A Fun Friday Night at Turner Field with the Family

I figured this was more fanpost-worthy than front page-worthy, but, since RedCrake invoked the memory of Sid Bream, I thought a brief baseball aside was worth sharing. Last night, the oldest continuously-operating National League baseball club took part in the 20,000th game in franchise history, and I was there.

Due to a confluence of circumstances that need not be gone into here, I had four tickets to Friday night’s game between the Atlanta Braves and the San Francisco Giants at Turner Field. My wife and I, who were celebrating our thirteenth wedding anniversary, used two of the tickets, and I took advantage of the other two to make a dual father-son outing of the expedition: my father and my son, each of whom I have accompanied to multiple baseball games, went to their first baseball game together.

As usual, I got better seats than I meant to get. We were in Section 333 of the Golden Moon Casino Pavilion; we were right by the Chick-fil-A and underneath the overhang, which came in handy during the lengthy rain delay. Fortunately, the meteor game between the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies was showing on the scoreboard during the downpour, so I did not have to sit there and watch rain fall on a tarp, as I did so many times at Fulton County Stadium.

As an added bonus, we were there to see Tom Glavine’s jersey retirement ceremony. Of the three future Hall of Famers who anchored the Braves’ pitching rotation in the 1990s, Glavine is my least favorite, but it still was a cool moment for which to be present. Dad pointed out that, of the seven Braves whose numbers have been retired by the franchise, he and I have seen six of them play live. When Glavine’s forerunners on the left field facade had their names called, Hank Aaron was referred to as baseball’s "all-time home run king," which I thought was a nice needle with Barry Bonds’s former team in the house.

Yes, it stinks that the Braves lost, but the four of us had a great time. A longtime family friend and former neighbor of ours works at the ticket office, and she was able to provide us with some nice souvenirs (including caps); despite the fact that our seats were in deep right field, Thomas insisted that we both bring our gloves and wear them at all times when we weren’t otherwise occupied with jumbo hot dogs or ice cream served in a replica batting helmet; and, hey, sports with your father, your son, and your wife. What could be better than that?

With any luck, it won’t be the last time I’m sitting in a stadium in North Georgia with at least one of those three people while we’re watching a local athlete’s No. 47 jersey be retired, either.

Go ‘Dawgs! . . . and go Braves!