AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2006 > May > 10
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Prime time to gut Fish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After watching the floundering Marlins last night at a stadium more than nine-tenths empty (seriously, there were barely 6,000 tickets sold), then listening to the excellent new Red Hot Chili Peppers CD this morning in my Fort Lauderdale hotel, an unusual thought came to me, one that may seem completely incomprehensible to others but at least made sense to me. And since it’s a blog, I’ll share it with you.
The Cliff’s Notes version: I’m at the 1991 Lollapalooza concert, the first year of that Perry Farrell-birthed music festival, at the muddy Central Florida fairgrounds in Orlando (at least I think that’s what it was called). The Chili Peppers close the long, long day of music with a killer set in which they wore some strange light-bulb type things on their head with fire coming out of them. Or something like that. Anyway, it was an outstanding show.
Then I remembered that it wasn’t the Chili Peppers; the Chili Peppers were at the second Lollapalooza, in 1992, which I also saw, in Miami the day before Hurricane Andrew hit. But anyway, the link to the CD this morning and last night’s game was too good, in my mind, to let pass. So I committed to linking the two in a blog. Hey, just stay with me.
For the record, it was Jane’s Addiction that closed that remarkable first Lollapalooza show, the one I saw at Orlando.
Anyway, after they were done - Jane’s, not the Peppers - and as my ears were ringing and each step I took made a horrid squishing sound of a foot coming out of deep mud, I looked around and realized that none of the five or six people I came to the show was anywhere near me. The place was like Dawn of the Dead, with wasted people walking around in the mud, making their way out of the fairgrounds, and the one image that struck me was all the shoes, stray, unmatched shoes, that were stuck in the mud all around the fairgrounds.
People enjoying the show had literally come out of their shoes, and in the chaos they didn’t dare reach down and try to find them, for fear of being trampled or whatever by wild-eyed, bloodthirsty youths (or me).
OK, if you’ve made it this far, the link: The Marlins are like those of us who were wandering around after that show, looking for our rides back to South Florida or wherever we were headed. The Marlins last night, in that rainy, empty stadium, looked so lost, so stunned by what was happening around them. Folks, this is a completely overmatched bunch of baseball players, a talented group of players who are just here way too early and don’t have a single veteran leader to show them how to play and win at this level. Florida ownership has done them and their fans a huge disservice. It’s a shame.: It’s sad, really. Unless you’re the Braves, who just lost seven straight road games to fall nine games out of first place before winning Sunday at New York and then coming to South Florida.
The timing absolutely couldn’t be better for the Braves’ visit to South Florida, where they pounded the neophyte Fish 10-2 last night and should do the same the next two nights. Then they get the Marlins for four more games next week, after three against the Nationals.
In a 10-day span, the Braves have a legit chance to trim more than half of the Mets’ lead that looked so frightening to many Braves fans a few days ago. And don’t worry that the Marlins have moved Dontrelle up a day to pitch Thursday’s series finale against Tim Hudson - this isn’t Willis as you know him. Something’s either wrong with his arm or his head, because he’s 0-3 with an ERA over 7 in his past four starts, and the Braves have hit him more often than not anyway, with the glaring exception of the five-hit shutout he threw at them a year ago in Atlanta in June.
OK, I’ve gotta get ready and get to the park. Sorry if I took you down a winding road that some of you baseball-only blog purists didn’t want to travel. But hey, it does us good sometimes to go places we don’t want to go, right? Like taking the kids to the Washington Monument (my parents took me; man, it was hot and dad barely cracked the window as he smoked Winstons and drove mom and us three kids up from N.C. in the Gran Torino to D.C…. but I digress).
I wish I could share with you the state of mind I was in that night at Lollapalooza, and other things that happened to me and my buds on that glorious trip to Orlando, but hey, I fear that the statute of limitations hasn’t expired on some matters, and others can’t be discussed in these politically correct times anyway.
Needless to say, it was a long time ago, and your correspondent has long since gotten clear-minded and serious about his mission.
Over and out, folks. Davies against someone named Josh Johnson tonight.
