The Story of the Atlanta Flames as Told by Owner Thomas G. Cousins ©, 2018, Jim Weathersby, All Rights Reserved

Photo Courtesy of Rick Dikeman

Atlanta icon Tom Cousins owned the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Flames from 1971 to 1980, brought the National Basketball Association’s Hawks from St. Louis in 1968, and purchased the North American Soccer League’s Atlanta Chiefs from the Atlanta Braves in 1973. He also purchased and restored the East Lake Golf Club in 1995.  However, Mr. Cousins will always be remembered for his work in Atlanta outside of sports.

Through his company, Cousins Properties Incorporated, Mr. Cousins spent over four decades developing such Atlanta landmarks as the CNN Center, the 191 Peachtree Tower, the Bank of America Plaza, and the Wildwood Office Park in Cobb County.  His company also built the now-defunct Omni Coliseum for the Hawks and Flames.

Numerous philanthropic projects in Atlanta over the years received funds from Mr. Cousins, including those associated with the arts, education and religious organizations.  The Association of Fundraising Professionals, Greater Atlanta Chapter, named him 2015 Philanthropist of the Year.

Mr. Cousins graciously agreed to speak with me on the topic of his time as owner of the Flames.  Following is the transcription of that interview. Questions and answers have been edited or paraphrased for brevity and clarity.

 

Q:        How did the idea first surface to obtain a National Hockey League team?

A:        Well, my partners, at the time and I had a coliseum (the Omni) and the Decks (a 1,000 car, two-level deck near the Omni).  I bought the Hawks from the St. Louis owners in 1968, moved them to Atlanta and they played at Georgia Tech.  When the Omni was completed in 1972, I moved the Hawks into it.

Q:        How did the hockey team materialize?

A:        At the time (early 1970s), there were 14 hockey teams in the National Hockey League (NHL) and the League wanted to expand to two more.  We got an expansion team along with New York (the Islanders).  I think the League was worried about the World Hockey Association (WHA) and we took advantage of that.  The reason I wanted a team was because of the coliseum.  There were other cities that wanted a franchise but the NHL chose us.  I think they saw the opportunity to increase revenue and interest in the sport by adding a team in the Southeast.  I believe we paid $6.5 million for the team.

Q.        Did you think Atlanta was ready to support an ice hockey team?

A:        We thought that Atlanta was ready to support an NHL team, and it would have if the players’ salaries had stayed where they were.  It never occurred to us that that would be a problem.  We were profitable the first year or two but that was before the WHA came into being and player contracts went through the roof.

Q.     How did the name “Flames” come about?

A.      We had a contest to name the team.  It was a public contest. The name “Flames” was picked.

Q.      How did you choose the people to run the team?

A.       Cliff Fletcher was recommended by a consultant (Bill Putnam) for the General Manager position.  Cliff recommended Boom Boom (Bernie Geoffrion) to be the coach.  (Geoffrion) had been a great player for Montreal and New York.

Q.      How involved were you with the team as an owner?

A.    I didn’t plan to be involved with the Flames.  I wanted an arena.  Ivan Allen Jr. was the Atlanta mayor at the time and I wanted the city to build the arena.  However, I wound up having to build it and pay for it.  Allen and his people indicated they would build the arena if I got a basketball team to come to town, and the arena would be built where I wanted it (the site where the Omni stood).  So I started pursuing a team and Allen agreed to build an arena only after a team was in town.

Georgia Tech, at the time, had this little field house that had 5,400 seats.  St. Louis Hawks owner Ben Kerner, one of the original owners in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the NHL, had many chips to call on and he got the other NBA owners to approve the sale of the Hawks to me and to approve the move to Atlanta and Georgia Tech based on a letter from the city stating that if the Hawks moved to Atlanta the city would immediately build an arena.

However, Allen then decided to build the arena next to the Civic Center, which was not where I wanted it.  I wanted it over there at the air rights (In 1966, attorney Bob Troutman owned the air rights over the Western and Atlantic Railroad yard.  He approached Cousins about an inexpensive lease of the air rights for a commercial development.  In order for Cousins to receive a low cost 80-year lease on the air rights he would have to commit to a $5 million commercial property by the end of the year.  Cousins agreed to build the parking garage (the Decks) with future plans for a 40-story office building on top.  Because few people would park in the Decks, Cousins built the Omni–broke ground in 1971 and completed in 1972–in hopes of increasing traffic to the area.  The Hawks and Flames were part of that plan.).

