Let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words, two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Auburn Sucks.
GTPR is primarily a football blawg. But, we all cheer and root for UGA to win at every sport. If you’ve been living under a rock since 2026 started, you may not be aware that the baseball team is pretty darned good. On Saturday, they beat LSU and, along with some other games going our way in the SEC, clinched their first Regular Season SEC Championship since 2008.
I managed to get a good capture of the entire game plus the postgame celebration and interviews. So, I decided that it was worthy of being archived alongside the football games I’ve been saving. And, because I’m such a nice guy, I’m sharing it with all of you. Enjoy!
Good morning! Just wanted to say, the family and I are headed to Athens today. We’re going to see the Diamond Dawgs. If any of you are attending, feel free to stop by and say hey! We’ll be in the accessible seating area behind the UGA dugout. My son will be in his portable, electric wheelchair that’s blue and white. We aren’t able to get up to Athens much at all, so just wanted to reach out to y’all and let you know. Have a great Georgia day!
I can’t use a post title like that without following through with some Who!
Afternoon all! We’re all Dawg fans here… right? Right? Absolutely! With fandom usually comes collecting. Fans love to show off their official and unofficial items related to their team. From stuff you wear, stuff you display, stuff you hang on the walls, stuff you put in drawers, cabinets, etc. We all have it. Some stuff is better than other stuff.
I’d have to say this helmet is at the top of my list. It came about when my family was going through a dark time, my son had just had a wreck and suffered a spinal cord injury. He was in the hospital portion of Shepherd Center at the time and we were still shellshocked and had no idea what lay ahead in the future. This was late 2023. The Dawgs were in Atlanta for the annual Wreck Tech game. A tradition for the team is to visit Shepherd’s and visit the patients. It was announced a few days ahead that they were coming. So, the day we found out, my best girl and I went to a sporting goods store and bought 2 UGA children’s football “outfits” complete with helmets. My son and I each took a helmet and Sharpies in to the gathering and got autographs. Here’s the results:
Everyone has some prized possessions that they would never part with, things they envision passing on to their kids and family. So tell us, what’s your most prized Dawg possession?
Blind guy walks into a bar with a seeing eye dog. Picks the dog up by his tail and starts swinging him round and round over his head. Dog is barking and whining the whole time. Bartender says, “Hey man, what the hell are you doing?”. Blind guy says, “Just looking around”. Hat tip to Jay Hickman.
It’s Friday the 13th for the 2nd of 3 times this year. The day is steeped in lore of bad luck and superstitions. A highly successful horror film series has ran for years with Friday The Thirteenth as its title. So, let’s concentrate on horror films today.
In my early teens I read the book “The Amityville Horror” and then went to see the movie. Believing the whispers around this being a true story, that movie scared me out of my seat on several occasions… I mainly remember a cat jumping on a windowsill unexpectedly and me shooting straight up off of my seat from being startled.
Are you a horror film fan? What movie did its job and scared the shhhhhtuff out of you?
I love my Georgia Bulldogs. However, technically, I’m not one. I graduated GA Sate in 1988. Of course, at that time, GA State had no major sports programs so, I still followed and rooted for the Dawgs. But, I never had the pleasure of spending much time in Athens. My favorite hangouts in Atlanta while I was in college was Little Five Points, Wax N Facts, Criminal Records and Wuxtry Records in Decatur (Atlanta CD was another, still have a t-shirt from there that says “Garth Brooks can kiss my…”) I’ve always been heavy into music so, I gravitated towards those places. We didn’t have any stores like that in SOWEGA when I was growing up, best music store we had was Fantasy Records (IYKYK). I don’t really recall hanging out much of anywhere else, I didn’t really visit bars very much, or never really found one I wanted to attend regularly. I had jobs most of my time in Atlanta so, I spent most of my days at work or in class or both.
So, I didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy any of the legendary places in Athens. But, what I’m looking for today is… did you attend UGA? When was your final year? What were your go-to hangouts? How many of those hangouts are still around today? Are they the same as then or have they evolved into something less-than like a lot of places have over the years?
