Blog Nine: Turner Field

So today I flew to Atlanta.

Atlanta is a big city, almost as big as Toronto. In spite of this, it looks different; unlike Toronto, Atlanta has really only been a big and important city for about forty years, and most of its growth has been in the last twenty. Atlanta is the biggest city in Georgia and the state capital. It’s actually the only big city in the entire state, and it’s by far the biggest city in the Deep South, so the post-civil rights “New South” renaissance has brought pretty much all the business to Atlanta. More than half the people in the state live in metropolitan Atlanta. This city’s grown FAST in the last twenty years. This has two noticeable consequences:

1. The architecture all looks different, with the skyscrapers taking on a sort of nouveau-art-deco-Lego-project look. It’s as if Toronto was infected by Mississauga.

2. The traffic is just unbelievably bad.

I got in early and so decided to take in a Braves game at Turner Field, this crossing off one more stadium on my list.

Turner Field was actually the Olympic Stadium for the 1996 Olympics, the Olympics fondly remembered as maybe the worst ever held. You would never know to look at it; it looks like a purpose-built baseball stadium. Apparently they knocked down half the Olympic Stadium and rebuilt it, making it smaller and shaped properly. It was then named Turner Field in honor of Ted Turner. Turner did not name it after himself, but I’m sure he would have if he’d gotten the idea first.

Turner Field looks quite a bit like all the other retro-new ballparks, like Pacific Bell or Camden Yards or Angels Stadium, with an outer brick façade and a walking pavilion in center field. For what reason I cannot fathom, the theme of the pavilion was the Cartoon Network. (Who knew?) The ballpark is stuck in a valley next to the Interstate in what seems like a residential neighborhood; not a good location, but it sort of suits Atlanta, which calls itself “The City Too Busy To Hate” but should really be called “The City Too Busy To Plan.”

People rave and blather on about how wonderful the New Ballparks are, but now that I’ve been in some of them, I’m noticing something; they’re all exactly the same. All are organized and planned out in precisely the same fashion, as a result of which they kind of get boring after awhile.

I mentioned in my last blog that SkyDome looks better now that they have the fake grass. I did not mean, of course, that it looks anywhere near as nice as REAL grass. Turner Field’s immaculate diamond makes SkyDome look like – well, like a carpet. It’s gorgeous, and sadly, SkyDome (Rogers Centre, whatever) is not yet even close to the appearance of a real ball diamond.

Turner Field had other touches that SkyDome needs, too. The walls in the concourses were liberally decorated with pictures of Braves stars; one neat feature was that they had posted the original scouting reports of each star next to their likenesses. Team pictures of every Atlanta Braves team ringed the first level. For whatever reason, SkyDome has none of this – of course, Rogers just bought the place so maybe it’s in the works.

The front of the stadium also features statuary and pictures of great Braves past, like Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, and the like. There’s also a very famous statue of Ty Cobb, who wasn’t a Brave but was Georgia’s greatest player. And there’s a Braves Museum, with displays and artifacts of Braves teams and players of the past. I’ll grant that the Braves have been around since Sir John A. MacDonald was Prime Minister and so they have most history to draw from, but why don’t the Blue Jays try something like that?

Anyway, the Braves were being visited by the Washington Nationals, who of course were the Montreal Expos last year. The Nationals have a lame name, wear lame uniforms, sport a lame logo, and evidently have stocked the roster with lame players, because it was 7-0 after five innings. In other words, nothing’s changed. On several occasions, I was moved to opine in my loudest voice that “The Expos suck!!!” an idea apparently agreed to by all the fans present, who voiced their own equally strong opinion that the Expos did, in fact, suck.

The highlight of the game for me was talking to Mrs. RickJay on the cellphone. Since she was not there, the game got boring and I left early.

Speaking of which, I have to call her. I wish she was here.

Blog Eight: Atlanta, this time

Tomorrow I'm off to Atlanta. Might catch a Braves game while I'm in town.

That would be my eighth ballpark; I've seen games in SkyDome (Toronto), New Comiskey (Chicago), the Coliseum (Oakland), Pacific Bell (San Francisco) and Angels Stadium (Anaheim) plus tow stadia they don't use anymore, Exhibition Stadium in Toronto and Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

Actually, I went to the Jays game with Mrs. RickJay and Bridget Jones today. SkyDome is now Rogers Centre, the main differences being that they replaced the Astroturf with "Field Turf" and put in a passel of new scoreboards.

The new scoreboards were a huge improvement; a new Jumbotron, two big out of town scoreboards built smack into the outfield fences, and ribbon scoreboards. It makes the place brighter and less concrete-esque. The turf was less of an improvement than it could have been. It does look better, but it's still obviously not grass, and they retained the old "just cut out the area around the bases" look, where there's four patches of dirt, instead of having dirt between the bases like a real ball diamond. Overall it's a big improvement, though. Hopefully they can fix the food next. Oh, and they beat the Red Sox.

I hate the Red Sox. Their fans are loathsome scum.

Bridget Jones had a second date with Simcoe Boy. Apparently Simcoe Boy has about forty eight piercings, which is bad (in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. RickJay; inexplicably, Bridget Jones likes that crap) but he likes Scrabble, which is good. So he might turn out okay, though I doubt he looks like the guy from "Bridget Jones's Diary."

Meanwhile, TCB has given me her MP3 player to fix. I reloaded the BIOS. I have been listening to it for two hours and it's worked perfectly. Mission accomplished. Oh, and CB, I've been listening to it using the same battery for two hours and it shows as being full of juice.

So my next rap at ya might be from Atlanta.

Blog Seven: Jacksonville

Hola, amigos! Okay, so I've been slow getting the latest news out.

I'm in sunny Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville is the part of Florida that isn't either fun or scenic; it's like 50% Fun Florida and 50% South Carolina. (This is still better than panhandle Florida, which is 20% Florida and 80% Mississippi.) Fortunately, one thing they do have here is wireless net access so I'm happy. Well, as happy as I can be when I'm this far from home.

Many things taking place these days. The softball team was robbed of $125 by two scum-sucking, no good, lying thieves who used to play for us, and who quit the team and then claimed they didn't. But other that that things go well!

Next week I have to go to Atlanta, which is even less fun than Jacksonville; allegedly the Coke Museum is cool but I never seem to have time. Then Rochester and Buffalo, which are of course the least fun places in the world. But soon, we're off to California for our anniversary and a week of mondo fun.