Summer 25
Inspired by Marguerite Duras, Summer 25 explores a world in revolt through the prism of art and writing. Four of ten.
Cobb County police officers set out traffic cones and metal barricades through the streets at Truist Park, controlling the incoming flow of cars to accommodate the influx of pedestrian traffic. The Braves are hosting the San Francisco Giants for a three-game series. The officers go through the motions, waving cars through and stopping them so people can cross, their movements and actions rote in the second half of the season. We pull into one of the parking decks, and the kid scans our reserved parking pass and tells me there’s a problem—Giants fans have to pay double. I laugh and he tells me it’s triple now. My wife asks about the rate for Dodgers fans. He is fumbling with the scanner and mumbles a “yeah, okay” to her when his coworker tells him to let us through without the scan. They both tell us to have a great night.
I didn’t plan to attend all three games. If you had told me this was going to happen even at the start of this year, I’d have thought you were crazy. Baseball was a not-insignificant part of my childhood. I played Little League and fall ball. I had just turned 6 days before Kirby Puckett hit a walk-off homer in the 1991 World Series, leading to a Game 7 loss for my Braves. Somehow that didn’t lead to me hating Kirby Puckett but idolizing him. I watched the Brave win the World Series in 95 and that was that. I’ve always loved a happy ending, so where else could my fandom go? By that point, years of shitty coaches drove any love of playing I might have had out of me.
I still had my baseball cards then—a collection started by my grandfather when I was born. We kept the cards in a Dole banana box we got from the produce manager at the Winn-Dixie down the road. We had cards in three-inch binders, in long white cardboard boxes, plastic cases that clicked together. I had Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, Fleer—I had the sets that came with Jimmy Dean frozen breakfast sausage patties. I had two porcelain Nolan Ryan cards that had their own special boxes like jewelry sometimes comes in, with thin sheets of cotton to keep them safe. I had the baseball Raphael Billiard signed at one of the few games I got to attend in person. I don’t know where these ended up.
Sadly, cards are why I got back into baseball this year. Too many people I knew were buying cards and showing them off and I got the itch. There’s an incredible dopamine rush when opening a pack of cards and Topps has it down to a science. They celebrate the 35th anniversary with a throwback design from that year, a choice I realize coincides with the fact that 35 years ago I was a 5 year old boy. Weaponized nostalgia.
It used to be you had base cards and inserts, but those were in the days of my youth now called the ‘Junk Wax’ era—years signified by increased product availability and over-saturation of the market leading to worthless cards. Not that you could convince anyone of that at the time. The baby boomers were becoming middle-aged and looked back at the toys and games of their youths, hoping to recapture lost innocence when they discovered how rare and valuable these things were now. Baseball cards and comic books were disposable goods of childhood, not things you keep around. Increased interest lead to higher print runs. The Death of Superman had no value because everyone bought it. Special covers with holographic foil and lenticular images didn’t matter in the long run. But with that mindset we have the modern collectible card market, where there are variations of variants left and right. People argue with strangers on Facebook on whether the card someone found was the blue holofoil or the teal. They stamp some cards to indicate that it is card X out of one thousand, out of a hundred, out of ten, and the grail, one of one. You can find autographs and chunks of baseballs or jerseys on cards. You don’t even have to open your own cards: You can buy spots for your favorite teams on eBay or WhatNot and watch guys break open dozens of packs, boxes of cards, cases even—shuffling through hundreds of cards filmed so the cards and hands are never off-camera, nimble fingers displaying for the live stream the cards then sorting into piles based on value and for the really valuable ones, they get put into a penny sleeve and then a top loader. You can pay companies to grade your cards, to prove their authenticity and quality, so that you could maybe sell that card and make a lot of money. Someone sold the Paul Skenes 1/1 patch card for $1.1 million. The serotonin rush from opening a pack of cards got nothing on legalized gambling.
