My Sunday column

In 1980 I went off to college a naive country boy, not at all versed in the ways of the world. I knew nothing of French wine, Italian opera, public transportation or homosexuality.
At West Georgia College in Carrollton I lived in Cobb Hall. One of my fellow residents was a young African American student from Atlanta named Eddie. Eddie was the gayest man in the universe. He made Clay Aiken look like a mixed martial arts champion. Eddie was so gay that other gay people would say, “Damn! He’s really gay!
I, on the other hand, was very, very straight. I wasn’t a particularly successful heterosexual at that point in my career, but clearly that was the team I played on.
Of course, Eddie and I became pals.
Why?
The Braves.
I loved the Braves. Eddie loved the Braves.
At the time I was the only student in the dorm to have a TV — can you believe I’m that old — and when Eddie found out I watched the Braves nightly on my crummy little Philco set with the rabbit ears, he asked if he could join me.
The more the merrier I said, and a friendship was born.
Being starving college students, Eddie and I often pooled our meager resources. Many a night we watched some really bad Braves baseball while munching on dry white toast and butter.
Eddie was watching the game with me when a young Braves outfielder named Brian Asselstine tore up his shoulder lunging into the wall in pursuit of a scorcher hit off one of Atlanta’s many crummy pitchers. It was obvious Asselstine was badly hurt and Eddie sat right there in my room and cried.
Eddie was gone by my sophomore year. Someone who knew him said his boyfriend in Atlanta — Candy, who drove a big, green Cadillac — couldn’t stand to be apart and Eddie had transferred to a school in the city.
A couple of years later the Braves stunned the world by winning 13 straight games to start the season and then going on to win the National League West pennant. Though they lost in the playoffs, it was a wonderful season.
Of course years later the Braves became really good, dominating their division for more than a decade.
When they won the World Series in 1995 — God bless you Justice and Glavine — the first person I thought of was my older brother Greg, who had suffered with the team for even more years than me. I called him from Florida and whooped it up a bit on the phone.
But it didn’t take long for me to think about the college days, that lousy TV, all those dry white toast sandwiches and a very fine fellow named Eddie, crying softly over Brian Asselstine’s bum luck.