We’ll probably explore some more music time wasters down the road but, let’s try a different theme today. Football season has ended and spring sports are ramped and ramping up. I have been blessed to witness 3 of UGA’s Nattys in football in my lifetime and they were nothing short of glorious!
But, what about other sports? UGA is competitive in several major spring sports with a lot of hope for the baseball season, basketball is was improving and tennis, golf and track are solid. So, other than football, what sport would you most like to see UGA win a Natty in?
UGA vs GA State Mar 5, 2025 (Photo by me! )
For me it’s baseball. Baseball is a close second to football in my favorite sports to watch. I wasn’t paying attention in 1990 when the Dawgs went to Omaha and brought back the hardware. I’d really love to follow an entire season all the way to a win in Omaha just once in my life.
So, how about it Refugees? In what sport would a UGA Natty warm the cockles of your cold cold heart?
Go Dawgs!
P.S.: On a music related note, the fam and I are traveling to Lilith Live in Fayetteville to see Dwight Yoakam tonight. Anyone got a recommendation on a good restaurant for dinner tonight? How about breakfast tomorrow? Thanks!
Yesterday the Diamond Dawgs threw out the first pitch of the 2026 NCAA Baseball Season. Pre-season rankings have the Dawgs all over the map.
D1Baseball Preseason Top 25: UGA is 15th. Baseball America: No. 6 USA TODAY Coaches Poll: No. 13 NCBWA (National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association): No. 13 Perfect Game: No. 15
UGA Athletics has released the @BaseballUGA Yearbook, you can peruse it here and familiarize yourselves with all the new faces and catch up with returning starters:
The Dawgs hosted Wright State yesterday with second team pre-season All-American Joey Volchko on the mound. Volchko went 4 IP with 2H, 1R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5K, 67 TP. Dawgs took advantage of Wright State’s starter having to leave in the first inning with some discomfort to tally 13 runs to just the one that Volchko gave up. Game was run-ruled after 7 innings with the Dawgs up by 12. WS burned through several pitchers in their pen and may be at a disadvantage for the doubleheader today.
At 1:00pm on ESPN+ today, you can tune in to the doubleheader as the series against Wright State wraps up. Sunday’s game was moved to today due to incoming, inclement weather. Kenny Ishikawa and Dylan Vigue are tapped to start today. The order of their starts may be affected by the doubleheader, guess we’ll see who takes the mound at 1300 today.
We get about a month of out of conference tune-up games before hosting Lulu & Junior at Foley Field on March 13th to kick off the SEC slate. You can view the full schedule here: 2026 Baseball Schedule.
Baseball is firmly entrenched with my family as one of our favorite sports right behind football so, we’ll be tuning in all season and plan to make a trip or 2 to Athens this season. How many Refugees are baseball fans? Do ya follow the Diamond Dawgs or just read about them in the papers?
I keep telling myself, “Self, pick something other than music this week.” And then Self replies, “Nah, we’re doing music again. Deal with it.”
Football season’s wrapped, so I’m guessing most of y’all have stashed the tailgate rigs, grills, and coolers until next fall. (Quick side question: Does anyone actually tailgate for basketball, baseball, tennis, or track? Or is that just a football thing in these parts?)
Anyway, let’s keep the party going with tailgate music. Everyone loves swapping playlist ideas with their crew, so today we’re crowdsourcing the ultimate Dawgs tailgate playlist—offseason edition.
The rules (to keep this sane):
Suggest one song only, per person.
Any genre goes—classic rock, country, hip-hop, whatever gets your group hyped in the parking lot.
I’ll compile the suggestions into a master list (maybe even throw together a special mix if we get enough traction).
If we don’t get enough responses today, we’ll do a Round 2 to fill it out another day.
I’ll kick it off: “Start Me Up” – The Rolling Stones (because nothing says “kickoff energy” like that opening riff).Your turn, Dawgs—what’s your one must-have tailgate banger? Drop it below and let’s build this thing!
