A Long Way With The Braves

 

 

Oh-hum. Another combination of Braves wins, Phillie losses, and The Atlanta Braves (and not the New Yerk Mutts) will win their sixth straight National League East title. (At the time of this writing, it is eight, with <checking the schedule> a bunch of games left in the schedule.)

My son took me to a game the other night. The Braves were playing The Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Braves played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first major league games I went to.   To show you how long ago it was, Pittsburgh's right fielder was Roberto Clemente. The second baseman was Bill Mazeroski. Their shortstop was Maury Wills. Mazeroski is in The Hall of Fame, but Wills is not.

I only remember a little about that game. We sat on the top row of the old Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, which the natives called "Allanuh Stadium."

Allanuh Stadium is a distant memory now. I remember it had a smell. It smelled like beer. It was as if everybody took their beer and poured it on the concrete as soon as soon as they bought it.

The men's bathroom did not have urinals. The bathrooms had a long trough. Yes, it was as gross as it sounds.

The Braves won the Western Division in 1969 and 1982. Back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, baseball and football considered Atlanta a West Coast city. Then, sometime in the 90s, someone found a map and said, "Oh, Atlanta's in the east." Aside from that it was mainly sad, depressing baseball.  Atlanta was considered "Loserville" by Sports Illustrated. 

Ted Turner bought the Braves in 1975 and set out to make the Braves a winning team. However, first, he had to get the fans back into the stands.

He did this with various tricks like wet t-shirt contests, which are not exactly fun for the entire family.  However, he did bring in a mascot-like figure called "The Bleacher Creature."

The Bleacher Creature was this green blob, and you can almost hear Turner say, "It's green! Kids love green blobby monsters."

By the 90s, the Braves were a joke. George Will spoke at a conference in Atlanta in 1990 when a gubernatorial election was going on (Zell Miller versus Johnny Isakson). He said the first thing he would do if elected as governor would be to bring major league baseball to Atlanta.

The following year, the Braves won the Western Division.

That's because Turner brought in John Schuerholz as General Manager, and Schuerholz turned the Braves into a winning franchise.

That was thirty-two years ago.  The Braves have experienced a couple of shaky years, but on the whole, they have been a competitive baseball team. 

They have an outstanding offensive team this year. If you can't vote for Ronald Acuna, Jr. as MVP, how about Matt Olson?  

Defensively, they are solid. I worry about their pitching, but they won the World Series two years ago with much less.

My son had tickets in The Chop House from his company.  The Chop House seats gives you a waitstaff, a place to put your food, a chilled cup holder, and a cell phone battery charger.

The Chop House is also a little place where various sorority sisters can get plastered trying to impress the fraternity bros, who are about three sheets to the wind themselves.

We got a double cheeseburgers and fries meal, which my son paid for.  Our wait person seemed like a nice guy.

The Braves won, by the way.