Last summer, my wife, a couple friends and I trekked over to the suburban wilderness of Gwinnett County to check out a Gwinnett Braves game. Ric Flair threw out the first pitch, and I’m pretty sure most of the crowd was more excited about the Nature Boy than the national pastime that day. Every time something happened—or didn’t happen—somebody, frequently the PA guy, would let out Flair’s trademark “Woo!”
It got old by around, oh, the fourth inning, but that’s what makes minor-league baseball great: It’s so gimmicky that it comes back around full circle from fun to annoying to ironically fun again. Plus, they were giving away sweet Julio Teheran bobbleheads.
Let’s face it: The Barves, hot April start notwithstanding, are Barving all over the place. They can be fun to watch sometimes, but they’re not very good, and it may not be worth fighting Atlanta traffic and shelling out big bucks to see them. The Bravos are #tankingfor2017, when they move into Corporate Welfare Coliseum in Cobb County, which will be even more impossible to get to than Turner Field, although it will probably have a Wild Wings and/or a Cheesecake Factory or something next door, so at least there’s that.
But there is an alternative to dropping three figures to watch a shitty baseball team, and that’s dropping two figures to watch a shitty baseball team. Coolray Field is right down 316 in Lawrenceville, and for half the cost of a major-league Braves game, you can see tomorrow’s Braves today.
While the quality of play isn’t quite major-league level—that’s why they call it the minors, duh—you can catch a future star or two and say you knew them when. My dad still talks about taking me to see a Louisville Redbirds game that featured Willie McGee and Vince Coleman in the outfield—two speedsters who would go on to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series. (And yes, I’m showing my age. I remember not only ‘80s wrestlers, but the 1985 postseason, when light-hitting Ozzie Smith beat the Dodgers with a ninth-inning homer, immortalized by the great Jack Buck. “Go crazy, folks!” Look it up on FaceTubePedia, kids.) Just a few years ago, the aforementioned Teheran, now an All Star, was pitching for Gwinnett. The AAA Braves this year have Jose Peraza, a second baseman who’s one of the top prospects in baseball and is likely to be leading off for Atlanta next year, if not sooner, as well as a slew of others who could get called up to The Show at a moment’s notice.
Plus, you can’t beat the price. Our tickets about 10 rows behind home plate cost a mere $15, which is what you’d pay to sit in the upper deck at Turner Field, if you’re lucky. Parking was like five bucks, and the beer and food were cheaper, too. Lines were nonexistent. The restrooms were 30 seconds away (very important, especially if you’re pregnant like my wife was).
If you’re willing to drive a bit further, head an hour and half up I-85 North to Greenville, SC, where the Drive play in Fluor Field, a nine-year-old stadium modeled after Boston’s famous Fenway Park, right down to a 30-feet-high wall in left. (The Drive are the Red Sox’s Class A affiliate.) Tickets are just $7–$10. Although it’s not quite as conveniently located as Coolray, Greenville’s West End has the advantage over Lawrenceville of being a cool neighborhood with lots of eating and drinking options.
Class A ballplayers are younger and not as good as those in AAA, but the Drive have their share of prospects, too. Shortstop Michael Chavis, for example, is a product of Sprayberry High School in Marietta who was a first-round draft pick last year.
Closer to home, don’t forget about the University of Georgia Diamond Dawgs (who, alas, wear regular uniforms and not David Bowie wigs and leotards). Unfortunately, both the men’s baseball and women’s softball teams wrapped up their seasons last week. But next February, keep in mind that UGA baseball games are free for students and $5–$8 for the general public, and softball is free for everyone.
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