ATLANTA – In more conventional times, the World Series symbolizes innocuous Americana perhaps better than any event. And when it returns to Atlanta this weekend for the first time since 1999, still-shiny Truist Park will feature all the trappings.
The World Series logo clings tightly to rain-dampened first and third base lines, the red-white-and-blue bunting hanging regally from three levels. In the stadium’s catacombs, a display of black and red balloons outside a ballpark suite are adorned with a string of white balloons, capturing the zeitgeist with a tribute to outfielder Joc Pederson’s pearl necklace.
Yet all the pomp – the first pitch, the anthem, the fireworks – can’t erase the fact that this suburban diamond is doubling as a battlefield in the culture wars.