Phillies vs. Braves, Game 1 [08APR2011/Home Opener]

As anybody who knows me even remotely should know, I think one of the best days of the year is the first home game of the season.  Last year, the Home Opener was Opening Day... But this year, Opening Day was on the road (boo), but we socked it to the Nats (yay!).  Anyway, yes, yes... yadda yadda yadda, I know.  Nobody cares about this rambling.  So I'll get on with it.

So our crew (Lauren + cousins and Aly + friends) sat in section 328.  Let me describe it for you:  You see a foul pole that doesn't really obstruct your view (but makes taking decent photos a pain), there is PASTA (and it is really delicious), it's nice and breezy with a decent view of the stadium, and the bathrooms are clean.  Am I gonna be able to call balls and strikes from where I was sitting?  Absolutely not.  But am I going to shout about "bad calls" from all the way up there?  Hell yes.  I screamed myself hoarse.

ANYWAY.  I got to meet my Alternate-Me, Molly, who was in town to see the Braves with her friends (hi Cori) and her brother (hi Ryan).  I swear, Molly and I are the same... we just live in alternate universes... and those universes collide at Turner Field.  Right.  On with it.  Less rambling.  Sorry, still working on that.  So, of course, I go to batting practice... and I do what I do... messing with my camera, taking photos.

Y'all.  I took 400+ photos... and I only got about 15 of them that even looked like they were worth a damn!  So frustrating!  I just could not figure out what I was doing wrong:  no matter what I changed the settings to... either overexposed or underexposed.  Either shutter speed was too fast (photos WAY too dark as a result) or too slow (photos very blurry).  And my camera can get quite heavy; the thing is at least 7-8 years old!  Newer models are lighter.  Anyhow, I did manage to get a few decent shots... but nothing I would call extraordinary.  

I feel bad, because I like to think that I take pretty good photos, and it just seems that I was simply unable to.  And at our home opener, too!

Kris Medlen

Eric O'Flaherty

EOF, Jonny Venters, & Brandon Beachy
(Lauren's version is better)

I don't know who this is... 

DOC.  I'm pretending that he's wearing a Blue Jays uni  with a number 32 on the back.

Molly and I both agreed that Tommy Hanson might need a haircut.
...However, not all of us think he does.

MADDUX JERSEY.

Let me just take a minute and pause to say that I loved Greg Maddux.  He was my very favorite Braves player.  Also, he wore glasses, and that fascinated me, when I was a child.  I was a glasses kid as well, and other kids at school used to make fun of me for being a nerd and call me "four eyes."  Doesn't seem so bad as an adult, I guess, but as a gawky child?  I used to wonder if his teammates used to call him Four Eyes until they realized how amazingly good he was.

Ryan Madson, yelling at some fan.

Back story:  normally, when a fan starts heckling players from the other team, I don't generally mind if they sass them back.  I mean, if you dish it, you'd better know how to take it, too.  If the player ignores them, that's fine.  Hell, even if they player flipped the fan off--I'd laugh and think it was funny.  In my opinion, that's what you get for yelling obscenities or whatever at a player who was minding his own business and just happens to be wearing different laundry than your team is.  But Ryan Madson yelled back, as a comeback:  "Yeah, where are your team's after-school programs?" or something to that effect.

Um.  What?  That's the best you've got, Madson?  Seriously.  That's not even a comeback!  It's like a badly scripted movie... like "The Room."  (Do NOT look it up unless you enjoy REALLY terrible movies.  I'm talking painfully and fascinatingly terrible.  Otherwise, save yourself the outrage that you wasted 1+ hour of your life for it.)  And the thing is, I used to think he was pretty.  Nope, not anymore.  See, insult that fan?  Fine.  But no.  You went and insulted our TEAM.  Which leads me to rage mode:  "GO BACK TO PHILADELPHIA.  NOBODY LIKES YOU.  AND YOU'RE DUMB."  [Ok, I'm sure he's a nice enough guy and all that.  But come on now.  Either come up with something clever that'll make the heckler feel dumb, or be the bigger person and ignore them.]

Tommy and Meds do NOT approve.

After that, we started going towards our seats and thinking about getting food.  I knew there was pasta in the club level.  And let me tell you, that line was worth the wait.  It was delicious and garlicky and vegetable-y and probably entirely bad for you, but I don't care.  Also, it was, like, a pound of food.

We got to our seats just in time to see the boys running out with all the sparklers (?  I think that's what they're called...) and fanfare and the flag and all that jazz.  Bobby Cox threw out the first pitch, and Fredi Gonzalez caught it.  It was a beautiful and heartwarming moment.  Everything was right in the world.  I took that moment to remind everybody that in spite of our losing streak, and in spite of the fact that we were facing a top-tier Yankee-killing pitcher, the Braves were going to chase Cliff Lee out of the game by battering him with runs.  

I tried to take photos, but again, they didn't turn out well... the following were what I ended up with... MARTIN WAS SOCKS UP.  That is all.

Raul Ibanez

SOCKS UP MARTIN PRADO

BUBBLE GUM

Dan Uggla:  *SMACK*  "Good work, Huddy!"

Craig Kimbrel

Chipper Jones (for Eric)

Yes, that's all the photos I have that were remotely worth sharing.  Game 2 will be better.  Promise.  Until then... here is the link to Lauren's corresponding post.