Driving down the busy highway road, I see the bright stadium lights in the distance. The Braves, Atlanta’s baseball team, will be fighting for their season after going down two games to none in a best of five series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. October baseball will make its first appearance at the Braves’ brand-new ballpark and the Atlanta fans, including myself, are ample of excitement. Win or loss, Atlanta sports teams have and will always represent a special part of my life. I promised that I would never lose my dedication or loyalty for the Braves or any other Atlanta sports team. After witnessing three straight 90-loss seasons and a playoff drought since 2013, I still root for the Braves and I will never stop.
Waiting anxiously right outside the first base gate, I can barely see past the dirt warning track surrounding the field. I jokingly cross my fingers when the ballpark employee scans my ticket, as if this is the last “obstacle” between me and the game. They are handing out gameday programs to the swarm of fans coming in. The MLB Postseason logo placed center on the cover gives me the chills; the time is now. I head to the Holeman and Finch burger stand where I see a line larger than the crowd of people waiting outside the stadium. Standing behind the seats in left field, with the best burger ever in hand, I have a perfect view of the ballpark. Skyscrapers stand tall in the batter’s eye, the grass on the field is as green as a Granny Smith, and a tarp of fans covering the seats chants the Tomahawk Chop. The clock on the massive jumbotron in center field ticks closer and closer to the first pitch.
The singing of the Star Spangled Banner ends with a loud cheer followed by an even louder one when the players sprint to their positions. Speakers carry the voice of the P.A. announcer through the crowd of 40,000 screaming fans. The stadium erupts with the name of each Atlanta Braves player; they are the ones who got us here. The Dodgers leadoff man approaches the plate and the once screaming crowd falls silent in anticipation for the first pitch. The catcher wears a neon-yellow paint on his nails so the pitcher can easily read his signs. He calls for a fastball. The pitcher nods and throws a 96 mile per hour missile to the upper right corner of the zone. “Strike one!” the umpire yells as he extends his index finger to the right.
The score remains 0-0 at the bottom of the second inning, but the Braves threaten to score with the bases loaded. The pitcher, whose position tends to not bat well, takes the plate. Ball one sails high over the zone and forces the catcher to stand up with his glove above his head to prevent a wild pitch. Ball two just misses the zone and the umpire’s good eye makes the count 2-0. Ball three travels just as the first: high and away. The crowd cheers with shock; the pitcher cannot throw a strike, and he is facing the worst batter in the Braves lineup. Ball four goes low, the pitcher takes first, the man at third goes home, and the crowd erupts as the Braves score their first run of the series. The next Atlanta batter is Braves rookie phenom, Ronald Acuña Jr. The pitcher, still unable to find his zone, throws three balls and the count quickly goes up to 3-0. The fourth pitch looks to find the catcher’s mitt just above the zone, but the umpire surprisingly calls the pitch a strike. Whatever happens next, that strike call would affect the final outcome of the game as a ball would send another Braves runner home. The very next pitch, Acuña Jr. launches the ball towards my direction in left field. I can see the Dodgers outfielders running back towards the warning track, but as the ball descends I can no longer trace its path with the wave of standing fans in front of me. The crowd goes into a frenzy like I have never seen before, and as I see Acuña Jr. trotting to first, so do I. Acuña Jr.’s grand slam gives the Braves a comfortable five-run lead, but the hot Dodgers offense will refuse to go silent. A single and an error in left field puts runners at second and third with no outs. A single on the very next pitch brings in two Dodgers runs and the score reads 5-2. “We still have a three-run lead” I think to myself; but will it be enough? A walk and a homer in the next inning make the score 5-4 and the crowd lost most of the energy it had in that electric bottom-half of the second. Atlanta fans have witnessed their teams “choking” (a term meaning to give up a big lead or crumble in game-defining moments) before, most notably when the Falcons blew a 25-point lead in the Super Bowl. Things get worse for the Braves when Dodgers slugger, Max Muncy approaches the plate. With one swing of the bat, he could make what once looked like a Braves blowout to a brand new ballgame; he did just that. As the ball sails over the center field wall, the Braves fans fall silent and the visitors from Los Angeles make it their time to cheer.
The Braves fans get something to cheer about when Atlanta favorite, Freddie Freeman, gives the Braves back the lead with a solo shot into the right field chophouse. But at the top of the ninth with runners on first and second and only one out recorded, the game will come down to the pitching of the Atlanta closer. A hardly hit ground ball finds the shortstop’s glove who throws to third for the force out. One more out, the most difficult out to record in the entire game, will seal the victory for the Braves. The count goes full and the last thing the Braves want is the bases loaded. The Atlanta closer throws an off-speed pitch to the lower right corner of the zone and catches the batter looking. The umpire’s aggressive punch indicates a strike out. The Braves fans pump their fists in the air, celebrating the victory of a hard-fought battle. Driving back home, I look over my shoulder to see the stadium behind me. It is the new home to a memory that I will remember for the rest of my life.