It’s an evening game so we rushed from work. We got there early to get the giveaway Braves trucker hats. Someone taps me on the shoulder as we’re walking towards the entrance. The guy introduces himself as the ballpark videographer. He wanted to pair me in my Giants jersey with a guy in a Braves one. “You’re buddies going to the ballpark to watch their respective teams, ready to root hard for—” he pauses to read the back of my jersey, “Mike Yastrzemski…”. His voice trails off, then he points at the other jersey, “and Ronald Acuña Jr!” My faux friend and I walk side-by-side almost to the ticket taker before the videographer tells us we’re good. My wife and I get two hats, then buy some Korean cheesesteaks. We sit on a bench and start to eat. An old man points to my jersey and my wife’s Dodger’s shirt. “Divided household, eh?” Tonight’s is his 30th and final ballpark, and he shows me the patches from the different ballparks sewn into his own Giants jersey. Blooper, the Braves mascot, flashes me when he sees my jersey. The Giants come out and warm up right in front of our seats. Blooper gets behind Jung Hoo Lee and starts mimicking his calisthenics. Mike is warming up too. Heliot Ramos spots a kid wearing his jersey and comes over and signs it for him. A 3-year old in an Austin Riley jersey runs down the aisle into the open-armed hug of her grandpa. He scoops her up and spins her around as he takes her to their seats.
The sun has set. The Giants are losing. I chirp Nick Allen for looking like Rick Moranis. We leave in the 8th inning.
Next evening, I walk into Truist Park in the same Giants jersey, only this time with my real friend wearing a Ronald Acuña Jr jersey. I give him an extra trucker hat from the night before. Our seats are so close we could touch right field, something the friendly usher warns us not to do. Both Yaz and Ronnie play in right field, although tonight my other favorite, Luis Matos, is subbing in for Mike. My jersey will go unsigned. My friend boos when the Giants are announced, giving me a big thumbs down in my face. A beer vendor tells me he likes my Yastrzemski jersey; he sometimes works at Oracle Park in San Francisco when he gets bored of the east coast. The little boy behind us yells for Ronald. “Tell him it’s your 5th birthday!” his mom advises him. Ronald finishes with his 4th inning warm-up and tosses the practice ball so it bounces off right field and to our section, over me and my friend, into the hands of the birthday boy’s father. He hands it to the boy who starts dancing up and down.
The Giants are winning. We leave in the 8th.
The deciding game of the series is a Wednesday noon game. This was the only game I originally planned to attend but sometimes fate has other ideas. Kismet. I used a website to determine the best seats for shade from the vicious July sun. I was wrong and sit in full sun. By the time the series is over, I have a deep-V farmer’s tan and burnt legs where my shorts did not cover my knees. This is the only game I’ve gone to by myself. It rains a little before the game starts, which only makes the air that much more oppressive. The lady next to me is in a Braves hat, but points to my jersey and tells me how she’s from Boston so Mike’s okay in her book. We talk about Mike’s grandfather Carl, and how I have to go to a game at Fenway. She shows me a Blooper stuffed doll she bought for her grandson. “He’s crazy for Blooper—at least on TV. We brought him to a game and when he saw Blooper coming, his eyes got wide and he buried his head in my shoulder.”
I stay for the entire game this time. The Giants win. Justin Verlander’s first win of the season. I sit in front of the bronze Bobby Cox statue as I wait for my ride. A group of guys in Yankees and Braves jersey walk over and ask if I’ll take their photo in front of the Truist Park entrance. I take a few and hand the guy his phone back. The Braves fans start walking but the Yankees fans hold back, looking at the photos they took. Once their buddies were out of earshot, they both look at me.
The one on the left says, “that hadda feel good, huh?”
The one on the right says, “Fuck tha Braves!”
They both laugh, and they both slap my shoulders as they run to catch up with their buddies in Braves jerseys. They put their arms around their pals shoulders and walk towards the bars already packed at 4PM on a Wednesday.