After six years away, affiliated baseball returns to Mississippi

PEARL, Miss. (AP) The Class Double-A Mississippi Braves brought affiliated baseball back to central Mississippi tonight with their Southern League home opener against the Montgomery Biscuits.<br> <br> It was the team&#39;s first game at home in Pearl, Mississippi, since it relocated from Greenville, South Carolina.<br> <br> About 55-hundred fans expected to pack the sold-out, 25 (m) million dollar ballpark for the first game of a bona fide farm team in the area since the Jackson Generals of the Double-A Texas League moved to Texas after the 1999 season. The independent Jackson Senators still play uptown at Smith-Wills Stadium.<br> <br> But what endears the new team to the locals is its affiliation with the Atlanta Braves, long considered the official Team of the Deep South.<br> <br> Wearing an Atlanta Braves visor and tomahawk earrings in the left-field pavilion, Natchez resident Ruth Nix said the new ballpark reminded her of Turner Field, the home of the big-league Braves.<br> <br> (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)