Just One More Day 'til Gametime

Now that it’s past midnight and Thursday morning I can finally say that there’s just one more day standing between me and the Atlanta Braves vs. St. Louis Cardinals game I’m going to see at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Friday night.

I’ve been anticipating this game ever since I got tickets for it over a month ago. Back toward the end of spring training when Braves’ future hall of fame third baseman Chipper Jones announced that he’d be retiring after this season I knew that I had to go see him play ball one more time. That may not be a hard task for most Braves fans, but when you live in central Arkansas the opportunities grow small. I knew that my only chance would be to catch the Braves during their one trip to St. Louis to play the Cardinals this season. Luckily things worked out and I’ll be seeing the game at 7 p.m. on Friday night on the third base side of the field, hopefully with a good view of Chipper at the hot corner.

My fandom of baseball can be traced back to the beginning of Chipper Jones’ career during his rookie season in 1995, when I fell in love with the sport and the Braves. Seventeen years later I still love the sport and the Braves, despite only being able to see them play a handful of times on television a year because they’re no longer shown exclusively on TBS (a sad day that was and one I hope to get time to write about on this very blog). My love for baseball and the Braves is never going to die, no matter what. If I could make it through the steroid issue that forever tainted the game than nothing will kill my interest or love for it. However, the end of Chipper’s career really signifies a sort of metaphorical end to my life. I know that at 24 and a half years old that I’ve been an adult now for quite some time, but I honestly (a year removed from graduating college at the University of Central Arkansas) still feel like a kid much of the time. That probably sounds weird, creepy and all sorts of things, but it’s true. One of the few things left from my childhood is the joy and true honor of watching Jones round those bases and field his position in the field. That will come to an end in early October, or if we’re truly lucky in late October (how cool would it be to see Chipper Jones begin and end his career with World Series titles?).   

The biggest concern that I have going into Friday’s game is whether or not Chipper Jones will actually play in the game. Jones has been playing in most of the team’s games of late, but has also missed a lot of time earlier on in the season after recovering from knee surgery right before the season began. It would frankly be pretty disappointing and heartbreaking to travel all the way from Conway, Ark. to St. Louis (a good eight or nine hour drive) to have Jones not in the lineup, but I know that that’s the way the game goes sometimes. Either way it should be a damn good game. 

I hope that tomorrow at work, my last day at work this week, flies by so I can get on the road to St. Louis. The Cardinals are the local team so tune into the television on Friday night and you might see me, I’ll be one of the very few in attendance at the Busch wearing a Chipper Jones T-shirt.

This will be my last blog post before the game on Friday night, but I'll definitely have a ton to say following the game.