He’d already climbed on Bobby Cox’s statue to give The Skipper a bear hug. So when Joey Stuckey turned a corner at SunTrust Park last Friday night and encountered maybe his all-time favorite Brave, it just made sense he’d rub his hands all over John Smoltz’s face.
"Wait, does Smoltzie have a beard?" Stuckey asked excitedly as his fingered the whiskers on the life-sized bobblehead of the Hall of Fame pitcher located on a lower concourse at the new stadium. "I never knew that! I have a whole new image in my mind of what he looks like now."
That wasn’t merely a figure of speech. Stuckey, 40, is blind, a fact that hardly seems to weaken the bond the Macon resident enjoys with baseball.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Stuckey and his wife, Jennifer, are devoted Braves fans who rarely miss a game on radio or TV -- and who took in as many as eight games per season when the team played at Turner Field downtown.
But last Friday’s night’s game against the San Diego Padres was to be the couple’s first ever home opener. And they left nothing to chance, driving up from Macon a day early, overnighting in a nearby hotel and then Uber-ing over to the stadium nearly four hours before first pitch to take in everything the new location had to offer.
To read all about their experiences -- and about professional musician Stuckey's dream of using his own talents to give back to the game he loves so much -- read the full story on myAJC.com.