When Allen told me his plans for the arena, I became angry and told him that I would move the Hawks back to St. Louis or somewhere else before I would allow the team to play in an arena next to the Civic Center.  He got mad at me. We had a handshake agreement (to build the arena over the air rights) and he welshed (Cousins built the Omni and the infrastructure around it with the help of city bonds from Mayor Sam Massell’s administration, which succeeded Allen’s in 1970).

Q.        Thinking back on the operations of the team under your ownership, how did you feel about the revenue generated from the Omni, your marketing efforts, ticket sales, parking, television and radio?

A.        Well, we had a great advertising agency, McDonald & Little, and big billboards.  The “Ice Age” campaign was great.  We sold a lot of tickets in those early years.  As for the Omni, the Flames were a great tenant and we made profits in the early years.  We started losing money because of that competing league (WHA). Unfortunately, we only had three luxury suites in the Omni.  That was inadequate.  I would certainly have liked to have had more, but that was the way it (the Omni) was built.

We made money on parking, concessions and ticket sales those early years.  Everything fell off in the later years.  We tried to raise ticket prices when player salaries went up, but sales fell off and we went back to the original ticket prices.  Those prices weren’t adequate to cover the cost of the operations.

We had an okay radio deal with WSB but our television revenue was inadequate.  We didn’t have near what other (NHL) cities had because ice and skating in the Southeast…that did not make for a good television show.  We had a deal with Ted Turner’s station, but I don’t remember getting anything (revenue) from television for the Flames.

Q.         Attendance was good for the first three years of operation then it declined.  Why?

A.          The team really wasn’t that good.  People were disappointed in the performance and the economy was off a little bit.  That impacted it.

Q.         The team made the playoffs six out of its eight years in Atlanta but never won a playoff series.  

A.          We needed more outstanding players.  Being an expansion team, we didn’t get very good players from the other teams.  We just needed more time.

Q.          Let’s talk about what forced you to sell the Flames.  In the mid to late 1970s the economy was down.  You mentioned the poor economy, falling attendance and operations losses as problems during this period.  Are these the reasons that led to your thoughts of selling the team?

A.          Yes.  We were losing money.  I liked the team.  I liked the players.  They were raised in Canada and were fine gentlemen.  I would have continued to own the team after the move to Calgary but Canada had a law at the time called FIRA (Foreign Investment Review Act) that said that any business doing business in Canada had to be majority owned by Canadians—had to be at least 51 percent.  Well, I wasn’t going to have a bunch of partners—majority partners—in such a thing.  That’s why I decided to sell it.

Q.         Ted Turner bought the Hawks in 1977.  Did he ask you about buying the Flames as well?

A.          I offered to give them to him.  I also offered them to Delta (Airlines) and Coca-Cola, who were advertisers for me.  They wouldn’t have them (the Flames).  Nobody wanted them.  The reason was that the Flames were losing money.  They (Turner, Delta and Coca-Cola) didn’t think they could make any money off the Flames.  Turner wouldn’t take the gift because it wasn’t a good television sport.

Q.         Turner was instrumental in securing the Thrashers, Atlanta’s second NHL expansion team.

A.         Right.  I needled him at the time because he paid, I think, $78 million for the Thrashers.  I said, “I tried to give you the Flames.” Turner said, ‘Oh gosh. I forgot that.’   I said, “Well, don’t feel too bad.  You probably would have lost millions by now if you had owned the Flames.”  He felt kind of relieved after I said that.

Q.         A story came out in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 18, 2015 about Dan Bouchard, the former goalie with the Flames.  In that story, Bouchard states that some of the other NHL owners were skimming from the players’ pension fund and those owners were putting pressure on you to sell the Flames because they feared you would report their activity to the authorities.  Is this true?

A.         I don’t know about that.  Certainly, I wouldn’t have participated in that.  I don’t remember that.  I think that’s all imagination.

Q.        You sold the team in 1980.  Was there an opportunity to sell the team sooner?  

A.        We were making money at first, but then the arena, the Hawks and Flames all began to lose money.  My partners wanted to shut it down and were thinking about defaulting on the city bonds that we used for construction, which I was always concerned about protecting because by reputation I was involved in it.  I didn’t want to be a part of any kind of failure.  So, I let the other partners out of the ownership deal and took over everything myself, losses at that point.  The league (NHL) had already taken over a team or two that were going to declare bankruptcy.  I made a deal with the league.

Q.        So your partners wanted to default on the bonds and you did not because you didn’t want to damage your reputation.

A.        Right. I took over their interest.  They were going to bankrupt the team, give it up. So, I took it over and made a commitment to the league.  It took a unanimous vote (from NHL officials) to not only approve a new expansion but to approve a transfer.  And you would never get a unanimous vote on whether it was Saturday or not.  But I made a deal with them (in 1978) that I would try to operate for two more years and if we couldn’t make it (the franchise) break even then I was free to move it to some other city.  So after two years of four or five million dollars more in losses, I was ready to move the team out.  That’s the only reason I would sell it.  As I said, I loved it.  I would have moved it and owned it in Calgary if I could have.

Q.         Once it was clear that you were going to sell the team, did anyone or any group, like the city, step forward and offer to help you financially in order to keep the team in Atlanta?

A.           No.  Nobody would.  I didn’t ask them (the city) for help.  As I said, I offered to give it to Turner, Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola to keep it in Atlanta.  No one thought the Flames could be profitable.  No way to turn it around, to keep it from losing money.  Player salaries kept rising because of the competition from the other league (WHA).

Q.         I read where actor Glenn Ford made an offer for the team.

A.         That was a sham.  He never made an offer.  The press announced it and made something of it, but it never was.  The joke was played on him by some of his friends.

Q.         You struck a deal with Canadian businessman Nelson Skalbania to relocate the team to Calgary.  Was the deal for just the Flames or was the Omni or any of your other real estate holdings involved?

A.          He bought the Flames only. He offered to pay 16 million in Canadian dollars, but I told him I wanted 16 million in US dollars because I knew Skalbania would pay that and more. He agreed to $16 million US.

Q.        What kind of feedback were you receiving when you were going through the process of selling the team?  

A.         I think we had some negative press.  Nobody wants to lose a sports team, whether they were supporting it or not.

Q.        Any kind of feedback after the sale was final?

A.         Not really.  I guess there wasn’t much anyone could say.  I offered to give it away if they would agree to keep it in Atlanta.  My oldest daughter married one of the players, a great guy named Brad Marsh.  As much for that than any other reason I wanted to keep the Flames in Atlanta.  I respected the players.  Several of them moved to or kept their homes in Atlanta–Tom Lysiak and Willi Plett. Of course, Dan Bouchard. Tim Ecclestone.

Q.        Do you have any regrets associated with the Flames?

A.        I would say none really.  Like I said, I liked the players and I liked the game and I would have been happy to have owned them in Canada. But they wouldn’t let me do it because of that law (FIRA).

Q.        Would you have done anything differently?

A.        You know, the circumstances at the time…that was the best thing that I could do.

Q.        What do you think about the Thrashers’ situation?  

A.         The group (Atlanta Spirit Group) that he (Ted Turner) sold them to was a bunch of sports nuts, but they were lousy managers.

Q.        Both the Flames and Thrashers left for Canada. Were the factors that led to the moves similar or different in your opinion?  

A.        Completely different.

Q.        Atlanta grew dramatically between the early 1970s and 2000.  It became much more of an international city in the 1990s.  Do you think that if the Thrashers had better owners the franchise would have survived in Atlanta?

A.         Yes. I think they could have.

Q.        Will Atlanta ever get another NHL team?

A.         That’s a good question.  Your guess is as good as mine.  We have a lot of people who have moved here from traditional hockey areas and more and more are coming.  So maybe somewhere in the distant future the city will get another team.

 

 

 

1995 Atlanta Braves: World Series Game 6

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The Braves had Friday, October 27, off before facing the Indians in Game 6 the next day.  Instead of a quiet off day preparing for Game 6, the Braves players and management faced a firestorm ignited by David Justice.  While waiting to take batting practice, Justice told reporters that Atlanta’s fans were not very passionate and would probably boo the team if it trailed Cleveland the next night.  He exacerbated the situation when he suggested that other Braves players felt the same way and that they were playing the Series for themselves, not the Braves fans.  With this information in the Saturday Atlanta Journal-Constitution, many Braves fans came to Game 6 at Atlanta-Fulton Stadium ready to reply in some fashion to Justice’s comments.

