Yesterday, I left my home in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida at 4:00 in the morning to go see my parents, brother, and sister at my childhood home in Glencoe, Alabama. For those unaware, Glencoe is about an hour from Birmingham and was an up and coming blue collar town. The CSX railroad, Goodyear, Attalla Steel plant all shut down within a year, and those blue collar jobs got replaced by blue pills called oxycontin. Now, instead of houses going up, it’s methadone clinics.
My father owned a restaurant in the local mall called the Big Top Sandwich Shop, coached my sister’s travel softball team (they won several national championships), and worked a full-time job for CSX Railroad.
When I was just a little one, I had a HUGE obsession with the Atlanta Braves. And as big as my obsession was, my father’s was bigger. When I was 9 years old (1987), my dad became absolutely obsessed with baseball cards, would buy them by the box, and would let me open them. I would open all 36 packs while watching Sanford and Son, put them in numerical order during Andy Griffith, and then, finally, it was time for Pete and Skip.
The team was horrid, but the broadcasters kept everything entertaining and I could not get enough of Dale Murphy. There was a time when my dad would bring his friends over and make me imitate the entire lineup’s batting stance. I can, with confidence, say that baseball cards made me the math wizard that I am today. My dad is still collecting. And he’s still watching the Braves.
MY DAD’S RECENT DOWNFALL
About 1/2 year ago, my dad was diagnosed with fatty liver disease. While my dad was pretty good at making others feel good about themselves, he wasn’t so great about taking care of his own health. While he’s never consumed alcohol, his diet has been fairly poor throughout his life and it finally caught up with him. Several times over the course of this last month, I thought I’d get the dreaded call, but that never came. Finally, a weekend opened up and I was able to come see my folks.
When I got here, I found out that my dad hasn’t been able to watch the Braves for the last month because of the Bally thing. I started researching how he could watch the Braves, but all of the options were outrageously expensive, Then, I asked them about the cost of their cable and HOLY SMOKES, they were getting screwed. I formulated a plan. It took a full day, but we changed their home phone (yes they still have a home phone), internet, and cell phones all to a new carrier, then disconnected their cable package and wen with Directv’s Internet Streaming Service, which meant…. BRAVES BASEBALL! All in all, they saved about $100/mo. and now my dad can watch his team again. We watched 2 games together and it was absolute heaven. I don’t know if today will be the last day I get to watch a game with my dad, but if it is, it was a good one.
THE RECAP
Are the Braves back? They could be back! Charlie Morton was Uncle Charlie today and the curve was the star of the show. Morton had his 2nd best start of the year, only allowing 3 hits, 1 run and 2 walks, while striking out 8 (3rd time he’s done that this year). Meanwhile, it looks like both Matt Olson and Austin Riley have decided to stop hibernating and start hitting tank jobs. Jarred Kelenic and Marcell Ozuna also went yard, and the Braves were back to destroying baseballs. Yandy Diaz had the hardest hit ball of the game today, coming in at 109.8 (it was a GiDP), but after that, the Braves reigned supreme. Here’s the chart for today:
