Pics with Maddux, Chipper, Justice, McCann, Murphy & others:  check.  Autographed Bobby Cox baseball:  check.  On the field during BP:  check.  Seats against the visitors' dugout, home plate side:  check.  Foul ball from the game:  check.  Getting on TV:  check.  Bashing the Mets' brains in:  CHECK!

 

 

So, from the intro, it's fairly obvious that I had one of the best days in a long time.  Let's begin with the pre-luncheon silent auction.  There was a lot of great stuff there, obviously, but I could only afford a choice from a grab-basket of surprise autographed baseballs.  A lot of people were getting Eddie Perez baseballs, I saw someone get a Brian McCann baseball, which was cool.  I decided to try my luck, and I got a Bobby Cox ball!  I was pretty excited about that.

Once the luncheon doors were opened, I was seated at a table with Jeff Porter, trainer of the Braves.  At first I was a little disappointed that I didn't get a current player, but as it turned out, he had a few great stories to relay to us.  We were talking about the pitching rotation from years past and I brought up Steve Avery's awesomeness before he got hurt.  Porter told us a long story from Spring Training of 95 when Maddux was sick and quarantined for a bit in the hotel because his daughter had chicken pox, and he hadn't had the pox before.  Jeff finally worked it around to where Maddux told Jeff that Steve Avery would be the best out of Smoltz, Glavine, and himself.  It's unfortunate what happened to Avery's shoulder, but impressive, nonetheless, how highly Maddux thought of Avery.

The best part of the actual program was when there was a small panel of Braves personnel giving some memories of Mad Dog, which included Schuerholz, Mazzone, Eddie Perez, Chipper, and Cox.  They all good stories to tell, but the funniest were the two that Bowman described in his blog.  When asked by Joe Simpson, the moderator, to remember Maddux's best performance, they all essentially said the same thing:  there are too many to remember, but 3 of them recalled Maddux's dominating performance in Game 1 of the 95 World Series, as well as Game 2 in the 96 WS.

The best non-programmed part of the luncheon was all the great players I got to meet.  Generally speaking, they were all very nice and hospitable.  The only one that I encountered that was giving the cold shoulder to many was John Schuerholz.  Frank Wren was pleasant, and I told him that I agree with about 80% of his roster moves, and I also told him not to trade Kelly Johnson (I'm sure I'll catch some flack from the community on that one).  I also asked Chipper and McCann to say the same thing to ol' Frankie.  They thought it was funny and said they would do what they could.  I got pictures with Jones, McCann, Murphy, Kawakami, Justice, McClouth, and Maddux.  Obviously, the toughest to get was Maddux.  He was somewhat off-limits, and the only opportunity to get pictures was as he was getting rushed out of the room after the ceremony.  He was nice enough to let me have a picture, but couldn't pose because everyone else was handing him stuff to sign!

Before the game I changed into my Maddux T-shirt from '94 and got on the field for batting practice.  A pretty cool experience; I recommend a big fan try it out.  I got a couple player's attention--no small feat--and even got some of them to laugh, which was like a badge of honor.  I say that because many of the fans were just screaming "(insert player's name), over here!  over here!"  I actually tried some good-natured comments towards the Mets, and got Murphy, and Castillo to laugh, and I got Francoeur to wave and thank me for the well-wishes with that perennial smile on his face.  Matt Diaz talked to me a bit, too, and he was expectedly very nice.

To my seats, which were incredible!  I was assigned to sit to the 3rd base side of home plate, but I was able to move, ending up seated against the concrete of the home plate side of the visitor's dugout, so I was right on top of the action.  What made it more special was the fact that there were over 50,000 in attendance.  I cannot remember the last time that many people filled The Ted.  Jair Jurrjens was incredible, the Braves' offense was clicking on all cylinders, and we mashed those Mets 11-0.  In the process, I got a foul ball off of Nate McClouth's bat (the one off his foot).  Brian Snitker picked up the ball in foul ground, looked into the stands as I stood up and waved my glove at him.  He tossed it right to me as other fans tried to out-position me for the ball, but to no avail.  Obiously, it's not as cool as catching the ball, on the fly, off the bat, but technically, I DID catch a foul ball =)  You can clearly see the grain of the wood imprinted on the ball with the black paint of the bat, as well as some infield dirt implanted into the hide of the ball--pretty cool.

I even got on TV...I don't know how many times yet as I haven't watched the broadcast as of now, but if you watch the Maddux interview from the broadcast booth on Braves.com, you can spot me as they focus on the back of my Maddux shirt during the session.  I believe it's a little after the 1:40 mark.

http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200907175595045&c_id=atl 

Just disregard the growing bald spot =)

Then I drove 400 miles home.

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