Justice’s comments were not foremost in Tom Glavine’s, the Game 6 starting pitcher, thoughts.  As he rode with Greg Maddux back to their North Atlanta subdivision after Friday’s work out, the topic of conversation focused on the game.  Glavine recounted Leo Mazzone’s remarks from Steve Avery that the Indians could not hit his change-up and never made adjustments in Game 4.  Glavine asked Maddux what adjustment the Indians made against him in Game 5.  Maddux told Glavine that the Indians had not made any adjustments and the reason the Indians won the game was because he could not consistently locate his pitches.  Maddux told Glavine not to change anything and that he would beat the Indians.  Maddux added that “the guy who should be the winning pitcher when the Atlanta Braves win the championship will be out there.” (Glavine, 1996, p. 11) Glavine stated that those comments afforded him a large dose of confidence.

On game day, Glavine arrived at the stadium around 2:30 and began to dress at his locker.  Being a bit superstitious Glavine had several items in his locker that had not moved since he put them there in 1991—a Bart Simpson doll (Glavine enjoys his humor), a four-leaf clover pressed in waxed paper, and a trophy (he always liked the look of trophies). According to Glavine, his other superstitions included chewing a piece of Bazooka sugarless bubble gum every time he pitched (he also kept an extra piece in his back left-hand pocket) and never stepping on the foul lines when taking the field.

As the clock moved closer to game time, the Braves confidently warmed up on the field. Glavine claimed that his throwing session in the bullpen before the game was nothing special and had no idea how effective his pitches would be during the game.  Mazzone told him that his pitches looked good, but that did not satisfy Glavine.  Glavine remembered prior bullpen sessions when he thought they went terribly but he pitched shutouts and other sessions when he thought he was primed for a great game only to be hit unmercifully.  He was certain of one thing:  this bullpen session was better than Game 2’s session.

Glavine took the mound and began his pregame ritual of re-adjusting the dirt to find his comfort spot for his plant foot.  While working the mound, he looked up in the stands and sensed the crowd’s excitement.  Glavine quickly mused that Justice’s comments may have indeed had an effect on the fans’ collective level of passion.  As he toed the rubber for the first pitch, he told himself to establish a good rhythm and get out of the first inning, something that had been a problem for him in his career.  Glavine began almost immediately to locate his change-up and induced Kenny Lofton to fly out to right field.  With the pesky Lofton off the bases, Glavine relaxed and began to settle in.  He proceeded to strike out Omar Vizquel and got Carlos Baerga to hit an easy ground ball to him that would end the inning.  Glavine had not only achieved his goal of getting through the first inning unscathed but looked masterful in doing so.  The Indians were in trouble.

After the first two innings, the Cleveland hitters began to move up in the batter’s box and on top of home plate.  Glavine mentioned this to Mazzone and suggested that he should start pitching inside to the hitters.  Mazzone countered.  The veteran pitching coach told Glavine that when the hitter moves up in the box or on top of the plate that does not change his vision.  He said to Glavine that he could pitch inside or that he could pitch farther and farther off of the plate to see if the hitters would continue to adjust to that.  Mazzone reasoned that if Glavine threw the ball six to eight inches off the plate and the hitters made solid contact then Glavine would have to pitch inside to keep the down and away pitch as a viable option.

Glavine decided to make pitches farther and farther outside.  The Cleveland hitters adjusted accordingly but still couldn’t hit Glavine.  The majority of the hitters could only get the end of the bat on the ball, which resulted in easy outs.  Mazzone counted a dozen times that Glavine went inside during the course of the game.  Glavine’s ability to change speeds with his pitches and locate them where he wanted made him almost unhittable.  After walking into the dugout after an inning in the middle of the game Glavine had this outburst, “Will somebody please score a damned run?  Because they’re not.” (Freeman 2003, p. 79).  Through five innings, the Indians did not have a hit.

The Braves had good opportunities to push across a run or more in the fourth and fifth innings against Cleveland starter Dennis Martinez.  Atlanta had the bases loaded in the fourth with two outs but Rafael Belliard flied out to center field to end the inning.  In the fifth, the Braves had runners at first and second with two outs when Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove replaced Martinez with Jim Poole in order to face Fred McGriff.  Poole struck out McGriff to close out the inning.

In the sixth inning, Glavine gave up his only hit, a leadoff single to Tony Pena, but kept Cleveland from scoring.  David Justice led off the bottom of the sixth to a chorus of boos.  In two previous at bats Justice had walked and doubled, certainly doing his part to put the Braves on the scoreboard and mitigate the fan animosity he caused because of his comments the previous day.

