Braves' old world
Two losses for Atlanta baseball, plus my shareables: Colbert, Scarpetta, and Chonkers
It’s been a weird week to be an old Atlanta Braves fan.
The current Braves are doing great—they have one of the best records in the league. They have been so good for so long that many fans don’t remember a time when the Braves were routinely terrible. But some of us remember. And two characters from those old Braves left us this week.
Most fans knew John Sterling, who died on Monday, as the longtime play-by-play man for the New York Yankees—he called Yankees games for 36 years, including one streak of more than 5,000 games. But before that he called Braves games from 1982-87. His most famous call was the Rick Camp Game.
I need to take a minute here to tell the story of the Rick Camp Game.
The Braves were playing the Mets at the old Fulton County Stadium. It was July 4, 1985, so of course the Braves had fireworks ready to go after the game. But a rain delay pushed the starting time to 9 p.m., another rain delay in the third inning pushed the game even deeper into the night … and then the game would not end. Ten innings. Twelve innings. Fifteen innings. Way past midnight. Then past 1 and 2 and 3.
Finally, in the top of the 18th inning, the Mets scored to make it 11-10. The Braves made two quick outs in the bottom of the 18th. The game had gone on so long that the Braves had used all their hitters. So they sent up pitcher Rick Camp. It was basically surrender. Baseball pitchers (Shohei Ohtani aside) are usually awful hitters. That’s why both leagues now have the designated hitter rule. But even among pitchers, Rick Camp stunk at the plate. He had 175 at-bats in his major league career and just 13 hits. That’s a batting average of .074.
It was 3:20 in the morning when he stepped into the batter’s box. I’ll let John Sterling (along with Ernie Johnson, father of the Ernie Johnson on INSIDE THE NBA) take it from here.
Three things:
One, that was the only home run of Rick Camp’s career.
Two, the Mets scored five runs in the 19th and won anyway.
Three, the Braves did in fact set off the July 4 fireworks after the game. It was 3:55 in the morning. People all over Atlanta called 911 thinking the world had come to an end. Which sort of made sense. If you had asked Braves fans which was more likely—the world coming to an end, or Rick Camp hitting a game-tying home run—they would have bet on the apocalypse.
*****
You have probably read several Ted Turner obits since his passing on Wednesday. The piece that I think captured him best was by my friends Spencer Hall and Holly Anderson at their site Channel 6; it’s behind a paywall but well worth your money. Either way, you know his story; billionaire, America’s Cup-winning sailor, husband (and then ex-husband) of Jane Fonda, creator of CNN, savior of the American bison, rogue and charmer and playboy and philanderer, risk-taker extraordinare.
Turner was responsible, in one way or another, for three of the tentpoles of my life. He bought out the old Jim Crockett Promotions wrestling operation and put it on WTBS at 6:05 every Saturday night, bringing Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes and all my favorite wrestlers to a nationwide audience. He created the Cartoon Network, which aired not just old Looney Tunes but new creations like SPACE GHOST and THE POWERPUFF GIRLS that accounted for much of my TV time in my late ‘20s. And finally, he not just owned the Braves but put their games on cable TV nationwide, which meant I could live and die (mostly die) with them night after night. (It also meant that to this day the Braves have devoted fans in team-less places like Nebraska and Idaho.)
Most of those Braves teams were not very good. My friend Joe Posnanski wrote a piece about Turner that included the Braves’ lineup from 1983, which he (and I) can recite from memory. I texted him afterward to tell him I went to a game that year where outfielder Claudell Washington got into a brawl with Montreal Expos pitcher Scott Sanderson. This is not to be confused with Washington’s famous brawl with Reds pitcher Mario Soto in 1984, or the even more famous Braves-Padres brawl two months after that, which involved injured Braves third baseman Bob Horner coming down from the press box to fend off a furious Padres player. Washington was only tangentially involved in that brawl. But he sure did like to brawl.
The thing that came to mind first when I heard that Turner died was the night the Braves finally won the World Series in 1995—ten years after the Rick Camp Game. I happened to be in Atlanta that night, watching the game with my friends David and Cathy. I think that was the first night I really understood the word catharsis—the release of all that pent-up frustration from all those losing years. We couldn’t get enough. We watched all the postgame show and then the extra coverage on local Atlanta TV. At some point Ted Turner wandered onto the field and a reporter pointed a microphone in his face. Ted was clearly drunk.
There was absolutely no telling what Ted Turner might say in that moment. He was capable of saying something profound that fans would cherish for the rest of their lives. He was capable of saying something that might get him banned from TV forever.
I have tried to find that interview online. But suffice it to say that, at least in my memory, he managed to get through it without making too much of an ass of himself, and every Braves fan watching came away relieved.
That moment was the essence of Ted Turner. Everything was always on the table.
If this edition of the Writing Shed is meaningful to you, consider sharing it with others. That’s how you can help our community grow.
10 things I wanted to share this week:
My earlier post this week was on the New York Times greatest songwriters list, and the value of three simple words: “not for me.” Make sure to dive into the comments, where Shedheads have made some great picks of their own. Upon further review, I’d also like to add one name to my list: Lyle Lovett.
My latest column for SouthPark Magazine and its fellow publications across the state is on a trip to Mount Pleasant, and finding a Mount Pleasant of your own.
David Epstein details something I truly believe: there’s no such thing as multitasking. Monotasking is the way. (The Atlantic)
The Atlantic also reposted my 2024 piece about dogs and grief, adapted from my book DOGLAND. Every time it gets posted I hear from a few more readers struggling with this. It feels good to be able to help.
THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT is ending on May 21, and Colbert is doing a round of exit interviews. I especially enjoyed this one with the Hollywood Reporter … although I guess “enjoyed” is not quite the right word.
Something I enjoyed without reservation: The story of Chonkers, the big-ass sea lion. (NYT)
Thinking about my friend Moni Basu, who wrote a beautiful and frightening piece about her sudden hearing loss. (Word on a Wing)
I stayed up late a couple of nights finishing Tana French’s THE KEEPER, the third in her trilogy about an American detective who retires to rural Ireland and finds just as much trouble there. I’m not sure I’ve read a series of books that depict a place so vividly.
We also watched the first episode of SCARPETTA, based on the Patricia Cornwell crime novels. It’s a little gruesome for my taste, but it’s stuffed with fine actors: Nicole Kidman, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bobby Cannavale, Simon Baker and Ariana DeBose. Although my favorite actor in the show is someone I didn’t know: Rosy McEwen, who plays a younger version of Kidman’s character. (Amazon Prime Video)
I spent a lot of time this week browsing through music and video of songwriters, because of that New York Times package, and stumbled across this crazy artifact: Elliott Smith performing on a morning-zoo TV show from 1995. Smith was the king of melancholy, and to see him painfully field questions from the obnoxious host (Tom Bergeron, who went on to host AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS and DANCING WITH THE STARS) is the ultimate in cringe TV. But then he plays “Clementine.” I don’t know if it moved anyone in that studio. But I’m sure it changed the life of someone watching that morning.
Elliott Smith was ineligible for the Greatest Living American Songwriters list, having died in 2003 from what may or may not have been suicide.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
—TT
My books DOGLAND and THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM are available in all formats pretty much everywhere books are sold.
And now, Bobby Cox has passed away.
Yes, yes, yes, Lyle Lovett should be on all the songwriters lists!