce state of affairs that pitted scoutheads vs statheads posting endlessly on the importance (or lack their of) over OBP, hits, ERA, BA, and OPS. And more people should know how one man used shiesty journalism tactics to promote his new book and seize complete authority over a community in such a way that forced a mass exodus, the likes of which had not been seen since the Protestant Movement.

Who should we elect to tell our story?
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Those were the days. I always got along with Shanks, but I pretty much get along with everyone. I didn't like the crap he pulled on rico25 and the suspension of thewupk, but I appreciated the inside info he could provide that proved to be right more than wrong.

I still laugh--and maybe some of you were involved--is that we were in the chat room during the winter meetings and we hatched a plan to make up an outrageous fake trade made by the Braves and agreed we would announce the faux trade to the next person who entered the chat. The entrant just went crazy. He started checking all the sports sites and coming back and telling us he hadn't seen the deal. We pimped him for about 15 minutes adding the scope of the trade with some bemoaning the supposed deal and other expresisng some optimism. We told him that the trade was going to be announced shortly before finally fessing up. The guy got so pissed at all of us and stormed out (if you can storm out of a chat room). I don't know if he ever returned to the site. It was classic. Great improv by all involved. Everyone kept it realistic enough and no one tipped their hand.
 
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thewupk said:
Looking back on it. I probablly deserved to be banned but PattioDaddio stalking me kind of crossed a line and was weird
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Forgot about PatioDaddio and gatom. The stat-driven movement was still in its infancy and the place was populated with traditionalists (including Shanks). I remember Mike Adams trying to keep the warring parties at bay.

gatom must have been related to Pete Rose. He just wouldn't give up on getting Pete into the HoF. He'd start a thread making his case, get some support but pretty much dismissed and a month later he'd revive the thread. Pretty hilarious. He was a contrarian's contrarian.
 
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Who was it that hated Adam Dunn so much? I recall having so many arguments with him. Was that Tino?
 
Carp said:
Who was it that hated Adam Dunn so much? I recall having so many arguments with him. Was that Tino?
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I can't remember. The stat movement was in its infancy (as I said above) and I think some of its proponents read Moneyball and saw that as baseball scripture, so some of the pro-Dunn arguments were pretty rudimentary. But the traditionalists who blanced at his K-numbers were more lunkheaded in their responses.
 
Carp said:
Well it is now.

With all the happenings in the world over the last 20 or so odd years that I have been a part of this evolving community, I feel it's prudent to get our story out there.

More people should know there was once a site where a lot of Braves fans gathered to discuss Braves baseball and to get "insider information" from a local sports writer with connections to the Braves FO. More people should know of the heated arguments and overall fierce state of affairs that pitted scoutheads vs statheads posting endlessly on the importance (or lack their of) over OBP, hits, ERA, BA, and OPS. And more people should know how one man used shiesty journalism tactics to promote his new book and seize complete authority over a community in such a way that forced a mass exodus, the likes of which had not been seen since the Protestant Movement.

Who should we elect to tell our story?
Click to expand...
The best part there was not one exodus but 2. First exodus was when SAV was banned for some bullshit when Shanks owned the site, but the mass exodus that went forever happened when patio took over and started banning people. I remembered SAV's old board and started inviting people over there and then SAV did all the real work working on getting better boards.

Like, thinking back, there's people who I"ve been shooting the shit with here for just over 20 years. Way back in the day when my name was Ortizsux because I hated Russ Ortiz (I think 99% of my discussions were how overrated he was, I was a shithead in highschool) then came the rumors of the As selling and I went all in on Zito. And I think if my memory is correct Tim Hudson was mentioned as untradable so I assumed it was Zito or Mulder, and I liked Zito more.

It's wild how the site fell apart the all time lowlight had to be the time Patio was talking about he and guys at his golf club or something watching the game and saying they were laughing at our "stupidity" when I think the majority of the peopel who he thought were stupid were largely right.

Also I remember being sad I was so right about Kris Medlen's arm. I remember watching him pitch and thinking how short his career would be as a starter because he was all arm.
 
There were two major events.

The first was when all the trolls like Blaren, grissom96 were making the quality of the board unbearable, and Shanks ignored it for months. I made a temporary board and Shanks got pissed then banned me whilst telling everyone to come back.

Things were fine for a few years.

NLDS Infield Fly game is when Patio went off the deep end, MikeAdams threw in the towel.

Patio banned everyone. We went to the invisionfree boards for a few months until I opened the vBulletin ChopCountry in 2013. Most memorable most-thanked post that season was Dalyn or jpx commenting that Gattis hit a "bloop slam".

After everyone migrated here that season, it's been a slow death for our community since. Semi-private forums like these are just a dying breed. Everything is on twitter/tiktok/reddit/facebook now.
 
Am I the only one who experienced a Patio crash out well before all of that stuff went down? He threatened me in a PM back in 2003-2004.
 
The Tariff King said:
There were two major events.

The first was when all the trolls like Blaren, grissom96 were making the quality of the board unbearable, and Shanks ignored it for months. I made a temporary board and Shanks got pissed then banned me whilst telling everyone to come back.

Things were fine for a few years.

NLDS Infield Fly game is when Patio went off the deep end, MikeAdams threw in the towel.

Patio banned everyone. We went to the invisionfree boards for a few months until I opened the vBulletin ChopCountry in 2013. Most memorable most-thanked post that season was Dalyn or jpx commenting that Gattis hit a "bloop slam".

After everyone migrated here that season, it's been a slow death for our community since. Semi-private forums like these are just a dying breed. Everything is on twitter/tiktok/reddit/facebook now.
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This place isn’t going anywhere. @50PoundHead clearly has the secret sauce to eternal life.
 
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