On a 1-1 count, Justice launched Poole’s third pitch into the right field seats to give Atlanta a 1-0 lead. Pandemonium erupted in the stands as Justice circled the bases, and at least for the moment, Justice and the fans had a love affair that rivaled that of Antony and Cleopatra, Napoleon and Josephine, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall… well, you get the picture.

The Braves had secured that “damned” run for Glavine, and he rewarded them with two more shutout innings.  After pitching through the eighth inning, Glavine walked back to the dugout, pulled Mazzone and Bobby Cox aside, and told them he was done.  Cox decided to send out closer Mark Wohlers to pitch the ninth inning.  Lofton led off the inning and Cox and Mazzone were nervous.  They knew that if Lofton reached first base, the Braves were in trouble because Wohlers could not hold runners on base.  Lofton could easily steal second and/or third. The Braves had tried to change Wohler’s delivery in the past, but that only hindered his ability to throw strikes.  Cox and Mazzone just hoped Wohlers could get Lofton out some way.  On a 0-1 pitch, Lofton fouled out to Belliard in foul territory down the third base line.  Mazzone stated that at that point, he knew the Braves were going to win the game and the World Series.  Sure enough, as if on cue, Wohlers induced Paul Sorrento and Carlos Baerga to fly out to center fielder Marquis Grissom.  Venerable Braves broadcaster Skip Caray put it best, “Mark gets the sign.  The wind and the pitch, here it is…Swung, fly ball, deep left-center.  Grissom on the run… Yes! Yes! Yes! The Atlanta Braves have given you a championship!”

And so they did.  Amid fans hugging other fans, Ted Turner kissing Jane Fonda, and general ecstasy throughout, the players piled on one another near the mound.  After three World Series attempts, the Braves had achieved something that no other major sports franchise had ever done in Atlanta (and hasn’t done since)—they won a championship.

After the last out, Mazzone remained in the dugout, taking it all in.  He didn’t scream. He didn’t holler. He didn’t burst out in song. He didn’t rock.  He just sat there in quiet satisfaction. Later in the clubhouse, with a champagne bottle in hand, a reporter asked Mazzone about his pitching staff:  “I’m just so proud I could start crying right here and now.” (Rosenberg 1995, p. 159)  Many of the Braves fans in Atlanta and across the country did just that—cried.  So many years of bad baseball.  Close calls against Minnesota and Toronto.  Pent up frustration.  All washed away in the glory of a World Series title.

Two days later, thousands of fans lined Peachtree Street to honor their heroes.  Players and coaches rode on firetrucks in a parade that had been 30 years in the making.

The Atlanta Braves…World Series Champions!  Oh, but to hear those words again!

 

Freeman, Scott and Mazzone, Leo. Tales from the Braves Mound. Sports Publishing L.L.C., 2003.

Glavine, Tom and Cafardo, Nick. None but the Braves. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, www.sportspublishingllc.com, 1996.

Rosenberg, I.J. Bravo! The Inside Story of the Atlanta Braves’ 1995 World Series Championship. Marietta, GA: Longstreet Press, 1995.

1995 Atlanta Braves: World Series Games 3, 4 and 5

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After two close games in Atlanta, the Series shifted to Cleveland for the next three games.  Ever the antagonizer, Kenny Lofton stated that the Indians would have won the first two games if they were played in Cleveland because of the passionate Cleveland fans.  The fact of the matter is that the Braves pitchers had held the potent Cleveland offense to a .096 batting average through the first two games.

Game 3 matched John Smoltz against Charles Nagy.  The temperature at game time was a brisk 49 degrees with a wind chill factor of 29 degrees.  A 25-mph wind came blowing into Jacobs Field off of Lake Erie.  Leo Mazzone and the other Braves on the bench sat bundled up in Braves jackets and gloves.  Atlanta scored in the top of the first on an RBI single from Fred McGriff, but this was not to be Atlanta’s night.  Cleveland answered with two runs off of Smoltz in the bottom half of the inning then two in the bottom of the third to chase him.  Smoltz pitched 2.1 innings giving up four runs on six hits.  Mazzone sat on the bench stunned with no movement.  Dave Pursley glanced over at Mazzone several times during the inning and couldn’t believe Mazzone was so still.  Finally, he walked over to shake Mazzone to see if he was asleep from the cold or had passed on to the great ballpark in the sky.  Mazzone was okay, but the Braves knew their bats had to heat up quickly to stay in the game.  McGriff started the comeback with a home run in the top of the sixth to cut the deficit to two.  Ryan Klesko then launched a solo shot in the seventh to pull the Braves within one.  However, Cleveland answered with a run in the bottom half of the inning when Lofton scored on a Carlos Baerga single.

