45: Steering into the fast lane

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By ssiscribe

ATLANTA – Windows down. Sunshine gleaming. Radio cranked.

Two heads bob in unison to the music coming from the speakers, the melody and rhythm fighting for attention with the whirl of Interstate 75 on a perfect late morning in late spring.

In the back seat, a 5-year-old – dressed head-to-toe in Braves gear – enjoys the prospects of being out of pre-K for the day. Behind the wheel, his dad – sporting that pristine white Braves home jersey and Las Vegas-style Braves’ lid – sings at the top of his lungs, drawing both praise and laughter from the audience in the backseat.

“Life is a highway … I wanna ride it all night long!”

Rascal Flatts might not be my favorite musical group. Country music certainly isn’t my favorite genre, strange when one considers I’m from the South and listened to the rhythm of the steel guitar throughout my childhood.

But there’s something about that particular song that strikes me. Maybe it’s because that tune is on the soundtrack of the movie “Cars,” the wildly popular animated hit from a few years back that is a favorite of all four of us who reside in our humble abode. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because there is a message in the lyrics, one that applies in this case.

The highway zooms along under our tires as we navigate toward Turner Field. On this day, heading north for the opening game of a day-night doubleheader, traffic is moving along, the weather is perfect, and the setting is one that every father who so cherishes this game we adore hopes to have with his first-born at some point in time.

So, too, does it describe the baseball team who resides at 755 Hank Aaron Boulevard. Through the stop-and-go frustration of a lost April, May has brought spring flowers and sparkling baseball to the Atlanta Braves. The pitching staff, as stable as a pack of NASCAR wannabees racing down the back straightaway on a Saturday night at the local dirt track, has settled into a nice rhythm. The manager, asleep at the wheel for far too many nights the first month of the season, suddenly has realized the lineup can be adjusted and the bullpen can be used wisely (there still are moves like last night, when Jeff Bennett pitched in a nine-run game, but I digress).

And the offense, stuck in the far right lane fighting merging traffic in second gear, has wandered into the fast lane and put the hammer down.

All offseason, Braves fans salivated at the prospects of the best hitting team this franchise has fielded in years. All April, the good denizens of Braves Nation gnashed their teeth and chewed their fingernails as those not named Chipper Jones or Yunel Escobar sputtered like my old ’79 Silverado used to on the Downtown Connector.

But now, the Braves are hitting. Top to bottom, Atlanta hitters are producing, even when they don’t seem to produce. Several times during Tuesday’s opener, a father talked to his attentive son about the fundamental aspects of the game. The team wearing white provided plenty of good examples on this day, working deep into the count, hitting the ball to the right side to move runners along, getting the fly ball needed with a runner on third, and hitting in the clutch to turn an early deficit into a comfortable lead.

Baseball is a hard, hard game. I’ll never forget walking back into the newsroom one night as a young sports writer, ready to pound out my game story. Satisfied with my work, I shipped it to my sports editor, a fine man whose short lists of priorities include baseball … and perspective.

“Remember how hard this game is,” he asked after recrafting part of my story.

The game we watch seems so easy from the Terrace Level, the Sports Garage, the local watering hole. But on the field, it’s far from a stroll in the park. Still, when the talent is there, it’s frustrating to see your team muddle along like a used jalopy when you know down to the core of your being that team should be lapping the field, racing toward the postseason.

We’re seeing that now out of the Braves. Mark Teixeira is heating up. Brian McCann is having the best month nobody is talking about. Kelly Johnson is flourishing in the seventh spot. Gregor Blanco continues to impress. And, Jeff Francoeur got the day off he needed, then returned to wreck the Mets last night.

Life is a highway. So, too, is a baseball season. There will be traffic jams and construction ahead, for sure. But when you have a sports car, it’s a shame when you can’t get over to the left and roar past the potholes.

Hopefully, the Braves now have settled into the fast lane. And if they have, there’s nothing but open road between now and the checkered flag.

–30–

~Scribe~

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