Tuesday, August 31, 1999Turner Field fun can overwhelm the game
Scout's Alley, eateries and a basepath to run
BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ATLANTA — You know what's great about Turner Field? On one of the walls in Scout's Alley — the family fun zone that is the Braves' wonderful tribute to baseball scouting interspersed with interactive hitting and pitching games for kids — is a life-size color image of outfielder Otis Nixon.
![[turner]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/1999/08/083199turnerin_150x111.jpg)
Turner Field.
(Enquirer file photo)
| ZOOM |He's leaping to make a catch 11 feet off the ground to keep the Braves' 13-game winning streak alive in '92.
On that image — a flat, one-dimensional silhouette of Nixon with his glove extended above the outfield fence — are the blackish skid marks of thousands of sneakers whose wearers planted their feet to see if they could match Nixon's leap.
Now, that's baseball.
It's reminds one of the way the nose of Ted Williams' bronze bust in Cooperstown is worn to a glistening gold sheen by so many people having touched it over the years. It is their way of getting close as they can to the game's greatest hitter.
This “getting close to the game” should be a hallmark of every baseball shrine, whether he be a ballpark or museum. Turner Field does that.
It may do it too well.
![[turner]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/1999/08/083199turnerh_150x96.jpg)
Turner Field.
| ZOOM |There's so much going on, the day's game is a sideshow.
But what's here is good:
• Scout's Alley is the best family fun zone in Major League Baseball. It combines interactive games for all ages between 6 and 60 in a midway-type atmosphere, with crisply displayed wall adornments that tie in actual scouting reports of past and present Braves greats. People actually stop to read them.
• Tooner Field (get it, cartoons + Turner Field?) with a toddler-level food-service counter and play tables, plus a 90-foot long base path (same dirt, same grass trim, same bases, as the big field) up in Coca-Cola Skyfield in the left-field upper deck. Kids line up one after another to give it their best run.
• The two-tiered Braves' Chophouse restaurant just above and beyond the right-field bleachers, which is the best combination family (lower level) and singles/young couples (upper level) scene in the six new parks. It has the closest view of the field, a pretty good Georgia-barbecue sandwich and a tasty red-microbrew beer (Tomahawk).
There also are Sega stations and a new-this-year area above the Chophouse called “Turner Beach.” There, a pair of young ladies sit in lifeguard chairs while bartenders serve up tropical-fruit drinks. There's also a combined 2.5 acres of plaza both outside and inside the stadium. It features live telecasts of Braves player-and-fan question-and-answer sessions before games aired on the giant TV screen.
It works for Atlanta.
Would it play in Cincinnati?
I don't think so.
The main concourse at Turner Field — it runs above the grandstand from foul pole to foul pole — is dead, even though it's open to the field, the way it is at Coors Field in Denver.
“Once you've been beyond the outfield walls, and come back here, it hits you how quiet it is,” said Kim Chaudoin, 30, of Nashville, Tenn. “It's eerie.”
"It's like they took a giant amusement park and dropped a baseball field into the middle of it,” said one prominent Braves player, who didn't want his name used.
Yes, the Reds are going to need plenty of diversions if they are to regularly draw 3 million fans annually to their new ballpark. But there must be a better way to blend things so as not to detract from the game.
So many other things at Turner Field have a nice balance, however. People come early and stay late. They linger on the plaza. They listen to the music and dance and talk. The green grass and brown dirt of the diamond remains well-lit even after the stands have fully emptied.
On the concourse above center field, 6-year-old Clay Williams of Knoxville, Tenn., turns to his father, Kelly.
“Can I get out there and run, Dad?” he asks.
“Maybe some day, son.”
They exchange a smile.
The thrill of the grass.
The thrill of the ballpark.
Stadium Stories
![[turner]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/1999/08/083199turnerin_500x369.jpg)
![[turner]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/1999/08/083199turnerh_500x325.jpg)
Turner Field fun can overwhelm the game