Day Three - "Too Little, Too Late"

The day began with great expectations. It ended with those expectations unfulfilled.

Another tip directed me to a Champions Sports Bar inside a downtown Marriott Marquis hotel. We parked and made our way there. I noticed a nice Nike ad painting on the side of a building featuring "The Hammer". It got me thinking how I'm making my way to each Murphy attraction--imagine what it would be like to be a Hank Aaron afficianado! It would take weeks to photograph all of the Aaron attractions at Turner Field alone! Then you could start on the rest of the city!

We entered the bar and saw a lot of interesting sports articles and memorabilia on the wall. I noticed a newspaper article on the aforementioned Mr. Aaron's record-breaking home run, a Greg Olson autographed bat, and a Tom Glavine autographed baseball, among other things. I scouted out the bar and found nothing relating to you-know-who. The last time my informant saw Murphy memorabilia there was about four years ago so we were apparently a couple years too late!

This is what it should have looked like. Thanks for the pic Yvette!

We then proceeded to drive down to Centennial Olympic Park where we would surely have better luck. I had been told a couple weeks earlier there was a big, beautiful painting of Murphy and Aaron there. Perfect picture material, right? Right. If it's still there, that is. We wandered around the park aimlessly for a while before asking a security guard where this magnificent painting was located. The answer: IN STORAGE SOMEWHERE! He said they took it down no less than a week ago! What's wrong with these people? Who forgot to tell these people Matthew Crowder was trekking across at least four states to see the best Atlanta has to offer in Dale Murphy memorabilia? :-)

At the movies: "Chain Reaction" - 1 star, "The Devil's Own" - 3 stars

Dale's Batting Helmet From The 70's

Around the horn: Going to Atlanta is like traveling a few years into the future--dynamic billboards (3 billboards in 1), 3-D billboards and electronic monitors at the drive-thru to verify your fast food order. The hotel phone even had a convenient data port for my laptop (but also a very INCONVENIENT $0.50-per-call charge). Of course, I didn't look for a jack last year as I didn't have my laptop then. The Braves evened up the Marlins series as Smoltz continued his recent success. Boy, it sure would be nice to have all Braves games available on the radio and not be restricted to games on TBS! Do they make radios powerful enough to pick up stations five states away? I didn't think so.