Time is but a flat circle
It was late August of 1999.
I had just completed my first couple weeks at a new school and things were rough. But my mom was starting a new custom of taking each of her children on a quick getaway when they began high school. Because her employer was based in St. Louis, they had box seats to St. Louis Cardinals games and who happened to be in town that weekend? My beloved Atlanta Braves.
It was my first trip on an airplane. It was my first Braves game in person. It was my first trip away without having to argue with my annoying brothers in the back seat of the car.
My memories from that trip are still pretty sharp. There were seven Hall of Famers involved in that game, though only two played. They say the neatest thing about baseball is that on any one day you will likely see something you have never seen before. Well, none of the big three starters - Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz - pitched that day, but a hefty, country-strong righty named Kevin Millwood did. He mowed through 10 scoreless innings in a game that was scoreless to the 13th, where Atlanta scored three times and held on to win.
I looked this up to be sure and to show just how rare a feat pitching 10 scoreless innings was. Since that game, seven major league pitchers have thrown perfect games. Only two have thrown 10 scoreless innings. I got to watch it.
We had stopped to see the Archway and took a Missouri River Ferry Tour. We stopped at Union Station, where we ran into a few Braves relief pitchers and where my mom bought me an Atlanta Braves sweatshirt. Though I was a modest 130 pounds back then, she had the foresight to get me an extra-large.
We rode public transit back downtown to the Omni hotel we were staying at and another first occurred. Apparently, we were walking through a neighborhood we shouldn't have been walking through a little too close to dark. At least that's what a man on the street told us. So we walked/skipped/ jogged a little faster those last couple blocks.
The trip was a quick one. We flew out one morning and back the next. But I still have those memories that last a lifetime. But that's not all I've got left.
Later that fall in '99, Atlanta advanced to the World Series. As a young Braves fan, it was the team's fifth trip to the fall classic in a decade. I figured it would always be like that. Twenty-two years later, I'm sitting in my office writing this column on the day the Braves finally play in another World Series. And twenty-two years later, I'm thinking about that quick getaway with my mom, watching a no-name pitcher do something only a couple have done since, panicking when Mark McGwire hit one to the fence in the ninth and walking about three miles through the St. Louis airport. Oh, and I'm thinking about that sweatshirt we bought - the one I'm wearing as I write this. They don't make clothes like they used to. Here's to hoping this World Series goes better than the last. And here's to this sweatshirt lasting through a few more postseason runs.
