Lawrenceville

On Heading South

Terminal C, again

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Atlanta, GA


Outside the Game:
So, I was heading out to the airport straight after work for a long weekend, and after the trials I had with my last trip, I was hoping that the travel gods were at least going to show me some mercy this time out.

I got out of work and to the airport with a minimum of fuss, although one of the more annoying account managers from work was flying out of Newark Airport that night as well. She threatened to find me and be annoying until my flight, so I left work quietly to avoid traveling with her. Once I figured out my gate, I found out where her gate was, located her, and then went to have dinner at a restaurant at the other end of the terminal from both of our flights. The meal was adequate, but uninterrupted.

It was another really cheap upgrade to first class, so I grabbed that, and almost immediately the travel gods struck me down for my impudence by delaying the flight an hour. The good news was that the delay in this case was, in fact, just an hour. The bad news was my fellow patrons.

There was some sort of con going on in Atlanta for Labor Day weekend. And two of the patrons were in the first-class line with me. Now, I love my fellow nerds; I really do. It is just that sometimes they really, really need to dial it the hell down, because they aren't doing the rest of us any favors. This was stereotypical geek couple #4: There was the slightly pudgy guy with Cheetos beard, and his objectively out-of-his-league blonde girlfriend who was clearly just with him because she had real self-esteem issues. He was the first nerd in her sphere to have the bright idea to actually ask her out and make her feel validated, and she said yes because she thought she was unlovable. I’m not being mean; I’ve just seen this dozens of times before.

And they were talking, constantly, loudly, about everything, trying really, really hard to keep up what they estimated (incorrectly) to be witty banter. And he was "coyly" making inappropriate and sexist jokes behind the guise of not knowing why his companion was with him, and she was trying to be the demure sex kitten. And of course they were going to the con as The Joker and Harley Quinn, and of course he was talking about how she really had the body for it, and of course they wouldn't stop loudly talking about it. It was just really, really embarrassing.

For many reasons, I was extremely relieved when we boarded, and they were in the very first row of first class, and I was in the very last, and that was very, very okay with me. My row mate was an overworked businessman who was coming home from China with this being his last connecting flight home, so he was out like a light nearly immediately, and I enjoyed some solitude on the flight down in my first-class decadence.

When we arrived, we got delayed getting to a gate, but still, it was late, but not too late. However, when I got to pick up my rental car, there was a huge line waiting. I would eventually find out that this was because that not only was there a comic book convention in town that weekend, it was also the Atlanta Pride parade. So, I had all that traffic to look forward to.

Spark one up, dude.

But I eventually got my Chevy Spark, and I was set to be asleep before 1 AM. My hotel was only ten minutes away, and I was all packed in with my GPS going, and no sweat.

First of all, whoever designed the airport in Atlanta, or, more specifically, the roads in the airport around Atlanta, I want to die a slow and painful, painful death. I followed the GPS directions, and they lead nowhere. I tried again, and it led to gates leading to the tarmac. I tried using the car's GPS system instead of my own GPS, and it actually took me back to the terminal. It was after 1 AM at this point, I was pretty tired, and there seemed to be literally no way out of the airport.

I think I ended up trying two or three more times to follow the GPS before completely cracking. I calmly took an assessment of the situation and came up with a new plan. No, wait, that wasn't it. I pulled out to the side of the road and started screaming at the top of my lungs while assaulting my rental car and shouting as many disparaging statements as I could think of about Atlanta and everyone in it. Yes, that was it.

There was a "screw it" moment, and I kept the hotel address in the GPS, and I found a main highway and got on it. I drove for a good five minutes, ignoring the plaintive pleas of the calm GPS voice that I was going in the wrong direction, and then I started to follow the directions again. This proved to work, and I arrived at the hotel in about fifteen minutes, finally.

Of course, at this point, it was nearly two AM. I rolled into the Country Inn & Suites in College Park to be greeted by a cop car sitting in the parking lot. It did not appear to be going anywhere, so I was debating whether to be re-assured or horrified that there was going to be a police presence in the parking lot of my hotel all night, and what exactly prompted its need?

