Astronomers at the U.S. Naval Observatory say summer will arrive just before midnight on June 20.

With all due respect ... what the heck do they know?

Hyosub Shin/AJC (ENLARGE)

Ben Childers tends to the infield Thursday at Turner Field in preparation for the Braves' exhibition game Friday night.

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Summer, for all intents and purposes, begins Friday at 7:10 p.m., when the Atlanta Braves finally return to Turner Field to play the Cleveland Indians. It's only a preseason game — a chance for Chipper, Smoltzie, et al. to knock the sand out of their cleats after weeks of spring training in Florida, and for fans to get in some stress-free Tomahawk Chop practice.

But while the final score won't show up in the standings, this moment still counts. A lot.

Baseball is back. Can pure, unadulterated bliss be far behind?

"I feel like a kid again, myself, on the day before school lets out for summer vacation," Thomas Woodruff exhaled happily Thursday morning at Turner Field. Behind him, daughter Bailey's Carrollton Elementary School kindergarten class clambered about the Braves' dugout during a stadium tour. In front of him, the baseball diamond glowed emerald green and endlessly promising. "It's the anticipation of all those months of sun and great play to come."

Of course, this being Atlanta, those "months of sun" will also be accompanied by 110 percent humidity much of the time and a drought that appears determined not to end until it's drained every last swimming pool from here to Hahira.

As for the "great play," well, we'll see. After two consecutive third-place division finishes, the Braves seem ready to contend for a division crown once more; then again, the Hawks and Thrashers seemed ready to play professional sports this year, and look how that's turned out.

Oh, let's not. Indeed, it was awfully hard to dwell on anything negative Thursday as Turner Field went through its own final spring training paces. Just outside the entry turnstiles in Monument Grove, workers raced to finish affixing an enormous mural that by tonight will read "Longest Continuously Operating Franchise In Major League Baseball History." In right field, the yellow tape that denotes the home run line was going up. Down in one area of the stadium's service-level depths, pallets of hamburger buns and shrink-wrapped cases of beer stood ready for action; in another, a pile of dirt just perfect for kicking all over an umpire awaited its moment in the sun.

Back outside, a shorts-clad, rake-wielding Joe DiPlacido fussed over the red clay around home plate as obsessively as Martha Stewart frosting a wedding cake. It was less about aesthetics than player safety, the eight-year grounds crew vet said.

"You've got to even the edges out, even though it's only a quarter-inch high," said DiPlacido, 26, pointing to the area where the clay ended and the grass began. "You don't want a catcher [who's] chasing a foul ball to trip and get injured. We don't want any fingers pointed at us."

No, no injuries. No finger pointing. And no shortage of endless summery thoughts at the beginning of another baseball season when it seems nothing could possibly go wrong and everyone starts with a clean slate: Everybody's batting a thousand.

The wizened pitching staff isn't too old yet, just super-experienced and crafty. And manager Bobby Cox, who last year broke the all-time game ejection record, is a perfect angel so far.

If you're scoring at home, mark it down: pure, unadulterated bliss.