Published Wednesday, April 23, 2008 11:33 AM
Updated Wednesday, April 23, 2008 11:34 AM

 

Finding Mudville 04/24/08

Take me out to the ball game


When I lived in Atlanta I saw the Braves play perhaps once every two or three years.

I couldn’t see spending 30 bucks for a ticket that required a three-hour commute via MARTA down and a four-hour trip coming home.

That same thirty-bucks bought me a seat so high in the cheap seats that I had to dial 1 plus the area code to order a Coke and hot dog.

I was so far away from the action that it took a week for carrier pigeons to relay word to us that a run had scored.

That’s not the half of it, though.

A hot dog will run you $4.50. A Coke tips the tab at a cool $5.

Desire an adult beverage and you’re faced with some seven bucks and change. For that I could buy a whole 12-pack of adult beverages if I wanted.

It was simply too much trouble.

Besides, thanks to Ted Turner and TBS I could catch every Braves game from the comfort of my own home and enjoy a friendly visit with Skip, Pete, Don and Joe.

Then I moved away.

Don went to Washington and covers the Nats. Joe’s on Sports South with some guy who actually makes Bob Rathman sound good.

Skip’s poor health has limited his workload now so it’s Pete and Chip lately these days on radio.

I might get two or three Braves games per week now, and MLB.com sees Charleston as a Braves regional market so those games are blacked out, too.

Suddenly, I wanted to see a Braves game.

Six hours and more than 300 miles from Atlanta and now I want to see a Braves game.

So I caught the finale of the Braves-Dodgers series on Sunday. I sat in the good seats this time and during the ball game I was pelted with several epiphanies.

I love epiphanies, by the way. I find them almost painfully ironic.

My first epiphany was this: Good things come to those with money.

If you invest a pretty penny in the price of a decent seat, people will treat you nice. You get to park really close to the stadium (did you know there is a parking lot right next to Turner Field reserved exclusively for Lexus owners? It’s true. It’s called the Lexus Lot and if you don’t own a Lexus, you can’t park there. The dented 96 VW Golf parking lot was somewhere just south of Chattanooga).

Watching the game from the good seats was an enjoyable experience. It reminded me why I always loved coming to the ballpark – to see a good baseball game – which I did.

The Braves won 6-1, and I’d forgotten what it’s like to attend a major league baseball game. It was a bit of a culture shock, too.

Another epiphany …  someone apparently decided that watching the baseball game simply isn’t enough to entertain the average fan anymore. Another epiphany told me that major league baseball thinks the average fan is a nine-year-old kid suffering from ADD.

There’s this nine-story high scoreboard in centerfield. If you had to give a visual description of what Tourette’s Syndrome is, the Braves scoreboard would be your answer.

I saw Andruw Jones play and that was sad. He’s trying to yank everything out of the park to left. It may take a year or two, but Jones is done as a ball player. During his 10-year stint with the Braves Bobby Cox kept Andrew pretty much on a one-link short-leash and was rewarded with Gold Glove play in center and some decent power numbers at the plate.

Under the more docile Joe Torre, Jones is playing like he’s in a coma, hitting a paltry .178 and K’ing three times Sunday. The only contact he made with the baseball was a weak grounder to short to kill a two-out rally.

Plus, he looked lazy in centerfield. He didn’t hustle at all. Maybe John Schuerholz saw something the rest of us didn’t.

Nomar Garciaparra has been reduced to a pinch-hit appearance here and there. Nomar (or No-Mah in Boston) is the Human Tick with all his nervous pre-swing twitches, ticks and seizures. He could find work as a poster child for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder whenever he decides to hang up his spikes. All that tugging and pulling has brought Nomar a buck-fifty batting average for his trouble.

My last epiphany: I discovered the secret to getting on TV, or at least the big Jumbo-tron Hi-Def screen on that Technicolor Tourettes seizure in centerfield.

First, let your body go to rot for 10 or so years and grow yourself this really big gut.

Second, when dressing for the ball game, leave out the “select a shirt” option.

Third, paint a big letter on that big gut you’ve cultivated for the last 10 or so years, preferably an “O”.

Last but not least, convince four or five close friends and acquaintances to do the same and stand way up top in the cheap seats and when the music starts try your best to dance like MC Hammer. You’ll get on TV every time.

And yes, they did the wave.

Chipper hit the cover off the ball, Francoeur got three hits and, Tex went yard in the eighth.

A good day, all in all.