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Warning: This will be a long post. Ed story time!
The basics: I'm over 60 and a lifelong Braves fan (reasons to come...)
My dad passed away in 2010 (Christmas morning, the bastard
) and was
the reason I grew up loving baseball and the Braves.
I'll explain...
I grew up in SW Atlanta in the 60s/70s, back when that was still possible – a true Beaver Cleaver childhood in that neighborhood off Sylvan Road – one of 4 kids, the three brothers all into baseball thanks to Pop, my dad.
His own childhood cut short by having to go to work at 14 to support his family, he had a true nose to the grindstone demeanor usually, except when it came to baseball – and for us, that meant the Braves, of course.
When I showed interest in the sport, he supported it, then became active enough in our local Little League to become President eventually, getting all sorts of improvements made to our local fields in Perkerson Park by the city.
My dad and I could quite often in later years be at loggerheads over something or the other, but there always – ALWAYS – was the one constant between us…baseball and the Braves.
The team routinely lost 100 games seemed like every season back in those days (‘69 being the exception) but we didn’t care.
Pop could afford to take the family to games at Atlanta Stadium on Sundays and pay 25 cents a kid, up in the nosebleed sections. The games would get boring, the Braves usually falling behind at some point and we’d get bored…
We kids would spend the later innings like a lot of other kids up there, stomping on wax paper Coke cups to make them pop and echo in the stadium, since there never was more than a few thousand there and acoustics were great.
Funny what you remember from childhood sometimes, eh?
I’ve worn a Braves cap for what seems like my entire life as a result, off and on, changed out every year with each season.
Anyways, back to the story...
Years go by, everyone in the family scatters and gets their own lives…next thing you know, I’m in my 30’s with my own family and such in northern VA, where the family had all relocated after the firestorm that was going down in Atlanta around 1976.
Pop retires to TN in the early 90’s, buys a local restaurant and when I’d visit, he’d lament that we weren’t closer…
Then 1995 happened…
I had had enough of the DC area and finally gave in to my doctors’ advice (and Pops’ urging) and moved down to TN also.
We could finally be together again, if only to sit and watch the Braves in the evenings – Pop ever the armchair Coach, me the reverent southpaw pitcher with a live arm (and little control of it).
As if it were meant to be, we got to watch the Braves perform miracles that summer and fall in 1995 – and despite whatever life was to throw at both of us over the years to come, we always had that.
I’ll always be grateful for those times…
Every spring, Pop would look at me with that old twinkle in his eye and ask "so, whaddaya think?"
My typical answer was something of a hedge: "I dunno Pop, they’re weak (insert position here). Maybe…."
Another summer of baseball would unfold and we’d live it out together, compare notes and debate the next day, all that jazz.
This continued through all his medical issues….and then later on, my own too…but we always figured we’d get to see the Braves win it all one more time before we were through.
Sadly, that never happened – and Pop left us in 2010 when he had nothing left in the tank to fight the cancer anymore.
I saw to it that he was laid to rest in the town’s "fancy" cemetery up front where he ought to be – a selfish move probably.
Makes it easier on me to go visit, you know – which I’ve done for some years now, with a "special" visit at the end of each Braves season.
I do something foolish that old men do sometimes when visiting Pop – at the end of each season, I take the official Braves ball cap that I’ve been wearing constantly for the season, seal it up from the elements and include a note in it that usually says "Next Year,
Pop" or some such, and affix it to his headstone as part of my visit.
The caretakers will leave it alone out of respect for a while, then eventually remove it when it becomes a burden…
Yeah, that sounds like an "old man" thing and I admit, it is – but it’s just something I have to do.
We never got to see the "next championship" while he was still here, you know… so I sort of substitute this visit for old times.
But now….
Hey look Pop, they actually DID IT!
I know he had the best seat in the house up there, watching….and I know he’s saying "told ya so, boy" to me, too.
I’ll be by this weekend to visit, Pop.