I was too tired to care all that much at this point. I stumbled in to a very sympathetic counterperson at the hotel, who told me that the airport is always a mess, that she was going to put me in the quietest room she had, and if I slept too late, she would save me a little something from the breakfast buffet. Had things allowed, I would have married that elderly black woman just then, but I merely dragged all the stuff up to my room and passed out. However, her gesture was so welcome that I stayed there again on my way out of time after the weekend.


The Accommodations:

County Inn & Suites

I eventually made it to the Country Inn & Suites. Outside of the necessary police presence, I couldn't muster any complaints about the service-- or the room for that matter. There was a nice king-sized bed and an easy chair, along with a dresser, TV, and desk on the opposite wall.

The "quietest room she had" turned out to be handicap accessible, so I had a bigger than average bathroom, just with all the extra hardware that entailed and everything a little bit lower than expected.

But the air conditioning was already on and the bed worked, so I was lights out by 2:30 in the damn morning.

On a Brutal, Brutal Beating

Coolray Field, 2016

Friday, September 2, 2016
Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay Rays) vs.
Gwinnett Braves (Atlanta Braves)
Coolray Field
International League (AAA)
Lawrenceville, GA
7:05 PM


Outside the Game:
I did wake up late the next day, but not so late that I missed breakfast. The nice old lady was still behind the counter, so I waved to her sleepily on my way to whatever was on offer. She smiled and waved back. I have every confidence she was going to squirrel away some food for me if I didn't show up. I... I love you, old lady.

It was under an hour to the park for a night game, so I got my money's worth out of my hotel room until the last possible minute. After checking out, I headed up 85 and got the park with little issue. It was dreary and overcast when I got there, so I collected my ticket, took my pictures, and decided to find my next hotel.

A short drive later I was at the Courtyard in the "Mall of Georgia," and I could, in fact, check in early. Since there was literally nothing to do in this area (it was until recently a forest that had been cleared for development), I asked around for lunch places, and I was told there was some chain restaurant or other just up the road in the Mall proper. And so I went and had lunch, and then trundled back to my room and crashed out for a very, very long nap. I had ironically set an alarm on my iPad to wake me up in time for the game, and as it turned out, thank god, because it was the only thing that roused me awake to grab my game bag and drive back to the park.

After the game, I had a quick drive back to the hotel. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get to sleep given the nap I had earlier, but that fear was completely misplaced.


The Stadium & Fans:

Home plate to center field, Coolray Field

For starters, this park is named "Coolray Field," which is ridiculous enough before you realize it is named for an air conditioner concern that saw fit to name itself "Coolray." I can't really decide which is more disturbing.

At any rate, Lawrenceville, GA is carved out of what was a heavily forested area. They have replaced this area with strip malls, "The Mall of Georgia," and Coolray Field. Trying to make this a magnet for development or some such, they have built a condo complex behind the outfield (also, presumably, to prevent the park view of being a barren hillside) called the "Views at Coolray." (Not incidentally, I want to smack everyone involved with this area's development.) The condo's pool complex looks out over right field (leading to a lot of skeevy-looking guys in speedos watching the game), and the complex has its own right field entrance.

The park itself is fine, if a little odd, but it isn't a AAA ballpark. It is nice enough for the mid-level minors, but for something that is supposed to be one step away from the majors, it is a little on the chintzy side and it does not bear comparison with other parks in the International League.

The main entrance is a weird little pavilion under welcome sun shades and semi-transparent pictures of Larry, Bobby Cox, and Hank Aaron. It was a little Orwellian, but when I was waiting to enter in the early evening sun, I would take shade behind the devil himself. The ticket office and the team store flank the main entrance on the pavilion.

Once you get inside, you find yourself on a wide promenade at the top of one row of seats, plus the luxury and press boxes and party decks on an upper level above first to third base. This would be a good AA park, but at the AAA level, it was just... off. The promenade runs all around the park and dumps out onto the picnic berm that covers the outfield areas. All the concessions, stores, and the small kids’ area in left are on the main promenade.

An up-to-date giant video board is perched in left, and a smaller video board is in the wall in right field, just below the majestic view of condos. Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron are retired out in right field, and there are some additional dedication plaques outside in the main entrance on pillars next to a pitcher's mound garden.

