Yesterday, January 22 began my first of several trips to the Braves Caravan. Yesterdays trip sent me to Greenville, SC. Again I live in Knoxville, so it is approximately a 3 hour drive from point A to point B. I left out about & a.m., and after driving through the snowy Smokey Mountains I arrived in Greenville about 10:30 a.m. Now if you have never been to any of the Braves Caravans or any of the other MLB Caravans/FanFest then you know how crazy and packed they can get really early. The last Braves Caravan I attended was in 2012 when they came to Knoxville. The event started at 4 o'clock and I got there at 11:30 a.m. and was around the 200th person in line. This event in Greenville started at 3:30 p.m. so I figured I would need to get there as early as possible as well.
So I walked into the Academy Sports expecting to see a massive line as it was in Knoxville before and ironically there was only three people. Since there was only three people in line we left and got some breakfast and toured the small city of Greenville. We started with visiting a couple small shops and then went downtown and visited the Greenville Drive's team shop and field. The Greenville Drive are the Low-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, so of course they had tons of World Series stuff along with Red Sox memorabilia and I thought one of the coolest things was that the Drives Mascot was name was Greenie after "The Green Monster" at Fenway. They also have one of the nicest stadiums I have ever seen for a Lo-A affiliate (see picture above). After we got done visiting the stadium which was about 15 minutes away from the Academy we headed back.
We got back to the Academy about 12:30 p.m. expecting there to be a longer line than before, but once again we were surprised to see there wasn't anyone still, so we got back in line and I was the 16th person in line. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity for just three hours, 3:30 p.m. came around and the signing began. I got an autograph bat from Evan Gattis and a ball signed by David Hale (seen below). Gattis and Hale both were overall very humble and talked to every single person like they had known them forever. Overall the trip was a huge success and we got what we went for. My next trip will take place Sunday 2/26 when I will travel to Huntsville, AL to see Craig Kimbrel, and some of the Braves top prospects. Don't forget to continue to follow us on twitter @NoseBleedReport for more updates. Until next time, See ya!