Braves' Old World

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

Most Braves fans (if they cast blame) cast blame on Bobby Cox. He has a lot of talented players. His biggest weakness is that he is a "players coach". It's like he's afraid to hurt a pitcher's feelings when he lets them throw about 10 pitches too many. It makes me blow a gasket.

Including two World Series and two all-star games, Bobby lost 10 consecutive games to Joe Torre.

It's justice, since the Braves fired Torre years ago.

I suppose there's another way to look at "choking": Assuming one team choked concurrently assumes the other team wasn't good enough to beat them in the first place. And, something else to ponder: Wouldn't one think a "choker" wouldn't be so quick to return even just next year for further use, misuse, or abuse, never mind the next ten "next years"? There's something to be said for that kind of persistence, even if the Braves - as I observed in my essay - are easy enough to dismiss as the Atlanta Automatons or the ballplayers in the gray flannel suits.

(Put it this way: As Leo Durocher once said of Jackie Robinson was applicable to the whole Brooklyn Dodgers of the late 1940s-early 1950s: He don't come to play. He come to beat you. He come to shove the bat right up your ass. The 1991-02 Atlanta Braves come to shove a suppository up the same orifice, but they can't understand why they have to do the job for you until they're the ones stuck in the men's room in the end.)

I'm still not sure there isn't something unkosher about a club with four potential Hall of Famers on it not cashing in more than one Series or five pennants for a run such as the Braves have had. But there is something staggering enough about a team winning eleven straight titles of any kind. Never been done elsewhere in any game. Not even the New York Yankees or the Montreal Canadiens. And I would not wish to hazard a guess as to which team in which game would get even close to that mark when.

P.S. The Astros' problems in all their postseason roadblocks: lack of bullpen depth. Their division winning teams have had solid lineups, fundamentally sound position play, yeoman starting rotations, workable benches (the 1980 team especially) but if you got past their starters and into the bullpen it was no contest. Still true today, and they have, arguably, a stronger lineup these past few seasons than they had in the 1980s.

Traditionally, Houston pitching more than offence is their postseason weakness; even if their offence went to sleep in their 1990s-2000 rounds, their pitching has betrayed them as often as not. (Don't hold just Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio responsible - the whole damn team seems to go to sleep in the postseason.)

In their two 1980s postseasons, though, the Astro bats were alive enough. In 1980, the team batting average was lower than the Philadelphia Phillies but the Astros had the better on-base percentage. The Phillies outpitched the Astros by just enough to make the difference, since both teams were hitting decently (and usual utilityman Terry Puhl was playing like Lou Gehrig in that series).

In 1986, the Astros actually outhit the Mets in the League Championship Series. Did they outpitch the Mets? Well, Mike Scott matched Dwight Gooden and got only a 1-0 win for his complete-game trouble (Jesse Orosco, the LCS MVP and the should-have-been MVP of the subsequent World Series, took over in the eighth). Scott won again in the fourth game (not a complete game this time). Nolan Ryan got roughed up in the second game. In the fifth game, Ryan and Gooden went at it until the extra innings with a 1-1 tie, until Ryan yielded to Charlie (Jell-0 Belly) Kerfeld in the tenth and Gooden to Orosco in the eleventh, the Mets winning on a run in the twelfth. (This was actually the absolute best postseason pitching performance of Nolan Ryan's career other than his relief jobbing in the 1969 World Series - he has a postseason record overall which isn't terrible but isn't exactly Bob Gibson, either. But of course Nolan Ryan is actually one of the most overrated pitchers of them all, anyway.)

The Mets actually outpitched the Astros despite their trepidations about former Met Scott - the Mets team ERA was 2.29 to the Astros' 2.87 in this series. The Astros actually hit better as a team in the series than the Mets (.218 team to .189 team), and they also outslugged the Mets and were better at getting on base. I'd have to say that here, too, the pitching depth made the difference. As the Red Sox would shortly learn, the 1986 Mets were especially dangerous when they found a way into your bullpen - especially if your bullpen wasn't such great shakes to begin with.

Sorry to hear that about Moe. I remember he came up as a Cubs prospect in the 1950s along with Dick Drott, and of course had that great World Series relief appearance in game one of the 66 series that started the Orioles on their sweep of the Dodgers.

Nice to see Lee Maye mentioned. Under the name of Arthur Lee Maye, he had a moderateley successful career as a doo wop singer with the group Arthur Lee Maye and The Crowns.

And whatever happened to Pat Rocket or Rowland Office? I'll bet you know something about them, too. I enjoy your posts.

I wasn't able to find any whatever-happened-tos on Rowland Office or Pat Rocket. But Atlanta Braves fans should remember Rowland (We Gave At The) Office making probably the single most spectacular catch in Fulton County Stadium history - leaping over and falling behind the seven-foot center field fence to rob Mike Ivie of a home run. That was in 1976, when Office had the hot streak of his career, a 29-game hitting streak in which he batted .397 for the streak. Pretty fly for a guy who hit .259 lifetime...

Chris Berman, would you have considered...

Larvell (Shooting) Blanks
Ross (A Rolling Stone Gathers No) Mosschitto
Bill (Raise Your) Hands
Nellie Fox (On The Run)
Moose Skowron (Powder)
Jim (Button Up Your Over) Coates
Bobby (Knock On Any) Doerr
Al (Magilla) Zarilla
Arnold Earley (Edition)
Mule Haas (ta la Vista)
Ricky (Bad To The) Bones
Frank Bolling (For Dollars)
Carl (The Sound And The) Furillo
Scipio (The Riddle Of The) Spinks
Whitey (Have You Driven A) Ford (Lately?)
Ron (Four On) LeFlore

. . . Rowland (We Gave At The) Office. . . . That was in 1976. . . .

Very good, Bluesy. But you're all over the map (and the timeline) in #29. Let's stick to old Atlanta Braves from that era. Like:

"Beanie and" Cecil Upshaw
George "Romancing the" Stone
Phil "Niekro-Phil-iac" Niekro
Rico "a la" Carty
Ralph "Light Up a Cig" Garr
Tom "Burning Down the" House
Jerry "The World Is My" Royster
Lee "Black and" Lacy
Biff "Stew" Pocoroba
Cito "No One Hits Like" Gaston
Buzz "Cut" Capra

I was wondering when you'd poke your nose out of your hole again! By the way, I wasn't entirely off topic (hey, since this thread spins off one of my essays I can jump where I please heh heh heh) with Frank Bolling (For Dollars) and Larvelle (Shooting) Blanks...but let's have some fun with the Braves of all ages...

Lew (Flippin' The) Burdette
Joe Torre (Ador)
Joe Adcock (Of The Walk)
Denny Lemaster (Of Disaster)
Bob (Little Boy Blue, Come Blow Your) Horner
Johnny (Criminally In) Sain
Bruce (Eggs) Benedict
Glenn (Old Mother) Hubbard
Preston Hanna (Barbera)
Mike Lum ('n' Abner)
Lum (and Coca Cola) Harris
Mike (Garden of) Eden
Clete (Let's Hear It For The) Boyer
Jim Nash (Rambler)
Larry (Surely, You) Jaster
Dusty (The Fabulous) Baker (Boy)
Alvin (A Shot In The) Dark
Jim Prendergast (Machine)

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