With Cleveland leading 5-3 in the eighth inning, Atlanta took the lead 6-5 on RBI singles from Luis Polonia and Mike Devereaux and one big Cleveland error.  However with the passionate Cleveland fans urging them on, the Indians tied the game in the bottom of the inning then won it in the bottom of the eleventh.  With Cleveland’s 7-6 victory, the Series stood at two games to one.   Bobby Cox had a tough decision to make for Game 4—bring back Maddux on short rest or start Steve Avery.  As the night wore on, people thought they heard Mazzone singing some version of “I Will Survive,” a song made famous by Gloria Gaynor.

Cox reasoned that he had four quality starters and wanted all of them to pitch with the proper amount of rest, so Cox decided on pitching Avery for Game 4.  Some members of the media questioned this decision because Cox would be without Maddux for a Game 7.  Yet, Avery closed out the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Championship Series (NLCS), 6-0, and he had a 4-2 record all-time in the postseason.  Tom Glavine thought Cox’s decision was a good one.  Glavine noted that Avery walked around the clubhouse in the postseason with a lot of confidence, was very focused, and seemed like the pitcher who shut down the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1991 NLCS, earning Most Valuable Player for his two wins over the Pirates.

On another cold night in Cleveland, Avery took the mound against Ken Hill.  Through five innings neither team had lit the scoreboard.  Avery had only given up a pair of singles to the best hitting team in baseball.  Mazzone, again, seemed very subdued, rocking steadily at a controlled pace.  After a few innings Mazzone noticed that Avery was using the change-up down and outside as his main pitch, throwing twice as many change-ups as fastballs.  Normally, according to Mazzone, his pitchers would throw twice as many fastballs as off-speed pitches.  Between one of the early innings, Mazzone suggested that Avery throw more fastballs.  Avery responded that the Cleveland batters could not hit his change-up and weren’t making adjustments, so he told Mazzone he was going to continue to throw the hitters mainly change-ups.  Mazzone could not argue with Avery’s success, so he endorsed the strategy and went back to his controlled rocking.

Atlanta finally broke through in the top of the sixth inning on Klesko’s long home run to right field.  With a 1-0 lead, Avery gave up a tying shot to Albert Belle but finished the inning with no further damage.  Avery came out of the game after the sixth having allowed one earned run on three hits.  Atlanta rewarded Avery’s outstanding performance with three runs in the top of the seventh. Polonia doubled home Marquis Grissom with the go-ahead run and David Justice completed the rally with a single that drove in Polonia and Chipper Jones, who had been intentionally walked.

Cox brought in Greg McMichael to pitch the seventh and eighth innings, and he kept the Indians from adding to their run total.  The game remained 4-1 entering the ninth inning.  Fred McGriff opened the inning with a double and three batters later Javy Lopez drove him home with another double.  With a 5-1 lead, Cox turned to closer Mark Wohlers to finish the game.  Wohlers promptly gave up a leadoff home run to Manny Ramirez and a double to pinch hitter Paul Sorrento.  As Mazzone curled up in the fetal position on the bench, Cox brought in Pedro Borbon, Jr. to finish the game.  Borbon responded by striking out the next two batters and securing the third out on a Lofton line drive to Justice.  With the 5-2 win, the Braves now owned a 3-1 Series lead, and in the clubhouse, people clearly heard Mazzone belting out Tag Team’s song, “Whoomp! (There it is)” over and over and over again.

Game 5 matched the same pitchers as Game 1:  Maddux vs. Hershiser.  With their backs to the wall, the Indians came out swinging.  In the bottom of the first inning, Belle ripped a two-run homer over the right-field wall for a 2-0 Cleveland lead, but the Braves battled back.  Polonia, in the top of the fourth inning, sent a shot over the right-field wall to cut Atlanta’s deficit to 2-1, then in the fifth inning, Grissom drove in Klesko with an infield single to tie the game, 2-2.  However, the Indians countered with two runs in the bottom of the sixth on RBI singles from Jim Thome and Ramirez.  By this time, Mazzone had been singing Eric Clapton’s version of “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” while maintaining a steady rock.  Mazzone almost seemed melancholy.  Maddux lasted seven innings while giving up four earned runs on seven hits, certainly not numbers that one would normally expect from him.   Hershiser, on the other hand, pitched brilliantly, giving up two runs, one earned, on five hits through eight innings.  Thome homered off of Brad Clontz in the eighth to widen the lead to 5-2 and Klesko hit a two-out, two-run homer off of Jose Mesa to cut the deficit to one in the ninth.  Mesa struck out Mark Lemke to end the game and cut Atlanta’s Series lead to 3-2.  As the Braves players and coaches exited the dugout, Mazzone serenaded them with his version of Gladys Knight and the Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia,” replete with his imitation of the Pips’ moves.

