Winter lingers on Opening Day

Opening Day, baseball is back, spring has sprung.

So why is Marvin West lighting a fire?

The bank thermometer flashed 42 degrees as I drove through Maynardville in the pouring rain this morning. A freeze warning? Really? On Opening Day?

Welcome to East Tennessee, where they say the weather changes every 15 minutes. (It's supposed to be 70 on Saturday.)

"This is an inauspicious start to spring," I tell Sarah as I come through the door.

But today is a day to spring forward, so I put winter behind me anyway and get all giddy as Curtis Granderson makes a diving catch in center field. A quick check tells me that the weather is equally as bad in the Bronx as it is on Norris Lake. Guess that explains all the empty seats. At least the rain stays away...

Marvin tells me about the pleasantries he exchanged with Bob Knight, years ago, when he was president of the Basketball Writers Association. It seems Marvin was too busy to attend a luncheon. Which meant Knight didn't get to give Marvin an award. Which meant Knight also didn't get to beat up on a sports writer for two minutes.

Michael Kay and Ken Singleton repeat virtually everything Marvin and I notice about the game -- about three minutes later. It's not much better over on SportsSouth, where Joe Simpson actually says that the pitcher's job is to get balls over the plate. No kiddin'...

Marvin threw a log on the fire. I threw a candy bar in my mouth.

Ahh, yes. Opening Day. Baseball is back.

Even if spring has yet to sprung...

Just what I needed...

Ol' Skip is still making me laugh, even though he's passed on into the hereafter.

I've taken Skip Caray's death pretty hard, partially because he's been such a part of my summers, partially because it happened in the midst of a few other disappointments. Last night, I alternated between TV and radio to hear what the Atlanta Braves family had to say about this special guy. It was just what I needed.

Joe Simpson told several hilarious tales on TV. I laughed for about 10 minutes over an incident with Vanilla Coke.

Apparently, the Coke people wanted Joe and Skip to drink Vanilla Coke on the air and talk about it. Skip hated that kind of thing. He balked. But the powers-that-be told them they had to.

So, they brought up a couple of Vanilla Cokes. Joe started guzzling his, despite the fact it was burning his eyes and all those things that happen when you chug a carbonated beverage. When he finished, he let out an "ahh", turned to Skip and said, "That was great. How did you like yours?"

Skip's classic reply?

"I didn't, the 2-1 pitch..."

Pete Van Wieren was his usual professional self, but you could tell his heart wasn't in the broadcast last night. I went to sleep to the cadence of his voice, holding on to what's left of the familiar, though in my heart I know that what made the Braves special is gone forever.

An Atlanta columnist said it much better than I can:

"Skip and Pete were simply the best — Van Wieren would give us the numbers, and Skip would supply the attitude. Whether the year was 1982 or 2008, hearing those two voices made us feel a part of something that transcended beginnings and endings, something that always was and always would be."

I know what he means. You couldn't count on girlfriends, you couldn't count on the weather, you couldn't count on much of anything really, but you could always count on the fact that Skip and Pete would be there every spring, right on schedule, to brighten your evenings for the next six months.

It's gone now, maybe right when I needed it most. But, it's hard to complain, because Skip provided so many memories, countless moments of pure joy.

Laughing at his quips last night, I realized just how special Skip was, and, too, how much less I would have enjoyed this ride without him.

Good-bye to all that

Just after 4:30 this afternoon, when the last gasp of my childhood slipped quietly into the early autumn sun, Skip Caray said that a page has been turned.

But, for me anyway, it is time to find a new book.

Thirty years and a million memories later, TBS is no longer broadcasting its flagship program, Atlanta Braves baseball. The final episode was forgettable, a 3-0 loss to Houston, that will be remembered only as Craig Biggio's final game -- and as the end of an era.

I told J.M. Ramsey, who came over to toast one last drink to the Bravos, that I guess I've spent more time with Skip and his longtime broadcast partner Pete Van Wieren (and Ernie Johnson and Chip Caray and Joe Simpson and Don Sutton) than I have members of my own family. Think about it. Three hours a night, six months a year, for something like 20 years. Hard to believe.

But the memories linger.

The really awful years, losing 18 in a row. But Skip made turning in a must. It didn't matter that the Braves were awful. This was, after all, a family -- and families stick together when the going gets tough.

There were moments. Rick Camp. The first few games of '82. That 19 inning affair with the Mets on July 4-5 of '85. Murph. Chuck Tanner. Bob Horner's four dingers. (OK, forget about Chuck Tanner.)

But then, like a beautiful, insane dream, 1991 happened, worst-to-first, the "you've got to be kidding me" season for the ages. And they kept winning and winning and winning.

Smoltz. Glavine. Maddux. Crime Dog. The Lemmer. Sid's slide. Beating the Indians for the whole damn thing in '95. The Baby Braves of the new century.

I was a kid when it started and was well into my career when it stopped. Through it all, Skip made you laugh and Pete wowed you with his brain. Joe and Don were pretty cool, too. And we'll never forget dear, sweet Ernie.

TBS hasn't been the same for many moons. Dean Harned would tell you the beginning of the end came with the takeover by Time Warner, when his beloved WCW wrestling was canned in 2001.

This is true; but there was more. "Andy Griffith" reruns, redneck movies like "Walking Tall" and, yes, professional wrestling all disappeared, gone with the wind you might say. Corporate blandness took over, indicative of the politically correct effort in this country to eradicate regionalism, destroy anything that makes a people unique, proud of where they're from. What's amazing, looking back on it, is that the Braves survived as long as they did.

So now it's over. I feel like I've lost a best friend.

Oh, the Braves will continue, on Fox and other regional telecasts. Simpson has survived the changes and at least Boog Sciambi has made us all forget about the horrible nightmare that was Bob Rathbun. Skip and Pete will hang out on radio and show up on a new regional channel, Peachtree TV, that we may or may not get here in Knoxville.

But this is it. The era is over; the old picture show has closed its doors.

Knowing this would soon happen, I began weening myself off the Braves, like the addict kicking the habit. Satellite TV means I can watch my other team, the Detroit Tigers, nearly every night anyway. The Internet means I can listen to Skip and Pete if and when I choose.

It is a death in the family, but two decades of sweet, sweet memories will never die. I could write a million words and never tell these guys, and this team, how much they have meant to one little baseball fan in one little corner of the world.

So good-bye to all that. Go to hell, TBS. Make yourself over to look like the other, undistinguishable, 500 other channels on the dial. Your ratings won't be that good and you'll never know the loyalty, or the love, we gave Ted Turner's station -- and this baseball team.

But as the sun sets on a sad moment, here's to you Skip, Pete, Ernie, Joe, Don, Chip, Glen and the crew. It may seem trite to say it, but this journey called life won't be near as much fun without you.