I’m seated in section 140, row one, seat 12 at Truist Park. Home of the Atlanta Braves. It’s my son’s 38th birthday and he has seat 11 right next to me. The two of us are taking in an afternoon game in one of the best seasons our team has had in a long time.

We both have on our Braves shirts and caps. We’re not wearing the official numbered team jersey with Acuna, or Riley, or Olson across the back. We’re not sitting in the expensive seats close to the infield. But we’re not sitting in the cheap nose-bleed seats either. I actually want to see the players hit and catch.

The thrill of being at the game hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years. The cheers of the crowd. The chance at snagging a foul ball. The perfectly trimmed green grass and smooth brown infield. The chant of the tomahawk chop. The ballpark still has an enchantment that you can’t get by watching the game on the tube at home.

But if I’m honest, there’s a part of my grumpy old self that dreaded this day. Mainly because the stadium is on the north side of Atlanta which requires this old baseball fan to deal with more of the city traffic than he cares to. Part of me accepts it. You just deal with it and try to make the best of it. But you never know what you’re gonna run into.

We’re on our way up I-85 when I see the DOT lighted sign overhead.

COMPLETE LANE CLOSURE NORTH AND SOUTH LANES ON I-285. TAKE ALTERNATE ROUTES. EXPECT LONG DELAYS.

So, our trip to the ballpark is off to a great start.

This is an exceptional and rare kind of day for us, so I’m not going to let the drive get in the way of a good time. I look over at my son in the passenger seat. He’s on his phone checking out the traffic going through the downtown connector.

“It’s been a while since just you and me did something together.”

“It has been,” he says. “I hope we get there on time.”

We pull into the parking deck at the Galleria complex across I-285 from the ballpark. I actually booked a spot online. Used to be, at the old Fulton County stadium, you could just show up and look for a guy waving an orange flag with a $5 sign in the other hand. He’d motion you into a small grassy lot just a block from the stadium.

I roll down my window and hold out my phone to the parking attendant. He scans my QR code and tells us to enjoy the game. I back into a spot on the first level and we start out on foot, following the horde of Braves jerseys headed up the sidewalk.

“I have no idea how to get to the stadium from here.”

Marshall shrugs his shoulders in agreement.

I can see the stadium a quarter mile away across the interstate. We’re all walking along like a herd of cows headed to the barn. It turns out that there’s a pedestrian walkway over I-285. I’m looking over the edge. It doesn’t take much to impress a country bumpkin like me.

It only takes 12-15 minutes until we descend the steps on the other side down into the Battery just outside the stadium. The Battery, if you don’t already know, is the work of the marketing and retail experts who feed off the game of baseball. In order to get into the ballpark you must first walk past a conglomerate of restaurants and shops all designed to create a party atmosphere for the pregame experience.

Being delayed by our interstate detour, we walked right past the party to the gate.

We get to our seats just in time to see the players doing their stretches out on the field. Grown boys half-heartedly working out the kinks. They have no idea what real kinks feel like. I’m watching one guy bending and twisting and I’m thinking, “If I did that, I couldn’t move for two weeks.”

The game starts. Strider is in good form. Our bats are hot. Two runs in the first inning. The Pirates are playing good defense. They come up to bat in the top of the 5th. I make a run for funnel cake and two drinks. The line is long. I fork over a mortgage payment for our snacks and make it back to my seat just in time to see Dominic Smith put one over the left field wall for the Braves in the home-half of the inning.

I can’t help but notice how many “fans” are not here to watch the game. One lady sits facing away from the field talking to her friend. I swear, she never saw a single swing of the bat. One guy walked the aisle in front of us back and forth a hundred times. The kid three seats down never took his eyes off his phone screen.

We’re here for the game. Braves win 6-3.

There are two approaches to leaving the stadium. Sit for a spell and let the crowd thin out or get up and go with the flow. We chose to go with the flow.

We are shoulder to shoulder, people moving in all directions. The TSA line at the airport is a streamlined wonder compared to this chaos. We’re like salmon moving upstream against the current.

We are finally out the gate, through the Battery, and we make our way to the pedestrian walkway. We are behind a young father with his four-year-old son in tow. Dad is a redhead with a full beard. The boy is struggling while toting a bag of souvenirs. The dad picks up the boy to swing him up on his shoulders and he loses his ball cap in mid-swing.

I bend down. “Let me get that for you.”

I hand him his cap and he thanks me. I tell him I understand. Pointing at Marshall, “I used to carry my son on my shoulders.”

“Did you like the game?” I ask.

I’m speaking to the boy but the dad answers.

“It was great,” he says. “This was my first time to an MLB park.”

He tells me that he’s from Bluffton, South Carolina. They drove over this morning and plan to stay the night with his aunt who lives just outside of Atlanta before heading back home. I give the boy a high five and he tells me that he loves Ronald Acuna. He’s wearing a number 13 jersey.

I watch the two of them. Father and son. I see a younger version of Marshall and me.

The enchantment, I realize, is not about the great players, or the great moments, or whether or not our team wins. It’s about us being together at the game cheering our heads off for the team we love.

I got a text from my son later that night.

“Really enjoyed spending the day with you. Let’s do it again.”

Apparently, even the big kids still like to go to the ballpark with dear old Dad.