Raise your hand if you thought the Braves had a realistic shot at winning the NL East this year.
All you in the uniforms and spikes can put your hands down.
Friday the Braves won their 13th division title in a row. No other team has come close to matching that type of consistency over that long a period of time.
In a year in which major records are falling—Ichiro is close to breaking George Sisler’s eighty year old record for hits in a season, Bonds is now only the third player to hit 700, Maddux has won 15 games in a row for an inhuman 17 straight years—the Braves’ record division title has been met with little fanfare.
Mostly, the reaction has been like when your perpetually unemployed brother announces he has a new job. Or when a terminally unfaithful friend “falls in love” (for the fifth time this year). The national media appears willing to report that the Braves have won their 13th in a row, but are seemingly obligated to provide the asterisk, “of course, the Braves have won the World Series only once, in 1995”.
I’ll go ahead and admit it right now. Losing Gary Sheffield and Maddux with no real replacement, trading out Javy Lopez for Johnny Estrada, and pinning their hopes to the terminally injured J.D. Drew seemed to validate those who picked the Braves to finish third in the division.
Are we really that myopic? Wasn’t it just 11 months ago that the Marlins beat teams they weren’t supposed to with team defense, speed, and the managerial acumen of Jack McKeon? The Marlins had good pitching to be sure, but they also had the Juan Pierres and the Pudge Rodriguez’—players who followed McKeon’s lead and the “played the game the way it’s supposed to be played”—whatever that particular cliché means.
The Braves have had only one constant over these 13 years—the organization. Seeming old heads like Chipper and Andruw Jones have been around since 1995. John Smoltz is the ONLY player from 1991 still playing for the Braves.
Read that sentence again.
The Braves have won 13 straight division titles without any real stability in players. Does anybody remember the Charlie Liebrandt’s, the Steve Avery’s, and the Rafael Belliard’s? What about Walt Weiss? Deion Sanders used to patrol the outfield nearly a decade prior to his current incarnation as the Flavor Flav to Ray Lewis’ Chuck D. Does anyone know what Mark Wohlers is doing today? Or Sid Bream—did he disappear into that cloud of dust that finished off the 2 run, bottom of the ninth, Game 7 comeback against the 1993 Pirates (keeping Barry Bonds from seeing October glory)?
The only constant has been the organization itself—not the personnel, not the ownership, hell, not even the building is the same. Bobby Cox, John Scheurholz, and Leo Mazzone have been the foundation. If this win isn’t validation of the greatness of this organization, I don’t know what is.
Sure, the rest of the NL East is not particularly good, and the Braves have feasted upon their relative incompetence, as their 49-24 division record can attest. And there is certainly that issue of postseason success—but this is a much different postseason then was in place even when they started this streak in 1991. Teams can sneak into the playoffs and ride hot pitchers through a short NLDS series and pitchers on 3 days rest—see the Marlins and the Cubs, or even the Red Sox, for that matter.
And of course, we will be treated to the inevitable October angle of the “indifference” of Braves fans—the constant camera shots of visiting team fans and shots of empty seats. Never mind that the Braves fan base—much like other teams with years of national network support like the Cubs, Sox, and Yankees—spans from Texas to the Atlantic and up to DC.
What I don’t understand is that any other context, these would be recognized as emblems of organizational success—standards get raised “too high” so that wins aren’t celebrated as much. Instead of seeing the even-keeled clubhouse as “boring” and “indifferent” it would be celebrated as the model environment where conflicts are kept in house and handled professionally. Bobby Cox’ refusal to acknowledge his own role in the Braves success year in and year out would be lauded as the prototype for manager-player relations instead of Joe Torre—which has got to be particularly galling for Cox given that Torre had his shot at managing the Braves in the lean years of the 1980s and failed spectacularly while Cox was busy winning manager of the year for the Blue Jays.
But these are old gripes—the Braves have won the NL East for the thirteenth time in a row and it’s time that Bobby Cox, Leo Mazzone, and John Scheurholz get the recognition they deserve. Cox deserves manager of the year—an honor he has won only once during this unparalleled streak—and Scheurholz deserves more money. The ownership has been cheap—there’s no other word for it—and his ability to do more with less is unmatched, so why not relax the purse strings a little bit?
Regardless, these are concerns for later—the Braves have achieved something unparalleled, but the year isn’t quite over.
Rationally, there’s no way in the NL to pick against the Cardinals, but isn’t that we said about the Phillies and Marlins six months ago? Maybe this is the year when luck turns in the Braves favor.
I know one corner of the country that will have its fingers crossed.