Bringing you your hat…
The basics: I'm over 60 and a lifelong Braves fan (reasons to come...)
My dad passed away in 2010 (Christmas morning, the bastard
) and wasthe reason I grew up loving baseball and the Braves.
I'll explain...
I grew up in SW Atlanta in the 60s/70s, back when that was still possible – a true Beaver Cleaver childhood in that neighborhood off Sylvan Road – one of 4 kids, the three brothers all into baseball thanks to Pop, my dad.
His own childhood cut short by having to go to work at 14 to support his family, he had a true nose to the grindstone demeanor usually, except when it came to baseball – and for us, that meant the Braves, of course.
When I showed interest in the sport, he supported it, then became active enough in our local Little League to become President eventually, getting all sorts of improvements made to our local fields in Perkerson Park by the city.
My dad and I could quite often in later years be at loggerheads over something or the other, but there always – ALWAYS – was the one constant between us…baseball and the Braves.
The team routinely lost 100 games seemed like every season back in those days (‘69 being the exception) but we didn’t care.
Pop could afford to take the family to games at Atlanta Stadium on Sundays and pay 25 cents a kid, up in the nosebleed sections. The games would get boring, the Braves usually falling behind at some point and we’d get bored…
We kids would spend the later innings like a lot of other kids up there, stomping on wax paper Coke cups to make them pop and echo in the stadium, since there never was more than a few thousand there and acoustics were great.
Funny what you remember from childhood sometimes, eh?
I’ve worn a Braves cap for what seems like my entire life as a result, off and on, changed out every year with each season.
Anyways, back to the story...
Years go by, everyone in the family scatters and gets their own lives…next thing you know, I’m in my 30’s with my own family and such in northern VA, where the family had all relocated after the firestorm that was going down in Atlanta around 1976.
Pop retires to TN in the early 90’s, buys a local restaurant and when I’d visit, he’d lament that we weren’t closer…
Then 1995 happened…
I had had enough of the DC area and finally gave in to my doctors’ advice (and Pops’ urging) and moved down to TN also.
We could finally be together again, if only to sit and watch the Braves in the evenings – Pop ever the armchair Coach, me the reverent southpaw pitcher with a live arm (and little control of it).
As if it were meant to be, we got to watch the Braves perform miracles that summer and fall in 1995 – and despite whatever life was to throw at both of us over the years to come, we always had that.
I’ll always be grateful for those times…
Every spring, Pop would look at me with that old twinkle in his eye and ask "so, whaddaya think?"
My typical answer was something of a hedge: "I dunno Pop, they’re weak (insert position here). Maybe…."
Another summer of baseball would unfold and we’d live it out together, compare notes and debate the next day, all that jazz.
This continued through all his medical issues….and then later on, my own too…but we always figured we’d get to see the Braves win it all one more time before we were through.
Sadly, that never happened – and Pop left us in 2010 when he had nothing left in the tank to fight the cancer anymore.
I saw to it that he was laid to rest in the town’s "fancy" cemetery up front where he ought to be – a selfish move probably.
Makes it easier on me to go visit, you know – which I’ve done for some years now, with a "special" visit at the end of each Braves season.
I do something foolish that old men do sometimes when visiting Pop – at the end of each season, I take the official Braves ball cap that I’ve been wearing constantly for the season, seal it up from the elements and include a note in it that usually says "Next Year,
Pop" or some such, and affix it to his headstone as part of my visit.
The caretakers will leave it alone out of respect for a while, then eventually remove it when it becomes a burden…
Yeah, that sounds like an "old man" thing and I admit, it is – but it’s just something I have to do.
We never got to see the "next championship" while he was still here, you know… so I sort of substitute this visit for old times.
But now….
Hey look Pop, they actually DID IT!
I know he had the best seat in the house up there, watching….and I know he’s saying "told ya so, boy" to me, too.
I’ll be by this weekend to visit, Pop.
Bringing you your hat…
