The Night I Was One of Those Mother ****ers

PawPawMaxwell said:
I dont remember my first game but the summer of 1952 I was almost 12. Grew up about 45 miles from Briggs Stadium in Detroit. A school friend and I were allowed to take a Greyhound to Detroit where he had a cousin living in Highland Park about 6 miles from the stadium. Once a month when the Tigers were in town for a weekend we would. I remember seeing Mantle tho him being a rookie we didnt pay much attention, Ted Williams who Ill get back to. I think the other team that year was Cleveland so Im sure we saw Lemon or Rosen. We would buy seats in the upper deck in RF but there was an older man ushering and would not allow us to set up there without adult supervision so he became our guardian of sorts and always moved us down to lower deck. One day Williams tossed a ball to the three of us but some ass hole adult grabbed it.

Another story about my school friend Ill save for a later date.
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It's a little disorienting that there are folks here who were fans when the Braves were still in Boston.
 
Now you have disoriented me unless this is your typical sarcasm. LOL Sorry that I couldnt become a fan of the Braves until the early 70's and TBS. You young people and your lap tops, I phones et al have no idea how it was back in the day, You couldnt buy a radio until after WWII and then it was AM only. Most MLB games were day games so you could only listen to your local team. TV in the early 50s? Imagine watching a ball game on a dinner plate from across the room. I mentioned in the above post that I could not remember my first game but it was in the late 40s. Every year my hillbilly family went back to Tennessee for vacation. We would leave Detroit early morning and stop in Cincinnati for lunch and a ball game at Cosby Field. So, in fact, my first game seeing live could possibly been the Braves. One in seven chance.
 
I just meant 1952, from your story, was the year before the Braves left for Milwaukee, much less Atlanta. The Boston Braves era has always felt like pre-history to me. Someone talking about being a fan that long ago is so far from my own experience.
 
nsacpi said:
Makes me feel young. I started following the Braves cuz of Hank in 1973. I think this was pre-superstation.
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That is a time that I have no feel for... obviously I've seen video of the hrs, but he was a player that people were drawn to follow the Braves just because of him? Do you think there are people like you that follow them for that reason?

I have always felt like because of TBS there are a lot of Braves fans abroad, but the reasoning being that they were just "always on" and if you didn't have a team you fell into following them?
 
Tapate50 said:
That is a time that I have no feel for... obviously I've seen video of the hrs, but he was a player that people were drawn to follow the Braves just because of him? Do you think there are people like you that follow them for that reason?

I have always felt like because of TBS there are a lot of Braves fans abroad, but the reasoning being that they were just "always on" and if you didn't have a team you fell into following them?
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I want to say that the whole TBS superstation thing started a year or two after the Hank hit his 715th home run. There was a precursor of sorts to the superstation that allowed me to watch some Braves games from Florida (back then the Marlins and Rays did not exist). Not that many though because I remember listening to most of their games on radio rather than watching on TV.

In 1973 (when I first started following the Braves) Hank was 39. Even to my novice eyes it was clear what a special hitter he was even at 39. He hit 40 home runs that year with an OPS over 1.000.
 
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Garmel said:
I'm in your boat by being just a Braves fan. In fact, I've never been to Georgia in my life. How many do we have here like us who were made fans by TBS?
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Me...My PawPaw had something to do with it as well. Baseball, bowling, and NASCAR were his sports. He drove predominately Chryslers, Plymouths, and Dodges and pulled for Richard Petty which is ironic since he and The King were politically from different ends of the spectrum. On the baseball side, he introduced me to the game as soon as I was old enough to understand it. When TBS came along the fact we could follow one team for 140 games in the pre SportsSouth days was a dream. As much as I hate what MLB and NASCAR have become due to what I feel are largely unwarranted changes for no good reasons PawPaw is the reason I can't quit watching. Braves baseball was our thing and even though he has been gone for nearly 24 years as long as I watch it keeps a part of him alive and well. Sports isn't just a pastime for me.
 
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