Chopper. Sure, whatever, I guess.

Chopper the Beaver was the mascot, and he kept schmoozing with the thin crowd for most of the game, while being helped by the human crew to do the standard games and races and whatnot. Considering that this could have been a playoff-clinching game, the nearly non-existent crowd didn't speak well for the local support of the team, and only a small subset of that crowd was left at the end of the long game, mostly, it seemed, to do the post-game toss-a-ball and go home.


At the Game with Oogie:

AAA Scoring

As Coolray Field had not yet extended the "protective" netting, I got tickets right behind third base for the game. The “local” food offerings didn't excite me, so I ended up getting a Braves dog and a souvenir soda for dinner.

Braves dog and souvenir soda

There was a quiet enough family in front of me, but behind me were three of the reddest rednecks you ever did red. This was right in the start of the Kaepernick scandal, and one of them declared loudly that he would kick the ass of anyone who knelt during the anthem. That was just the start of those festivities. I ascertained that two of them were father and son. Whenever there was just two of the three together, they proceeded to viciously badmouth the person who wasn't there. All three combos continued this goodwill tour. The topics of conversation were similarly deplorable. I was tempted to quote some choice comments to the person returning the next time, but I felt it wasn't worth it to unite three mouth breathing rednecks against me on the first night of the trip.


The Game:

First pitch, Bulls vs. Braves

One hesitates to use the term "brutal bloody murder" without proper context, but this game certainly qualified. Spoilers: It was a 14-0 blowout, with the Braves getting only 2 hits, and only one should have counted. The Braves were trying to clinch their division win in the International League and instead got murdered in front of a home crowd.

Actually, we can skip through the Braves entire game. Outside of back-to-back walks with one out in the bottom of the first, they did nothing. They went in order seven innings out of nine, had two hits (one of them very questionable) and five total baserunners, and two of those got erased on double plays. The best that can be said of them is that they only struck out five times.

The Bulls started scoring in the first, with a one-out walk, a single, and a sacrifice fly. Again, in the second they had two short singles, a walk, and a sacrifice fly. Two hits, a walk, an error, and a sac fly brought in two in the third. The wheels completely came off in the fourth, with a new reliever giving up five runs on two hit batsmen, a homer, a triple (really an E9, but what can you do?), an intentional walk, and a double that took them exactly around the order. Perhaps tired from all the running, they failed to score in the fifth, but had a leadoff homer in the sixth to get them back in the habit. Four more crossed in the seventh with two outs, thanks to a walk, a double, another walk, another double, and two singles, leaving it at 14-0. The Bulls threatened in the eighth and ninth, but they got no one home even though they had runners on third in both frames, but you know, people can only run so much.


The Scorecard:

Bulls vs. Braves, 09/02/16. Bulls win, 14-0.

The scorecard for the Gwinnett Braves was very similar to their major-league counterparts, meaning that it was on good card stock, but for no good reason, incredibly cramped.

It was a no-hitter through six on the Braves, who ended with just two hits. One of them, in the eighth, was clearly an E6 gift to the home team. A similar gift was the Bulls’ triple in the top of the fourth, which should have been an E9, as it was a misplayed fly ball that hit the right fielders glove and then was not backed up, yet it was ruled a hit.

There were a lot of hit batsman on the Bulls side, as the Braves first reliever plunked two (with quite a pitching line of .6 IP, 3 hits, 5 ER, 1 BB, 1 K), and the Braves position player thrown onto this dumpster fire in the 9th also hit a guy (but with a much better pitching line of 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 1 K). This was also the first game I've seen in person where a position player was allowed to pitch.

There was nothing else notable about it, except the embarrassing amount of runs the Braves gave up.


The Accommodations:

Courtyard Marriott

I stayed this night at the Courtyard Marriott in Buford within the majesty of the "Mall of Georgia." But I had nice enough room with a spacious bathroom right off the entrance, a big old king bed in the bedroom, across from a pullout couch, desk, TV and dresser.

I think I statistically spent the most time in that bed for this entire trip. It lived up to its use and had extra pillows in the closet tossed on for the most pillow fort experience possible.

Click here to see all the photos for this trip.

2016 Labor Day