Hey everyone,

One of the questions I am asked a lot is: "What do you guys actually do 5 to 6 hours before a night game?" It's a good question, and one that changes day-by-day, so I thought I'd walk you through my pre-game routine before yesterday's home game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

With Catie out of town visiting family, I was able to get some of my off-field obligations out of the way. When Catie is with me, we like to spend as much time as possible together, but since she was gone, I took the middle of the day (from about Noon-2 p.m.) to get some of my business affairs in place. That meant staying at home (it's getting hot here in Atlanta, so air conditioning is becoming my best friend) and signing a set of 3,000 baseball cards to sign for the company Upper Deck, the trading card company who I have a relationship with. I can't sign all 3,000 cards at once (I'm pretty sure my hand would fall off, which wouldn't make Bobby Cox, our manager, happy) so I signed about 300 baseball cards in half an hour and then got ready to head to the field.

Turner Field

At around 2 p.m. I arrived at Turner Field. I'm usually one of players that gets there the earliest. I like to spend some time in the video room talking to the coaches, or getting some treatment from our trainers. After that, I spent some time in a Bible study session. The Bible study session was a chance for me to clear my mind, and put a lot of things in perspective. Many players throughout Major League Baseball are active in participants in some sort of Bible study session, and I'm no different. Faith and family are important to me, so this is something that I like to do when I have the chance.

Dream House

At about 3:45 p.m. (3 and a half hours before first pitch) I was excited to come out to the field because of two reasons: the first was that I had been selected by the charitable organization Dream House to film a Public Service Announcement that will be shown across the city of Atlanta and state of Georgia. (See photos from the shoot here). As some of you know, Dream House is an organization dedicated to helping medically fragile children, and I have teamed up with Delta to donate 25,000 sky miles to the facility for every home run that I hit. Dream House (which received almost a million sky miles last year from Delta) is then able to fly their children across the country to hospitals where they can receive the absolute best treatment. It was very touching to hear yesterday from their CEO, Laura Moore, that thanks to these sky miles they were able to fly a young boy from Atlanta back and forth to a specific hospital in Pittsburgh from Atlanta to receive the best medical attention possible. It makes everything we do worth it.

After I wrapped up the filming of the PSA (it took me a few 'takes' to master the script. I had to check out the script a couple times to make sure I memorized the words correctly) I walked back to the dugout around 4:15 p.m. and met up with the first round draft picks of the Atlanta Falcons, Matt Ryan (Quarterback) and Sam Baker (Offensive Lineman).

Fellow Atlanta Players

Matt and Sam were at Turner Field to do a promotional bit for the Falcons where the three of us were filmed by the Falcons video staff talking and getting to know each other. Matt and I hit off a friendship quickly. Some of you may not know this, but in 2002 I actually signed a football scholarship to play defensive back at Clemson University, which is an ACC school located in South Carolina. Matt, who the Falcons picked 3rd overall in this year's draft, was the starting quarterback for Boston College the past few years, another ACC school. It's funny how our careers worked out. Who knows, I might have been on the other side of the football field from Matt the past few years, trying to pick off his throws. Instead, I'm the right fielder for the Atlanta Braves and he's the (future) starting quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons.

Since he's new to the town (he admitted he's a Phillies fan because he grew up outside of Philadelphia) I'm looking forward to spending some more time with him and showing him what's great about the city of Atlanta. He's a very cool guy and we scheduled to play some golf in the near future. I'm also a big Falcons fan (Delta also proudly sponsors the Falcons!), so I told him I'll plan on catching him at his games this fall.

By the time Matt and Sam left it was nearly 4:40 p.m., which is the normal time for batting practice and warm ups. From 4:40 p.m. on it's about nothing but focusing on the game, taking care of some minor adjustments, autographing anything and everything for the fans, and then getting ready to run out there and play for the Braves!

Are there any other questions you'd like to know more about?

Best,
Jeff

Hey Everyone,

Well we're getting ready to fly up to Chicago for the start of a very important, 10 day trip that will take us here, then to Los Angeles, and then to Dallas, Texas. At least the trip got off to a good start for me financially, as we thankfully didn't arrive in Chicago late last night, which would have given Catie a full day to walk the streets of Michigan Avenue!

The team is coming off a three game sweep at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies, and because we are one of the very best teams in baseball at home (we've struggled on the road), this weekend was a wake up for our club. Baseball is a game of streaks. When teams are hot, everything is great. The flights across the country don't nearly seem that long, and the questions the media ask are fun to answer. When a team loses a few in a row, as we have, the flights become quieter, and the questions become tougher to answer.

Flying on Delta

On this flight up to Chicago it will be all business. I've been working with our coaching staff to help determine what I need to do with my swing to get me back to hitting at a higher average. On the flight, I'll look to see if I can spend time going over some of my at bats on a portable DVD player that we can use to see some of our highlights, etc.

Different teams do different things on flights. I actually heard that the Colorado Rockies put their players' swings on video Ipods and let them watch their at bats on the plane that way. Some guys like to take flights as their ‘personal' time away from the media and the crowds. It's an opportunity for them to read a book or check out the stock market or even check out the box scores of other players/friends. It's a bit surreal to open up the newspaper on an airplane and read about yourself and all your friends. And people write about the Braves every day.

Summertime Trips

As we get towards the months of June and July my off the field routine became more and more structured. It's so incredibly hot during the summer months, particularly in Atlanta, that it's too hard to play baseball at the level I want to on the baseball field if I've spent a lot of my energy out on the golf course in the morning. People ask me all of the time what I take on a road trip. Ha, I wish I had something better to tell them. I did not take my golf clubs on the trip, even though Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas have some incredible courses. I did take about six dress shirts, four or five ties, and three different suit jackets/pants. That way, I'll never double up on the road and make the "rookie" mistake that we all make.

I did hear about a story involving a player on the San Francisco Giants rookie who forgot to bring his belt on the road trip. Well, he figured "oh, I have a belt. It's the belt I wear during my games" and tried to sneak out to the bus on the last day of a road trip wearing his San Francisco Giants uniform belt with his suit. Now that is what I call a real "rookie mistake"!

Is there one item you can't leave behind "on the road"?

Best,

Jeff

P.S. -My favorite airports as promised in my last post:

#1 - Atlanta: it's my hometown airport and we fly so much in and out of there that I feel like I know everyone at Hartsfield. Plus, there is nothing like landing at home.

#2 - Green Bay: Austin Straubel International. In the off-season, I go up to Wisconsin to see family and we always fly into there. You know those places where you land and you think "I have nothing but really good memories from this place and this airport." Well, this is the one for me. Plus, it doesn't matter if it's February, May, or October….at least 50 percent of the people in that airport will be wearing Green Bay Packers gear at one time. Besides, I've always wanted to know who Austin Straubel is. Ha.

#3 - Pittsburgh: Totally underrated. That place has everything. I've heard people try to fly into their as a layover just because the airport has so many places to shop. It's a tie between Pittsburgh and Charlotte, but since Pittsburgh's a baseball town I'm going with Pittsburgh.