Bill Plaschke had a funny tweet on Saturday. It understandably got some hate, but it was a good tweet:
Truist Park is a sterile shopping-mall stadium. It’s the best suburban stadium I’ve ever been to, but the best suburban stadiums are still sterile shopping-mall stadiums. Those who made it, and those who made the complex as a whole, did the best they could, but it’s not going to have the character of Dodger Stadium or the gorgeous immersion within the city that makes Oracle Park so great. It’s an extremely white-collar stadium, and it’s great at being what it is, and those two things can exist in tandem.
Where Plaschke went wrong was what may have been an innocent ricochet shot at Waffle House.
You don’t mess with Waffle House, Bill.
I don’t think Plaschke meant to criticize the pinnacle achievement of American culture, but Atlanta fans, already directly insulted, took it that way, and then last night, some Los Angeles sportswriter named Dylan Hernandez doubled down:
This is where it goes off the rails. Plaschke might have been innocent on this front. Hernandez clearly is not. Waffle House is great. Waffle House is like if In-N-Out was in a better category of food and was better within its category of food and had an in-house dining experience that did something spiritual for you. California’s got the South beat on plenty of things, but the In-N-Out vs. Waffle House matchup is a blowout. To put it in college football terms, it’s like UCLA trying to compete with Alabama.
And here’s where this all leaves us:
There are a lot of losers in California.
California’s known, in part, for having the coolest teenagers in the world. Terrifyingly cool teenagers. I first realized this because of Dan Katz’s very public terror of the breed, so credit to him for the observation, but it’s one of those things where once someone points it out to you, you see it. Cali teens are horrifyingly cool. Liable to bully you at any moment. Cali adults, though? Mixed results. Something happens between being a teenager and being an adult and it doesn’t always go well. For every Joe Kelly, you get a guy who thinks Waffle House is a joke. For every Beck, you get a guy like Paul Giamatti’s character in Big Fat Liar.
So, Dodgers people, stick to your strengths. Atlanta had a cool stadium in a place that was authentically Atlanta, and they gentrified themselves out to the suburbs, where they have a great experience that’s completely devoid of grit. You have Chavez Ravine, which captures everything wonderful about LA in its ability to bridge the city’s many divides. Focus on this. Don’t come after Waffle House. You’re going to lose the Waffle House fight (both the metaphorical one and any literal ones seriously do not mess with a Waffle House cook, guys, they will kick you teens’ asses).
