Braves' Old World

The Polo Grounds: A Calm Review of Baseball ^ | 17 September 2002 | Jeff Kallman

[BluesDuke]

It's almost possible to pity a team winning eleven straight division crowns.

[BluesDuke]

Pennant stretch bump!

[Paleo Conservative]

Watch the Braves choke in the playoffs, again!

[Gwaihir]

Go Braves!

[dfwgator]

Go Twins!!! They don't make the playoffs a lot, but when they do, they end up winning it all.

[BluesDuke]

Now tell us how you really feel! ;)

[BluesDuke]

Go Twins!!! They don't make the playoffs a lot, but when they do, they end up winning it all.

Alas, not so. Since divisional play began in 1969, the Twins have gone to the LCS four times and won three pennants and two World Series. The Twins, in fact, went to the LCS in the first two seasons of divisional play - 1969 and 1970 - and lost both LCSes to the Baltimore Orioles. Prior to divisional play, the Twins franchise...

* Won three American League pennants as the Washington Senators.
* Won two back to back in 1924 and 1925.
* Won the 1924 World Series, the only World Series ever won by either Washington Senators franchise.
* Won one pennant as the Minnesota Twins (they lost a thriller of a 1965 World Series to Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers).

There are numerous sentimental-sort of reasons to root for the Twins to take the Big Dance this year. But they played in and ran away with the weakest of the American League's three divisions this year, and even if they could manhandle the Yankees in a short set, they likely would have nothing but trouble at the hands of either Anaheim or Oakland.

Speaking of whom: Tim Salmon, solo dingdong in the tenth off Billy Koch, is all the Angels need after Jarrod Washburn and Mark Mulder matched zeros most of the main game (Washburn: eight shutout innings; Mulder: nine shutout innings). 1-0 Angels. Play of the game, maybe: Garret Anderson spearing a long drive by Eric Chavez in the ninth. The Angels are back in first by a game. For now.

[Chunga]

"It's almost possible to pity a team winning eleven straight division crowns."

But it's so much easier to pity the teams that haven't.

[Paleo Conservative]

Now tell us how you really feel! ;)

Watch Ted Turner's Braves choke in the playoffs, again!

Is that better?

[Polybius]

It's almost possible to pity a team winning eleven straight division crowns.

But it's impossible to pity a team owned by Ted Turner.

[BluesDuke]

*thud* ;)

In fairness, it isn't so much the division series or the League Championship Series that give the Braves half as much trouble (they did, after all, cash in five pennants for their trouble) as the World Series does.

On the other hand, it could have been worse. Anyone who remembers the 1983-90 Braves - or, too many years of Philadelphia Phillies futility (people think the Cubs have a knack for mediocrity under pressure?) - can tell you. Not to mention, anyone (me, for one) who has put up with too many years of the real curse of my Boston Red Sox: bonehead management, in the front office and in the dugout, a curse which seems too much to have afflicted my other lifetime affection/affliction, the New York Mets. (Don't even think of asking the state of my already warped mind come the 1986 World Series!).

[BluesDuke]

But it's impossible to pity a team owned by Ted Turner.

I prefer to think of it like the admonition against visiting the sins of the father against his sons.

[SeeRushToldU_So]

Watch the Braves choke in the playoffs, again!

Not this year Bucko!

GO BRAVES!

[okie01]

"It's almost possible to pity a team winning eleven straight division crowns."

Yet, the dynasty's architect and prime contractor, Bobby Cox has been named Manager of the Year but once...

[Paleo Conservative]

'Watch the Braves choke in the playoffs, again!'

Not this year Bucko!

GO BRAVES!

As Ronald Reagan once said to another Georgian, "there you go again."

[SeeRushToldU_So]

As Ronald Reagan once said to another Georgian, "there you go again."

After 11 years a guy gets used to saying that.

But this year, this team, is truly different. And I say the Braves will win this year.

That's my story and I am sticking to it!

[Illbay]

I'm an Astros fan. Don't tell me about "choking in the playoffs." The 'Stros have never won a single playoff series in their entire history.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Oh my, please don't tell me you "dissed" the Braves in front of Rush!

Cagey, get some popcorn - there's gonna be a brawl!

(Just kidding guys!)

[speedy]

They need to bring back Chief Knock-A-Homa. And maybe Larvell Blanks and Biff Pocaroba. THAT could put them over the top.

[BluesDuke]

While we're at it, why don't we just raise Lee Maye up from the dead? I'd think about bringing back Chief Noc-a-Homa, but I'm afraid Moe Drabowsky will rise from his sick bed to launch another attack!

I'd better explain: When Drabowsky was pitching in the National League toward the end of his career, he decided to have a little mad fun with the old Chief - running a string of firecrackers, M80s, cherry bombs, and the like from the Chief's teepee to the bullpen, "waiting," as he said, "for the Chief to surrender."

This is the same whacked-off-his-nut relief pitcher who was such a good impressionist that he broke up a no-hitter with a telephone prank! Kansas City Athletics pitcher Jim Nash was working a no-hitter around the seventh inning or so when he glanced behind him and saw pitchers warming up in the A's bullpen. Nash was so rattled he blew the no-no and the ball game. He was even more steamed when he learned then-manager Alvin Dark hadn't made the bullpen call ordering the relievers to get heated up - it was Drabowsky, who did an impression of Dark so dead-on that even Dark himself was amazed.

Drabowsky, alas, is a stricken man these days. He suffers an extremely rare disease the name of which I cannot remember but which, literally, a kind of cancer which eats holes into his bones and makes it almost impossible for him to walk freely, if he can get up from his bed or chair at all, so I'm told.