ROME -- The sign atop State Mutual Stadium's visitors dugout warns in big black letters on yellow police-style tape: "Caution, balls and objects may enter stands."
Funny, a free baseball leaving the field in our direction, even a screaming line drive, was the fondest hope of my 10-year-old son, Ross.
Ditto his brand new friend, Landon Bishop, a 9-year-old from nearby Adairsville who makes it his singular mission when he attends Rome Braves' games to glove foul balls or cajole as many free ones as possible from players and coaches. This is Landon's home field, while Ross, a huge Atlanta Braves fan whether watching in person at Turner Field or on TV, was road-trippin' for the first time to this scaled-down northwest Georgia stadium.
With Father's Day approaching, Ross and I were getting into the spirit a little early, checking out the Braves' two close-by farm teams. Baseball is a bond we've shared, like a lot of dads and sons (and moms and sons and dads and daughters ...), since he was a baby on my knee, surrendering to the serotonin spell of Braves nighttime telecasts.
First we caught a game at Coolray Field in Lawrenceville, home to the Gwinnett Braves, smack dab in Atlanta's northern suburbs, not even 45 minutes from Turner Field. And then a week later, we sojourned to Rome, less than two hours north of Atlanta, between Cartersville and Chattanooga. The Gwinnett Braves play in the Class Triple-A International League, the closest of any top-level minor league team to its major-league parent anywhere in the country, while Rome competes in the Class Single-A South Atlantic League, a few rungs down the baseball ladder.
Georgia also is home to two other minor league teams, both in the South Atlantic League: the Augusta GreenJackets (an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants) and the Savannah Sand Gnats (New York Mets). But we concentrated our first father-son baseball outings of summer on the Braves' two Peach State farm teams, not just for the easy proximity but because some of our favorite current Atlanta players have honed their talents at these stops on their ways to the "Show."
Since their run of 14 straight division titles ended in 2005, the Braves have been remaking the team mainly by developing talent in the minors instead of via the more costly route of signing pricey free agents. For instance, last year's National League rookie of the year, closer Craig Kimbrel, and the runner-up, first baseman Freddie Freeman, tore things up in Rome and Gwinnett on their way to auspicious Atlanta debuts.
The good and bad news for farm teams is, the better the players play, the sooner they will be movin' on up. That's why minor league teams traditionally put a lot of emphasis on providing a family-friendly, promotion-heavy overall game experience, selling the sizzle as much as the steak in their cozier parks.
Rome seats a little over 5,000 and Gwinnett 7,500, not counting room for as many as 3,000 to picnic or play on the berm just beyond the outfield wall. In these smaller stadiums, nightly contests and diversions come fast and furious every half inning and have more resonance than at expansive Turner Field, with its 50,000-plus capacity.
"We can't promote the fact that Julio Teheran is pitching for us, because we never know when he's going to be called up," Gwinnett general manager North Johnson said of one of baseball's top prospects. "So we have to think creative and come up with those fun, irreverent things that minor league baseball is known for."
Speaking of, as Johnson was talking,, he was gamely wearing a blond mullet wig, pink polo shirt and a sports jacket with its sleeves pushed up, looking like Don Johnson in his "Miami Vice" prime, for '80s Night at Coolray Field.
To better pull fans into the contests, pepperoni pizza giveaways and other festivities, the teams each has, in addition to the typical booming-voiced announcer, cheery emcees constantly moving between the stands and the field. All could recite a list of historic catastrophes and make it sound upbeat.
The mascots earn their keep too. In Rome, the Smurf-like Romey came up short in "Are You Smarter Than Romey?" and "Race Romey" contests (Las Vegas odds always favor the fans). Rome also boasts the Braves Brigade, pom-pom-wielding, hip-shaking cheerleaders who lend an occasional Hooters feel to the proceedings.
All that entertainment frequently had our minds wandering from the on-field action in both ballparks, perhaps prompted by the fact that both home teams fell behind early and never threatened. Still, the games were well played and the seats so close that we could hear the rhythm of fastballs popping into catchers mitts and fielders calling off teammates for pop-ups.