With the Series shifting back to Atlanta, questions arose from fans and the media as to whether the Braves would finally win a World Series.  Before Game 6, controversy arose and the plot thickened!

1995 Atlanta Braves: World Series Games 1 and 2

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For Braves management, players, and fans, the third trip to the World Series in five years had to be the charm.  The Braves lost a hard fought Series to the Minnesota Twins in 1991 as the Twins won Game 7 in Minneapolis, 1-0 in ten innings.  Again in 1992, Atlanta battled the Blue Jays but lost four games to two.  Atlanta suffered four one-run losses.  This time, the potent pitching of the Braves faced off against the explosive offense of the Cleveland Indians.  Cleveland finished the regular season 100-44, winning their division by 30 games over the second place Kansas City Royals.  The Indians led the American League in batting, runs, base hits, and stolen bases.  They had eight .300 hitters in their starting lineup.  They swept the Boston Red Sox in their Divisional Series and beat the Seattle Mariners 4 games to 2 in their Championship Series.  However, the Cleveland Indians had never faced such a dominant pitching staff as that of the Atlanta Braves.  The old baseball adage of great pitching beats great hitting proved true once more.  The Braves won the first two games in Atlanta, but both were close.

The key to beating the Indians, according to Leo Mazzone, was to keep speedster Kenny Lofton off the bases.  Lofton hit .310 for the season, led the American League with 54 stolen bases, and scored 93 runs.  Clearly, Lofton was the catalyst for the Cleveland offense.

Greg Maddux took the mound for Game 1 against Cleveland ace Orel Hershiser.  In the top of the first Lofton led off the game with a ground ball to Braves shortstop Rafael Belliard who could not field it cleanly.  Lofton reached base safely and gave immediate credence to Mazzone’s comment.  Lofton stole second and third and scored the Indians’ first run on a Carlos Baerga ground out to short.  Cleveland led 1-0 without the benefit of a hit.  Mazzone could be seen in the dugout with his head in a trash can.  Fred McGriff evened the score in the bottom of the second with a long home run over the right center-field wall.  Some color quickly came back to Mazzone’s face.

The score remained knotted at one until the bottom of the seventh inning.  Hershiser walked McGriff and David Justice to start the inning.  Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove brought Paul Assenmacher in from the bullpen to replace Hershiser and he promptly walked Mike Devereaux.  Hargrove replaced Assenmacher with Julian Tavarez and Braves manager Bobby Cox countered by pinch hitting Luis Polonia for Charlie O’Brien.  Polonia hit into a fielder’s choice to short and McGriff scored from third to give the Braves a 2-1 lead.  Belliard followed with a perfect suicide squeeze bunt that drove in Justice for a 3-1 lead.  Cameras caught what looked like a quick smile from Mazzone.  A radar gun registered Mazzone’s rocking at close to 30 mph.  Trainer Dave Pursley desperately looked for some kind of restraint.

Leading 3-1 going to the bottom of the ninth inning, Cox chose to let Maddux finish the game.  He had thrown less than 90 pitches and had relinquished just two singles and the unearned run to Lofton.  Maddux induced Paul Sorrento to ground out to second before Lofton hit a hard single to left field.  At this point, Mazzone was overheard singing “Don’t Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation while teetering on the edge of the dugout bench.  The next Cleveland hitter, Omar Vizquel, grounded to second for the second out but Lofton raced to third and scored on a throwing error by McGriff.  With two outs and Mazzone muttering something unintelligible while rolling on the dugout floor, Maddux completed his 95-pitch gem by coaxing a foul out from Baerga.  The Braves took Game 1, 3-2.

Game 2 matched Tom Glavine against Dennis Martinez.  Glavine had not pitched in ten days and by his own admission was a little rusty.  In the top of the second inning Glavine gave up a lead off single to Albert Belle and then watched Eddie Murray crush his next pitch over the left field wall for a 2-0 Cleveland lead.   Mazzone’s rocking started slowly but hit another gear.  He began to slow down after the Braves tied the game in the bottom of the third inning.

