Game 25: New York Mets 3 @ Atlanta Braves 5

Tonight was the highlight of the trip so far with the pre game ceremony that included seeing Hank Aaron, which I already posted about here. Even without that this ballpark was an impressive one. The whole atmosphere is good with the fans really into it even though they do not fill the place while at the same time they are good sports and only did a little booing along with some cheering for Francouer who was recently traded to the Mets. They are a little on the disorganized side, but it does not permeate into ruining the whole experience like at Citi Field or maybe it just is they make up for it with the atmosphere/entertainment.

Getting into the park was a little on the annoying side. First off we had to pick up our tickets at Will Call because they mailed us someone else’s tickets back in April and the solution is you have to pick up the tickets day of game. Apparently it is actually a rather common occurrence for them. Then the park was supposed to open 2 and a half hours before the game, which they kept saying was at 7pm, but the tickets say 7:10pm and that is actually when it started. Giving them the benefit of the doubt for the aim open time being 4:40pm they still failed by almost 15 minutes, as it was almost 5pm before they opened the gates. It had something to do with there needing to be a police officer at every gate before they could open and there was not one at our gate, which I believe is the only one that opens until closer to game time (~2 hours before, I think).

Anyways once we finally got into the park the experience was smooth enough, although the cashier had trouble finding the mini bat in the machine to ring it up since it did not have a barcode on it and the elevators were confusing to find. Anyways those were minor inconveniences compared to just getting into the park seeming harder than it should be. The first place we went was the Braves Hall of Fame and Museum, which I will post about later in its own post. By the way, though, it was worth the $2 admission per person and was a good way to waste almost an hour before the game started.

The game itself had some exciting moments, although the pre game ceremony and watching the different ways the Coca Cola bottle lit up were still the highlight. The bottom of the 2nd inning, however, was definitely up there in the highlights of the whole Turner Field experience for us. The reason it was a highlight was because the Braves had back-to-back homers to end up with a 2-0 lead.

The Mets later took the lead in the top of 4th by scoring 3 runs with the help of 3 singles and a double. The Braves quickly came back to tie it up in the bottom of the 4th with a single and a RBI double. The Braves regained their lead with a walk and two singles in the bottom of the 7th. They scored an insurance run in the bottom of the 8th and were able to keep the Mets from scoring other than the runs in the top of the 4th and went on to win 5 to 3.

Overall tonight was an exciting night of baseball and something we have not experienced since Fenway. Not only was the pre game ceremony awesome because Hank Aaron was there, but the game itself was a good one. Mik still played his DS a lot during the game, but he did get into this game at the end and loved seeing Hank Aaron. Best of all is after we got out of the parking lot he was very well behaved, which is really saying something because he was been a big butthead over the All Star Break when we were not even going to games.