By: William Earl Robinson
As many people who are reading this page, many can probably empathize with me as I am getting ready to move again. Now, I’m no stranger to moving. This has been the fourth time that I have moved in my life, but this time is a bit different. This time I’m moving to a city that has a major league baseball team! That’s right I’m getting ready to move to Atlanta, Georgia home of the Atlanta Braves. In fact I’m probably going to live less than 20 minutes from the park in all likelihood based on my job. So now I’m a bit torn should I stick with my previous fandom the Cincinnati Reds or should I switch allegiances and start cheering on the Braves?
Let’s go back in time to a previous circumstance where I was faced with this decision before. Growing up I was a die-hard Kentucky Wildcats fan. I mean die hard. I still remember the night of the Christian Laettner shot and I remember crying myself to sleep. I never thought that I could like another college basketball team, but then I went to the University of Louisville for medical school. Well Rick Pitino was their coach and I was a student at the school and could get season tickets very cheaply and so I did. And before you knew it I was a fan of the University of Louisville Cardinals. I still am, and to be honest it’s about 50/50 who I’m going to cheer for when the two teams play each other. Now I know that upsets a lot of die-hard fanatics out there but I can’t help it. Honestly it makes college basketball more enjoyable because I have two teams I cheer for and more of a chance that my team will win it all.
So that brings me back to the Braves. I’m planning on adopting them. I’m going to add to my fandom family by one and hopefully the two kids will play nice together. I mean who wouldn’t love to adopt the Braves, they’ve got a good young team with a rich farm system and they should be very good in a couple years, they have a rich history with such amazing players as Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews and Warren Spahn, not to mention recent Hall of Famers like Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and soon to be Hall of Famer Chipper Jones.
They’ve got an amazing new stadium coming up and they are on TV pretty much wherever you go. I think that living there is going to make it easy to be a Braves fan.
Now I can just hear the traditionalist fans groaning and moaning, “Bandwagon fan!” I’ve heard all of that before. You can’t be a fan of more than one team. Well if you can love more than one child you sure as heck can cheer for more than one baseball team. I mean it’s not like I’m married to that team, and even then what’s wrong with an open relationship? I mean my team has way more than one fan! So I don’t see the big deal. And those traditionalist are going to say, what about when they play each other? Well here’s what I’ll do. If the game is more significant for one team I’ll cheer for them. If its’ insignificant or significant for both teams then I’ll just watch and enjoy great baseball. I mean I love the game and I could just enjoy great baseball no matter who I watch.
So I guess my baseball family has grown! I’m going to be a Braves fan! Now bring on those Braves baseball cards!!!