The Braves at Dodger Stadium

In May of 1997 I had the opportunity to see my favorite Brave, Tom Glavine, pitch against the hated Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Here's a brief photographic chronicle.

When we entered the stadium, we found the Braves taking BP.

Mark Wohlers at left (back when he could still pitch); Greg Maddux at right.

Wohlers (at left) and Maddux (tying his shoe). Every time Maddux caught a ball, six hundred kids in the stands screamed for him to throw it to them.

Maddux (at right) and Ryan Klesko chasing a grounder. Klesko won the race, despite Maddux hurling his glove at the ball in an attempt to knock it away.

Braves at play. Chipper Jones at left, Maddux at right, jumping for fly balls.

Tom Glavine, Javy Lopez, and (far right) Leo Mazzone emerging from the bullpen.

Glavine warming up. These weren't my idea of great seats. They were the result of buying through TicketBastard (motto: "$12.00 worth of add-on charges per ticket!") and being seduced by the words field level. All those empty orange seats in this photo look pretty good in retrospect.

The rest of the game was none too pleasant, as Glavine got pounded and we had to endure the Mock Chop from the gleeful Dodger fans. The final was something like 11-4, and naturally, our reward for hanging on to the bitter end was an hourlong wait in the parking lot behind fifteen thousand Dodger fans who had left in the seventh inning.

However, there were three high points:

1) In the brief moment of relative quiet right after the national anthem, a kid in a Braves cap a few rows down from us stood up and screamed, "Dodgers suck!"

2) Klesko hit a long home run to right-center field.

3) During a Chipper Jones at-bat, a paper plane sailed down from the upper deck and hit the home plate umpire in the butt, causing him to jump into the air, which in turn caused Chipper to jump.