I attended
my first professional baseball game in
May of 1990. The only baseball games I'd attended before then were little league games that I had played in myself. This was on a school trip to Atlanta when the Braves had been so perennially bad that our group tickets were incredibly good. Fulton County stadium was half empty, maybe more than half empty by the time the second rain delay arrived. The Braves played the St. Louis Cardinals.
David Justice was the man and
Steve Avery was every girl's eye candy. The Brave's lost, but that was pretty typical of the team that finished in 6th place that year in the National League West. For me none of that matter. I loved everything about it and a baseball fan was born.
All in all my baseball fandom has been one of relative luxury. I relished the opportunity to watch the AAA team play in Richmond, especially those great rehab starts by the big boys on the mend. Heck, the presence of the Braves even played a role in my decision to move down south. In all this time the closest I've come to rooting for a loosing team was the year I had season tickets in Baltimore. Even then I was rooting for former Brave Javy Lopez way more than I was rooting for the O's.
Yesterday my luxurious time as a baseball fan officially came to an end when the Braves were eliminated from the NL East race. It was
a nice run, but we've known since June that it was probably coming to an end.
Too much gone wrong in a year when everything went right for the other guys. A guess a girl can't expect to root for a winner every year--but thanks to Bobby and John I could pretend it was possible for a really long time.