Father-Son Bonding At The Braves Game

Don’t feel insulted if you’re a doting dad who’s just been told by his five-year-old son to pipe down so you won’t distract him from the game going on at Turner Field.

Just take solace in knowing you’ve done your part to introduce him to the national pastime.

When he’s more attentive to the towering LED scoreboards, the other fans in the stands, the barking beer vendors, and even the bat boy, than you, that just means he’s fully engaged. Lasting memories are being engrained.
Just sit back and enjoy.
And “enjoy” you will, Daddy.
On a balmy night in downtown Atlanta, few spectacles match the sensory overload a Braves home game delivers, win or lose.

The 12-year-old ballpark couldn’t be more kid-friendly, it’s not too tough on a workaday Joe’s wallet if he plays his cards right and _ unless the Braves get on a winning streak _ driving in and out is a relative breeze.
Mommy dropped the two of us off on Georgia Avenue, a block away, then sped off northward like she was Thelma on her way to scoop up Louise.

That’s where the bonding experience began for the little Boss Man and me.
We’d scarcely made it through the security gates before bumping into one of his classmates from Pre-K (Cards-rooting Dad in tow). No pre-game brewskies for daddy(s): before you could say “Cracker Jacks”, we were escorted into “Tooner Field”. It’s a (free) mini game complex with an edifice plastered with Cartoon Network logos. It’s got a moth-to-a-flame effect on kids.

I marvel at the scaled-down ballpark with the painted rubber field. Jovial attendants help kids take turns hitting, catching and running bases. Energy burned.

Though their seats are on the lower first base line, while ours are low and right behind third, Brian Patrick’s Daddy offers to give us a ride home in case Mommy flakes out on us. (Say…you don’t suppose Brian Patrick’s Mommy is Louise, do ya?)

After that, we start a breezy walk toward our seats; stopping only briefly at the open-air Chophouse Lounge to see if the bartender who deejayed me and Mommy’s wedding was working. He wasn’t. That first ($6) beer would still had to wait.

Try not to be in a rush: your kid’s likely to be enticed by the Scouts Alley row of pitching and batting cages, the Clubhouse Store’s array of souvenirs, bands playing live on the Plaza Stage, or all the memorabilia housed in the Braves Museum (Aisle 134, deep left field).
Once we finally sat down and the Bud Light-peddlers’ siren song flooded my ears, the Boss Man’s eagle eyes spotted Jake (from his YMCA hoops squad) seated a couple rows down and within spitting distance of Chipper Jones in the hot corner.

Jake’s family was there celebrating his fifth birthday. (For a mere $55 you can have birthday wishes blasted up on the scoreboard!) Luckily, Braves fans are accustomed to dealing with kids’ sudden urges to scoot around. They act as intent on helping lil’ sluggers enjoy themselves as you are.

It’s the bottom of the first inning before we’re settled in to watch the game for real. I wind up shelling out around $25-$30 for a beer, a dog, a big bag of popcorn, a frozen lemonade and some chips. But who’s counting?
Not him, anyway.

“What’s the score?”, was the question I got on an inning-by-inning basis. (We called Mommy at the top of the ninth of Atlanta’s 3-2 loss to St. Louis just to make sure she’d be retrieving us.)

Occasionaly, he’d ask, “What’s his name?” when a player's mug beamed out on the big screen.
Otherwise: virtual silence.
To say he was absorbed would be putting it mildly.



The firmest sign that we’d made a connection came subtly, just after one sizzling line drive spanked the short left field wall, and then another high spinning foul bounced off the chest of a beer-spilling chap a few rows behind us.
The Boss Man reached between my knees to snag the glove I’d encouraged him to bring along, “just in case”, and slipped it onto his tiny left hand.

His “Uh oh” gaze told me he sensed possibility. When he turned back toward the field I knew: he was into the game.