One Atlanta Braves fan experienced bliss Tuesday night, getting to watch his first-place team notch a win while eating ice cream, and earning some TV time because of it.
The eighth inning seems like a great time to enjoy some dessert at a baseball game. And during Atlanta’s game against the Colorado Rockies in Denver, the Bally Sports South broadcast picked up on a visiting Braves fan who was enjoying some ice cream. Emphasis on the word enjoying.
“Get yourself somebody that looks at you the way that that man looks at that soft serve,” Braves play-by-play voice Brandon Gaudin said. “They might need to get a hotel room.”
“That’s wonderful, that looks pretty good, actually,” analyst Pete Moylan chimed in, prompting Gaudin to add, “It looks tremendous.”
But after taking a few laps around the cone by carefully licking the ice cream, the dessert-wielding Braves fan needed more. Maybe licking the ice cream just wasn’t satisfying his urge for something sweet, or maybe the fan feared the creamy vanilla soft-serve dripping on his face. Regardless, what happened next caught the announcers by surprise, as the fan opened wide and took a vicious chomp off the top.
“OH BOY!” Gaudin said with a laugh after watching the fan take a bite. “I think I’m done for the night. That escalated quickly.”
As someone who opts for a cup because I hate ice cream dripping on my hands, I have a ton of respect and admiration for the way this fan maintained absolute control of his cone. And the Braves similarly have a lot of respect and admiration for soft-serve ice cream.
During their World Series winning season in 2021, several Braves players pointed to the addition of a soft-serve machine in the clubhouse as the source of their midseason turnaround. The machine was removed for the 2022 season, prompting catcher Travis d’Arnaud to ask GM team president Alex Anthopoulos to bring it back last August. Anthopoulos promised to reinstall the ice cream machine if the Braves took three out of four in an upcoming series against the New York Mets. They took three out of four, propelling them to win the division and earning some ice cream along the way.
If the Braves go on another World Series run this season, the ice-cream-eating fan from Denver deserves some credit for once again symbolizing the importance of soft-serve.
About Brandon Contes
Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com