We could feel the competitive intensity at Rome when, in the bottom of the second inning, Greenville Drive manager Carlos Febles was tossed from the game by the home plate umpire for arguing a call. On a scorching day with temperatures topping 90, Ross speculated that Febles was simply seeking refuge in the Drive's air-conditioned bus. Since he had to exit the field through the outfield fence, close to the Miller Lite Marina restaurant, I guessed that he was simply hungry for its $12 shrimp bucket advertised on a big billboard facing the visitors dugout.
It was all lighthearted fun, but I could tell Ross was dead serious about catching a foul ball. He got his first first one at Gwinnett by standing pensively with his baseball glove at the ready on the berm overlooking the visitors' outfield bullpen. Eventually a Charlotte Knights relief pitcher who had been warming up tossed the ball to my son, who broke into a sweet I-just-got-a-puppy smile.
Moving around the stands at the Rome game in pursuit of his red-stitched grail a week later, Ross was having less luck, which is why he took immediate interest in Landon, a more grizzled veteran at this particular sport. In mid-boast about the three balls he'd acquired that day, Landon accidentally dropped one back on the field. When it rolled out of reach, he seemed surprisingly unfazed.
Turns out, he had a game plan: He started staring at the Braves' first base coach like a Vulcan performing a "Star Trek" mind meld. Shortly, Carlos Medez trotted over during a break in the action, smiled and flipped the errant orb back into the kid's glove.
Then, a few minutes later, pay dirt for my son. A Rome Brave fouled off a ball over the first-base dugout and Ross pounced on it, out-hustling the wily Landon.
"We're all about baseball," said his dad, Neil Bishop, an Applebee's manager who had taken refuge from the sun nearby under Bubba's BBQ Barn's expansive awning. "We play a lot of sports, but baseball is our sport."
I knew what he meant. We immediately fell into a conversation about collecting baseball cards as kids and how the accompanying free stick of gum was delicious even when so stale it would snap in two in your mouth. And how I could recite the starting lineups of every Major League team for a year or two when I was a boy, hard to believe now that my mind is glutted with less-fun figures such as bills I owe.
Now I see a bit of my younger, happier-go-lucky self in my son, the wavy-haired kid in the Phil Niekro Braves T-shirt who intermittently winds up and fires imaginary fastballs in our house to a catcher only he sees. Ross is learning to play first base on his Little League team, imitating the long stretch for errant throws of Braves first-sacker Freeman.
As soon as he had secured his free baseball at State Mutual Stadium, the boy had a final mission: "Now we can go to the store!"
One requisite T-shirt purchase later, I asked him on the stroll to the car which Braves farm team he had enjoyed checking out the most and which he wanted to revisit later this summer.
"Both," he answered, without hesitation.
That's my baseball-smitten boy.
Gwinnett Braves
Stadium: Coolray Field, 2500 Buford Drive, Lawrenceville
Year opened: 2009
Capacity: 7,500 seats with another 3,000 for general admission berm seating and standing room only
Tickets: $8-$35; $6-$35 ages 3-12, 60-plus and military; outfield lawn seating (general admission), $6, $5 ages 3-12, 60-plus and military; free for children 2 and under
Mascot: Chopper, an always-smiling groundhog
Price of a hot dog: $3.50
Price of liquid refreshment: $6 beer, $3.50 soft drink
Information: 678-277-0300, www.gwinnettbraves.com
Rome Braves
Stadium: State Mutual Stadium, 755 Braves Blvd., Rome
Year opened: 2003
Capacity: 5,105
Upcoming games: 2014 schedule and promotional nights
Tickets: $6 box seats, $8 field seats, $10 club seats
Top prospects: pitchers David Filak and Navery Moore
Mascots: Romey and Roxie, cartoonish male-female duo born, according to legend, where Rome's three rivers meet
Price of a hot dog: $3
Price of liquid refreshment: $4.75 beer, $2.50 soft drink
Information: 706-368-9388, www.romebraves.com
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