ATLANTA, GA - MAY 12: Ha-Seong Kim #7 of the Atlanta Braves throws during the game between the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park on Tuesday, May 12, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kathryn Skeean/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

MLB Photos via Getty Images

For reasons you’ll discover in a hurry, something was inevitable Tuesday night at Truist Park in Atlanta. Every time I glanced toward center field, I saw Joe Walsh and the rest of the Eagles (the band, not the NFL team) instead of whoever was out there for the Atlanta Braves or the Chicago Cubs.

Such things often happen around The Battery, the Braves’ $1.1 billion entertainment village, located 10 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta.

The 75 acres feature office buildings, two hotels, multiple restaurants and bars, a 3,600-seat venue for whatever you wish, along with a ballpark of splendid acoustics and sightlines for concerts and Forbes’ Major League Baseball team ranked eighth in team valuations at $3.35 billion.

So I’m still tingling after a highly energetic crowd at Truist Park hugged those between the foul lines during a splendid Georgia evening.

Oh, and the same was true Tuesday night regarding two of the winningest teams this season in Major League Baseball.

Rimshot.

I was talking before about the Eagles.

They were awesome last week at Truist Park.

They rocked and rolled their oldies but goodies for two hours before a packed house screaming for more after they waved their way off stage following “Heartache Tonight,” among their classics of classics.

Speaking of awesome, it describes the state of the Cubs and the Braves, both leading their respective divisions in the National League (central and east) with the ability to pound and pitch opponents to death. The Braves did both of those things better than the Cubs Tuesday night for a 5-2 victory that pushed baseball’s best record to 29-13.

Awesome also fits Truist Park and The Battery.

Take it from Terry McGuirk, the Chairman and CEO of Braves Holdings, LLC, the parent company of the Braves and Braves Development Company. He told me, “I have a hard time being superlative enough when describing the Battery and ballpark and how they work seamlessly together to provide the best entertainment experience in Atlanta and maybe in all of sports.”

No argument here.

I’ve worked in Atlanta as a professional journalist since 1985, which means I’ve seen the Braves up close and personal at each of their three homes in Georgia after their 1966 arrival from Milwaukee.

First, there was the Braves’ flying saucer of a structure in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. Then they moved across the street to Turner Field, built for the 1996 Olympics and converted to a MLB ballpark afterward. It had more warmth than the other place, but mostly because it was fresher. You still felt the presence of Carl Lewis and Gail Devers around Turner Field as much as whatever Chipper Jones and Greg Maddux were doing across the way.

Later, before the 2017 season, the Braves shocked Atlanta government officials and most of everybody else by announcing in November of 2013 they were bolting as long-time residents of Fulton County. They said they were heading for their current setting in Cobb County to a $672 million ballpark, with the ability for the franchise to build a bunch of stuff around it.

Just regarding Truist Park (which originally was Sun Trust Park), it has more charisma than its Atlanta predecessors combined. For one, its scenery is superior beyond the outfield walls.

Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium gave you layers of boring blue seats to see in every direction courtesy of its circular style, and at Turner Field, the most dominant structure in the distance was the huge tower built for Muhammad Ali to stand at the top to light the 1996 Olympic flame.

At Truist Park, there isn’t a bad view among its 41,084 seats, which often are filled for Braves games or close to it.

And the place is loud.

Not only for baseball games, but for concerts – well, at least for the incredible one I attended a week before the Cubs traveled to Atlanta for the opener Tuesday night of their three-game series against the Braves.

I saw the Eagles, a rock band that entered my soul after I heard their first hit song “Take It Easy” when I was in high school in May 1972.

Guess what the Eagles’ first sang at this concert?

Actually, it was “Seven Bridges Road,” which was appropriate since the opening line of the song is, “There are stars in the Southern sky,” and we were in Dixie on a clear night with bright celestial objects above.

Then came “Take It Easy.”

The place exploded.

Number after number, this 54-year-old band sounded brand-new during this stop on what it calls “The Long Goodbye Act III.” In fact, if you go by the joyous looks on me and virtually everybody else among the sold-out crowd for one of the 52 concerts ever held at Truist Park, the Eagles’ 20-song setlist was flawless. That applied to the playing, the singing and the performing.

Which was a miracle.

Consider what 78-year-old Walsh told the crowd between jamming with his guitar while thrilling with his voice that remains nasally and squawky. Then consider he spoke about himself, drummer and soloist Don Henley and bassist Timothy B. Schmit, who are his same age as original Eagles band members: “I preferred being in my 20s in the ‘70s than being in my 70s in the ‘20s.”

Then there was the wonderfully eerie way Deacon Frey morphed into his late father on “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and “Already Gone.”

Glenn Frey died in January 2016.

Seven years later, the Eagles tour began that September with a stay in 2024 in Las Vegas of 58 shows at the Sphere, where the Eagles generated $5.3 million per performance. Their Truist Park show was only their second out of Las Vegas since June 2024, and they were worth every penny, nickel and dime of what Eventory.ai said was an average ticket price of $192.64.

I had a floor seat, maybe around second base from the massive stage positioned (where else for maximum viewing?) in the middle of center field. There were rows of prime seats all the way back to home plate.

I was amazed by a bunch of things.

I couldn’t believe how easily the crowd flowed around the stadium in general and on the field in particular without issues.

Soon, I saw the reason. Nearly all of the ushers, venders and security folks at Truist Park baseball games worked this concert.

They used the same system.

The continuity of customer service for all events in the Battery was part of the vision McGuirk and his lieutenants formed long before the first shovel touched the dirt around Cobb Parkway.

For the Eagles concert, the graphics and the videos also were perfect on the big screens. Whether they involved the directors zooming onto the facial contortions of Walsh on “Life’s Been Good” or showing a Tequila sunrise when the group was singing “Tequila Sunrise,” the big screens captured the mood of the moment with speed and accuracy.

And the sound.

Wow.

The bass line. The drum groove. The guitar stroking. The harmony, and the flat-out singing. They were as perfect as the pristine condition of my 1976 Eagles album, which featured their greatest hits of that time. The group added so manty more top tunes through the decades after that album, but whether songs were their older one or newer ones, the Eagles had the crowd singing loudly through all of them, usually in unison with the band members.

To steal the title of my favorite Eagles’ song, this was “One of These Nights” you’ll never forget, and Henley contributed to it by telling the crowd near the beginning of the concert, “I’m delighted to be here at Truist Park, home of the almighty Atlanta Braves sitting atop the National League East. Seven and three in their last 10 outings. About the same as our stats.”

The crowd roared.

It also did so many times Tuesday night at Truist Park, but only for baseball instead of “Hotel California.”