Saying goodbye to The Ted

News alert: The Atlanta Braves have 24 home games left in Turner Field.

Unless they make the playoffs.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

That’s two dozen chances to say goodbye to a great ballpark. Or as Google Maps now labels it, “Nostalgia-filled modern baseball stadium.”

Bess and I took our kids to see last Saturday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies. With our second child leaving home for college in a couple of days, it was our last Turner Field experience as a family.

We’ve been doing it for the past 14 years, since not long after the birth of our fourth child. These trips became a family tradition – not just attending the game, but all the little things that came with it.

We always took our own dinner into the stadium – usually a bucket of chicken but sometimes Boston butts or bratwurst I’d grilled at home and even whole pies. It never failed: the folks at the gate would always told us they were going to eat with us.

We also took our own snacks, including Buddy Bars, Star Crunch, Gummi Bears and peanuts roasted and salted in the shell. And lots of water and sports drinks.

Down to a science.

We’d get dollar tickets, preferably the ones on the third-base line. We’d battle for balls during batting practice, then head up to the picnic tables high above left field, where we’d walk under the mist machine, run from third to home on the replica base path, and then sit down to dinner.

On the way to our seats, we’d stop at the rail above the players’ parking lot and stare at the Ferraris and Mazeratis and Lamborghinis.

The game featured baseball, of course, but also the Tool Race, Tomahawk Chop and Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Something for everybody.

When it was over, we’d head to the mini-van, which would be parked in one of those shady-looking private lots off Hank Aaron. In minutes, we’d be riding north, hopping on I-85 and then heading home.

On Saturday, we did the usual stuff, and it was great. We brought a Bojangles picnic box and the usual snacks and even some giant foam fingers.

They were honoring the 1991 worst-to-first team, so the first 20,000 fans actually got a replica National League Championship ring, which is another way to say a second-place World Series ring. Our family now owns six of them. The cursive A looks like it’s encrusted with genuine diamelles.

Beautiful.

Batting practice was replaced by a 1991 vs. Legends softball game, which featured Sid Bream pitching to Francisco Cabrera, which was a nice touch.

John Rocker took the mound for the Legends. Yeah, a legend in his own mind.

We headed up to the picnic area, which was strangely barren. The mist machines weren’t misting and a few security guys with walkie-talkies had replaced the army of cheery base-path attendants.

Here’s another change: We didn’t see a single Italian automobile in the players’ lot. We did see a Mazda and a Saturn.

I’m not kidding.

I guess the Braves’ success is directly proportional to the quality of automobiles in the players’ parking lot.

Sure enough, the Braves’ bullpen collapsed in the seventh inning and they lost by four runs.

But that didn’t matter. It felt nostalgic – or nostalgia-filled.

For a moment, we forgot Smoltzie and Craig Kimbrell. While we shifted our runner-up rings on our fingers, we reminisced about Roman Colon, Dan Kolb and Bob Wickman.

Sure, we enjoyed all the pennants. But mostly, we enjoyed everything that went with them, and we enjoyed being together.

I’m sure SunTrust Park will be flashy and nice, but the Ted will always be our home field.

This story was originally published August 5, 2016 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Saying goodbye to The Ted."