You never know how kids are going to act in public places.
Each time Callie and I brave taking our 2-year-old, Ellie, and 7-month-old, Sarah, out to eat, it’s a gamble as to whether one or both will have a complete meltdown.
Ellie is pretty easy to please when it comes to food, but Sarah is of the age where she wants to eat everything in sight, but she lacks the teeth that would allow her to do so.
That can be frustrating, both for the 7-month-old, and the parents who are helpless to explain these things to her.
Adults are a little more predictable when it comes to public behavior. That is unless you’re talking about the difference between me eating at the local diner or me attending a Major League Baseball game.
It’s true.
I become a totally different person when I go to an Atlanta Braves game.
I’m a die-hard fan, but every frustration I’ve penned up while watching the team implode on television is released when I get to SunTrust Park (Turner Field in the past).
It doesn’t matter if I’m in the $10 cheap seats or if I’m sitting on the third base line. I’m going to yell “What are your thinking?” to the Braves manager at the top of my lungs.
It’s quite embarrassing for my wife, but she saw me do this a number of times before she married me.
Last week, the family traveled to Atlanta to take in our first game of the 2018 season. The Braves were playing the Mets on a cool Saturday night in front of a sell out crowd.
I got seats along the third base line. We were close enough for a couple of foul balls to miss us by just a few feet.
My friend John Florio, a New York native and lifelong Mets fan, joined us for the game, as did my brother, Alex.
Prior to taking our seats, we were loitering around our section, indecisive, as we were trying to find a place to put our double stroller. An attendant came over and ever so rudely told us were going to have to move.
She informed us that we would have to check the stroller in at Guest Services, again, ever so rudely.
The game went along smoothly, tied 0-0 through the first seven innings.
The gloves came off in the top of the eighth when Braves Manager Brian Snitker took starter Julio Teheran out of the game with under 100 pitches.
Having grown up in the Maddox, Glavine and Smoltz era, I don’t like seeing pitchers come out of games with under 100 pitches, especially if the game is tied 0-0.
I didn’t pay to watch Sam Freeman come in and lose the lead in the eighth, and I shouted that at the top of my lungs.
I was really giving it to Snitker, or whoever could hear me.
By this point, John was doubled over in his seat laughing.
“I’ve never seen him like this,” he told my wife. “I’m like this every day, but I’ve never seen him raise his voice.”
Ellie and Sarah sat quietly through virtually the entire game, with Sarah taking a nice long nap.
By the end of the top of the eighth, the reliever had given up three runs, and it looked like the Mets were on easy street.
I decided to go ahead and retrieve the stroller from Guest Services so that when the game ended, we could get out of there as fast as possible.
I get back to our section with the stroller a few minutes later to find that in the bottom of the ninth, the Braves had a runner on with nobody out.
I knew I couldn’t get back to my seat in time to see the at-bat, so I stood at the top of the steps to watch it play out.
Enter the attendant from earlier.
She was even more rude than the first time, shouting at me to get out of that space and to get my stroller out of there.
It’s the bottom of the ninth, and nobody has been in that space all game long. I wasn’t hurting anything by standing there, and I told her so in an ever so rude tone of voice.
She ushered me back, and at that moment, Johan Camargo slapped a game-tying triple to the outfield. I turned and watched the attendant jumping up and down cheering for the rallying Braves.
I felt like Walter Mathou in the Odd Couple when Jack Lemon made him miss a triple play, ironically at a Mets game, just so he could talk about dinner.
I walked over to the attendant after the play was over, and I said, “I’m happy you got to see the play!”
Moments later, the Braves won the game on a bunt hit that scored Camargo from third.
Fast forward a week, and Callie and I are pondering our lunch options after church. We decide on Mexican.
Wouldn’t you know it? The same two angels that sat through seven innings of shutout baseball a week earlier were melting down in the restaurant, Sarah, grabbing at every plate on the table, and Ellie diving under the table repeatedly, switching from one side of the booth to the other.
As I sat there, embarrassed at the noise level our table was creating, I thought, “How could this be the same duo that stomached an entire baseball game just seven days ago?”
But I guess adults go to baseball games to scream at the top of their lungs, and babies and toddlers go to restaurants to do the same.
Neither one should be a surprise at this point.
