get your game on

The Braves had a 4-game homestand this weekend, and that seemed just too convenient to miss, so I decided to spend a little time at Turner Field.  The game I chose turned out to be a losing one for the home team, the worst of the weekend for my favorite player, and one of the few that didn’t go into extra innings. But it also happened when the temperatures were lowest, and for that reason alone I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I come from a very proud family of baseball lovers, and part of the pride stems from loving an underdog team – not, I repeat, NOT the Cubs – and claiming that fandom. When our family team, the Chicago White Sox, won it all in 2005, it was one of the highlights of my dad’s adult life. I am sure that years from now, my nephews will be able to recount in great detail that amazing October night. Even now it all seems surreal.

I grew up watching the White Sox on cable television from Chicago, and I learned to keep score. We had a television in the basement and my dad would putter around his desk and model railroad layout, coming by occasionally to check my scoring. During my 5^th, 6^th and 7^th grade summers I could tell you every American League line-up, and I knew the background of most of the White Sox announcers. At that time, they included Harry Caray, who has since become most associated with the Cubs, but he was delivering his drunken insights and familiar patter for Sox fans at that time.

I was thinking about Harry (and Sox announcer Jimmy Piersall, a story in and of himself) while at the ballpark. The language and customs of baseball – the phrase “4-game homestand,” for example – are so familiar to me.  Yes, I am very sentimental about them, and I really missed Comiskey Park, the old home of the White Sox, which has traditions different from those of Atlanta. My dad, who grew up in a strict religious home, recalls that baseball was one of the few non-church recreational opportunities he and his siblings were allowed. Even nuns came to Comiskey Park. That came to mind at Turner Field the other night as I saw some women in traditional Muslim dress.

Before coming to Atlanta, I had never lived in a Major League Baseball town. A few weeks ago I vowed that I am not going to waste any opportunity to see live professional baseball while I have time and resources to do so. (There has to be some reason why I ended up on the south side of the metro area!) And I decided to try public transportation to the Braves game, which turned out to be a good experience overall. It reinforced my decision to experience as much baseball as I can, because I saw so many families whose trip to the ballpark was a once-in-a-summer, maybe once-in-a-lifetime event. (As wonderful as Major League Baseball is, it is also really expensive.)

 The families were all decked out in their Braves garb and the dads were consulting transit maps and the moms were checking on snacks and sunscreen.  As we came into view of the park, the kids were so excited, one cried out, “I see it! I see Turner Field!”

 I know just how he felt.