Turner Field
Atlanta Georgia
Easter Sunday, March
(The Next Day, USA time)
The Atlanta Braves took the Sunday afternoon game 6–3 against the Los Angeles Dodgers in a nearly packed house. William Foster and his wife, Shari, made their way down the exit ramps on the west side of Turner Field, along with nearly 36,000 other happy Braves’ supporters. Another winning season was underway, and the Damn Yankees had better get ready for the next World Series.
The owner of a miniature golf course and driving range about twenty miles north, Foster had lived in or near Atlanta all of his forty-four years. He’d met and married Shari eighteen years earlier, and they had three children, all of whom were distraught that they hadn’t been allowed to attend the game, but Foster had been adamant: “ The Easter Sunday game is traditional for me and Mom.”
Easing through the exit, shoulder-to-shoulder with several hundred other patrons headed for the west parking area, Foster was at first confused by what appeared to be his wife’s stumble. He tried to grab her elbow to keep her from falling, but he was unable to support her weight and she dropped to the pavement, with the crowd trying to step around her rather than halting their progress. He knelt to speak to her as people continued to jostle around them as they pressed ahead. He spoke to her, but her eyes appeared confused, disoriented. The fans continued their relentless surge to get to their cars and to head home.
At Safeco Stadium, Seattle, Washington, the story repeated itself. Not to be outdone by his Ford Motor Company competition’s “Employee Appreciation Day” the previous month-a chartered fishing vessel into Puget Sound with 125 employees on board-Ralph Tunston, owner of four Toyota dealerships located along I-5 from Seattle to Portland, had purchased 136 tickets to the Easter Sunday game, pitting the Seattle Mariners against the visiting California Angels. There was to be a picnic dinner following the game at Northwest Fantasy, the new theme park developed west of Puyallup.
Three chartered buses were waiting at the southern entrance of Safeco Stadium and everyone had been advised to be on their bus by 4:15 or find their own way to the picnic. The only person to not make the bus was the boss, Ralph Tunston. As the buses pulled away from the stadium, Ralph was being lifted into an emergency vehicle for transport to Seattle’s Emergency Trauma Center, one of the finest in the nation if the victim arrived within the ‘golden hour.’ But no trauma team on earth could have saved Mr. Tunston, who was shot in the back. He was pronounced dead on arrival. Cause of death: a gunshot wound through the rib cage, entering from the back and exiting the chest, after tearing a hole through the heart.
Helen Clark was essentially a ‘plank owner’ in Busch Stadium, St. Louis, Missouri, having attended the first game, a twelve-inning marathon against the Atlanta Braves, after completion of the new stadium in 1966. She’d attended hundreds of games since. Her ten-year-old niece, Shelly Liston, and their German Shepherd, Gus, remained in their vehicle in the parking area of Busch Stadium for over an hour after the stadium had emptied out. One shot to the head of each of the women and one to the chest of the dog had left them quietly in their van until later that afternoon, when the clean-up sweepers began to scour the lot.
America’s favorite pastime had taken on a new dimension, and a lazy afternoon at the ballpark had forever changed.