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07/01/04 -- 1:25 a.m.

I realized our society's fear of silence had gone too far last night when I went to the Braves game (9-6 win over Florida, hour-and-fifteen-minute rain delay, had to leave in the fifth inning because I was with a group, alas). I'm one of those suckers who believes in the purity of the game -- Bud Selig, massive contract, and massive egos aside.

I go into a ballpark and I fully subscribe to the whole notion of it as an "emerald cathedral," of the mathematical purity of the game as espoused by Kinsella in, I think, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, the idea that it's the same game I played in little league, although I never hit a home run then, and I sure couldn't hit one now.

So we're at the game, and the chattering of my co-workers aside, I'm pretty well able to completely lose myself in the game. No worries about work, money, or any of that stuff that seems to chip away at your soul in the course of a normal day. Perhaps this time it was due to the good seats, and the threat of a foul ball screaming upside my skull that kept me riveted (the number of times I got conked in Little League, hoo boy!), but really, it was baseball.

Well, in between innings, when people should be talking to one another, thinking about what they'd just seen, etc., Braves/Turner Field management sees fit to blare music and throw trivia games, crowd quizzes, and roving camera shots on the jumbo screen. In between every inning, some new technicolor, surroundsound distraction.  It was just annoying, as if we couldn't be trusted to be alone with our own thoughts or the thoughts of others for the two minutes or so it takes the teams to switch fields.

As for the in-game action, I'm used to the idea of the batters getting a snippet of some high-energy track as they step into the batter's box (although some of them have really bad taste). But after someone's slammed a double off the outfield wall, I don't need the dulcet tones of Foreigner's "Double Vision" to tell me what I just saw. Or Kenny Loggins' "I'm Alright" during a trip by Leo Mazzoni to the pitcher's mound. Give me a break!

OK, done venting. It was still wonderful to catch a game in person.