Shenanigans at the old ballpark

The crowd stood in unison as the music began to play. Lyrics scrolled across the huge screen but few needed it. Turner Field was about to become a large karaoke bar.

"Take me out to the ball game,

Take me out with the crowd ..."

It's been 10 years since I attended a Major League Baseball game. Growing up in Anniston, Ala., an hour outside Atlanta, I frequently went to Braves games when I was young.

The last game I attended was in 1998. Saturday, I made a triumphant return to what used to be my favorite spectator sport as the Braves faced the Oakland A's.

Take me out to the ball game

Six of us crammed into my friend Tree's truck for the drive to Atlanta. We left Anniston about six hours before game time so we could secure tickets and slide down to The Varsity for some lunch.

Tickets were our first objective. My friend, Brett, had some buy-one, get-one-free coupons with him that we took advantage of. Six tickets -- lower lever in the outfield, seven rows up -- usually cost $26 a piece. We got them for $13. The money we saved would come in handy.

After a superb lunch of chili dogs and chili burgers, we cruised around the stadium and found a makeshift store in a hotel lobby selling baseball gear. After picking up an A's cap for me -- more on that later -- and a Braves shirt for Brett after some barbecue sauce stained the shirt he was wearing, we were ready for the game.

He would not be the only shirt victim on the day. In what can only be described as awesome irony, Tree had to pick up a shirt at the stadium after ripping his on a tree.

Take me out with the crowd

There are several ways to try and get a ball at a game. Batting practice is usually the best time. The reserves in the outfield shagging balls always toss a good number into the stands.

Getting a ball would have been nice, but A's relievers Huston Street and Chad Gaudin never tossed one my direction.

We headed to our seats, or what we thought were our seats, after batting practice. As the game was about to begin, Tree spotted seven empty seats in the first row of the outfield.

We decided to seat-jump and see if we could get away with it. We couldn't.

The move only works if no one shows up for the seats. That's exactly what happened when a couple showed up after the first inning, forcing three of us back a row.

The owners of those seats that we moved to showed up an inning later and grabbed an usher to get us out of the seats.

The usher was nice enough to point out that we were in the wrong section the whole time. We were supposed to be in section 144, but wound up in section 146 thanks to my wonderful sense of direction.

Three of us went to our actual seats while the others stayed in the front row for another inning. By the time the top of the fourth rolled around, we were all in our correct seats.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

If you can take out a loan to pay for some peanuts and Cracker Jack.

The main reason we wanted to get lunch before the game was to avoid some of the absurd costs of food and beverages inside Turner Field. A hot dog, bag of chips and a regular drink ran me $8.75. I'm still wondering how they call that a "value meal."

Root, root, root for the home team

Normally that would have been the case, but Atlanta was playing the A's, whom I've loved since I was 5 years old.

My mom let me stay up and watch the 1988 World Series when Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson limped to the plate and hit the epic home run that crushed the hearts of A's fans everywhere -- including mine.

I watched the 1989 team bash its way to a World Series title over San Francisco and the 1990 version fall apart in a World Series sweep to the Cincinnati Reds.

Being from Alabama made it understandably difficult to see A's games in person. The closest they would ever come was Tampa Bay.

Interleague play was my only hope, and the schedule finally worked in my favor this weekend.

Four of my friends were ardent Braves supporters. My friend, Dustin, who had no strong allegiance either way, made the right choice to support the A's and sport a cool, almost entirely black A's cap.

Jack Cust's first-inning home run off former Athletic Tim Hudson had me gloating early. Ryan Sweeney's three-run homer just off the right-field foul pole sent me into a frenzy and gave me plenty of fodder to boast about to my friends.

Rich Harden consistently baffled Atlanta's hitters, striking out eight batters in seven innings.

Street made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth, squandering Oakland's 5-1 lead by giving up three runs.

The Tomahawk Chop blared throughout the stadium as previously disinterested fans were awakened from their slumber to the possibility the Braves could win.

But when Street fanned Greg Norton to end the game, the crowd went silent except for the loud "Yes" emitting from the left-field stands from some obnoxious A's fan -- yours truly.

The Braves didn't win, but it definitely wasn't a shame for this A's fan.