Karen Hill and Dianne Krache sat in folding chairs among a couple of hundred others in The Battery, alternating between fan joy and torture. Facing them was a large screen with a broadcast of the Braves’ NL East-clinching game Tuesday. To their left, about an equal distance away, were the locked gates to the ghost town of a stadium where the same game was being played.
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“I feel like I’m in timeout,” Hill said.
“To me, it’s a little like dying and going to heaven, and then St. Peter says, ‘Stop!’ And you’re right at the gate,” Krache said. “It’s like we’re in baseball purgatory. Or baseball limbo.”
The wonderful, the weird and the awkward collided both inside Truist Park and out when the Braves clinched their third straight division title, wholly appropriate for the test tube baseball season of 2020.
On the field, Bryse Wilson, a 22-year-old called up to replace the perpetually injured Cole Hamels, threw five shutout innings against Miami with seven strikeouts. Wilson seemed, as catcher Travis D’Arnaud said, “three inches taller.” Wilson accomplished more in one night with a $575,000 contract than Hamels did all season with an $18 million one — an equalizer for the ages.
To support Wilson, the Braves pounded Marlins pitchers with 11 runs, 15 hits and five homers and won 11-1 to clinch the division with five games left in this chicken nugget of a 60-game season. The Truist Park soundboard dude turned up the dial. Outside the gates, fans celebrated when Freddie Freeman snagged a line drive for the final out. It’s as close as they could get to being there.
Last out. Braves are NL East champs. @TheAthleticATL @TheAthleticMLB pic.twitter.com/b72ZN2XsQB
— Jeff Schultz (@JeffSchultzATL) September 23, 2020
“It’s kinda strange. But it’s fun,” Chip Hammond said.
“Kinda Strange. But Fun.” A working title for the Braves’ season.
This was not a small achievement by the Braves. They overcame a cartoon run of injuries to their starting rotation, a severe COVID-19 scare by Freeman, injuries to Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuña Jr. and the opt-out-opt-in-coronavirus-shuffle by Nick Markakis. But their bullpen and their lineup pushed them to the division lead, and they never let go.
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In normal times, fans in the stands would’ve exploded with joy after the clinching game, and players would’ve dogpiled in the middle of the field and exchanged bearhugs and then would’ve taken turns in the clubhouse drenching one another with cheap champagne and even cheaper beer. There might’ve even been a stogie or two lit up.
Not this time. Players gave CDC-approved air high-fives and tapped each other’s hats. Some of them eventually shifted into “Oh-screw-it” mode and hugged. Then they stood together for a picture with a banner. But it ranked as one of the most muted and sterile celebrations in history.
“We didn’t know really what to do,” Freeman said, masked up for another Zoom interview. “If you watch our games, every third inning, the grounds crew comes out and fixes the field, and we play catch off to the side. So what are we supposed to do when we clinch the division? I mean, there’s guys who’ve already gone home. Usually, I’d be soaked in champagne right now.”
So the clubhouse …
“It’s completely dry,” he said.
The stadium again was staged like a Hollywood backlot. Seats filled with cardboard cutouts, the air with manufactured noise. With each home run, came a crank on the noise dial. With each out in the last couple of innings, the white noise became louder, as if the anticipation was building. This is as good as it gets now.
Braves manager Brian Snitker has become so accustomed to fake noise and fake people in the stands that he actually misses them when they’re not present.
“I know they’re cardboard,” he said. “But when you play in places that don’t have them, there’s a little bit of a difference. Just the aesthetic feel of it.”
OK. We really need this year to be over now.
The only fans who could view the game from inside the stadium were the privileged 70 to 80 season ticket holders who paid upward of $600 for a table for four in The Chop House. (The Braves have been selling them to their “A List” members all season.)
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The common folk were outside in The Battery. The area filled up with families, singles and their dogs. Some played cornhole. Some played catch. Some drank beer and ate food out of their coolers, an evening picnic. All watched the game, at least occasionally.
Hammond was among a group of seven friends who drove from Fayette or Coweta counties to basically just sit near the stadium for the clinch. (This is a level of fandom I never endeavored to reach.)
“We’ve been here twice this week. Why not?” Adam Glendye said. “We also were here on my birthday and stayed at the Omni. That was the night they scored 29 runs.”
He said he rented one of the Omni’s balcony rooms that faces the stadium. Cost: $750.
“It was our Braves’ budget for the year,” he said.
If only Liberty Media was this aggressive in spending.
As weird as the year has been, the Braves have been great theater. Their offense and bullpen have compensated for losing five of six pitchers it expected to take turns in rotation spots this season: Mike Soroka (injured), Hamels (injured), Mike Foltynewicz (fizzled), Félix Hernández (opted out), Sean Newcomb (fizzled). Max Fried, who also missed time, laughed at him suddenly being the veteran presence among three expected postseason starters: Fried (26 and in his second “full season”), rookie Ian Anderson (22) and rookie Kyle Wright (22).
“Strange. Definitely strange,” he said.
It wouldn’t seem the Braves could match up with the Los Angeles or San Diego in the NL, and surviving even a Division Series with their rotation issues could be a problem. But if there was a postseason when something unexpected could happen, this is the one. The Braves, as a No. 2 or 3 seed, will have home field in a best-of-three first round, and if they win, they will advance to a relative “bubble” in Houston for the Division Series.
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“This is pretty satisfying, especially with how crazy this has been,” Freeman said.
Freeman lived through four straight non-playoff seasons, three of them with 90-plus losses.
“I just told Ronald in the clubhouse, ‘Man, all you know is winning the division title.’ That’s pretty cool,” Freeman said.
Nobody inside the stadium or out is going to diminish this team now, even in a 60-game season that saw several players around the majors opt out and some never finding their rhythm, either because of injuries, COVID or merely general chaos. The Braves have overcome it better than most, even if that comes with no guarantees in the postseason.
Jonathan Howard, seated outside a restaurant with a view of the TV screen, said, “A lot of people I spoke to seem to have the mindset, ‘Hey, if we lose and don’t make it, it was a weird season, doesn’t matter.’ But if we win, then, ‘Totally legitimate.’”
Sounds about right.
(Photo: Jeff Schultz / The Athletic)