In the third, Martinez hit Marquis Grissom and Mark Lemke followed with a line drive single to begin the inning.  Grissom reached third when Martinez threw the ball away trying to pick off Grissom at second.  Chipper Jones followed with a deep fly ball to left field that allowed Grissom to tag and score.  Two batters later, David Justice hit a soft fly ball to right center field that fell for a hit, enabling Lemke to score the tying run.  Glavine and Martinez kept the game tied until the bottom of the sixth.  Glavine escaped jams in the fourth and fifth innings that caused Mazzone to use a paper bag to stop hyperventilating.  Dave Pursley put Grady Hospital on notice.

Justice led off the bottom of the sixth inning with a single to left field but reached second base when Belle misplayed it.  Ryan Klesko then moved Justice to third base with a ground out to the right side of the infield.  With one out, Javy Lopez stepped to the plate.  In his book Behind the Plate: A Catcher’s View of the Braves Dynasty, (Triumph Books: Chicago, IL, 2012), Lopez stated that he desperately wanted to drive in Justice with the go ahead run but believed Martinez would walk him to set up the double play with light-hitting Belliard on deck.  According to Lopez, he was surprised when Martinez attacked him with good pitches to begin the at-bat.  Determined to get a hit, Lopez fouled off pitches that were outside of the strike zone.  With the count 1-2, Martinez threw a pitch outside, inches off the plate, and Lopez hit it hard to center field.  Lopez hoped for a double and was running hard.  However, he got more than a double.  The ball cleared the fence giving the Braves a 4-2 lead. Mazzone began rocking and singing a modified version of “Brick House’ by the Commodores.

Greg McMichael came in for Glavine in the top of the seventh inning and dispatched the first two Indians batters with relative ease.  Then Lofton came to bat.  He promptly singled to right field then stole second base.  On a fly ball from Omar Vizquel that Mike Devereaux misplayed in left field, Lofton scored to cut the Braves lead to one. Sirens could be heard approaching Atlanta-Fulton County stadium.   McMichael then walked Baerga and wild pitched both he and Vizquel up one base.  Paramedics were racing to the Braves dugout as Mazzone’s face seemed to change to something close to navy blue.  Alejandro Pena replaced McMichael.  Up stepped power-hitter Albert Belle.  On a 0-2 pitch, Pena induced Belle to hit a pop fly behind the plate that Lopez smothered to end the inning.  The color in Mazzone’s face returned to normal after taking something from the paradmedics.  While waiting for the Braves to come to bat, Mazzone turned to each paramedic sitting beside him and asked them what they thought the meaning of life was.

The Braves could not score in their half of the seventh and Pena trotted out to the mound to begin the eighth inning.  Pena got Murray to fly out to left but Manny Ramirez then singled on a fly ball that just eluded the Braves infielders.  Jim Thome strided to the plate for Cleveland and Mazzone seemed to be trying to catch imaginary butterflies as the paramedics looked on.  On a 3-2 count, Lopez picked off Ramirez at first for the second out. Pena then walked Thome before giving way to Mark Wohlers.  Wohlers coaxed Sorrento to fly out to Grissom for the final out of the inning, and Mazzone began to giggle uncontrollably.

The Braves went quietly in the bottom of the eight before Wohlers closed out the game in the ninth.  The Braves held on for a 4-3 win and a 2-0 lead in the Series.  After the game, people thought they heard Mazzone tell the paramedics that he loved them.  Now the Series would shift to frigid Cleveland for the next three game and tighten considerably!

 

 

The 1995 Atlanta Braves: National League Championship Series

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After vanquishing the Colorado Rockies in the National League Division Series, the Braves turned their attention to the Cincinnati Reds, who had just completed a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in their Division Series.  Atlanta took eight out of thirteen from the Reds during the regular season, but the Reds had speed on the base paths, which made Braves coaches very nervous because Cincinnati could turn a simple walk or single into a run by getting into scoring position with steals.  Reggie Sanders, Barry Larkin and former Brave Ron Gant could all hit and run.  Keeping the Reds off of the base paths would be the key to the series.  When asked by reporters how the Braves would handle the Reds’ speed, Leo Mazzone responded, “Well, you can’t steal first base.”  Making good pitches and executing the game plan, explained Mazzone, would keep the Reds off of the base paths.

In this best-of-seven series, the Braves played the first two games in Cincinnati.  Game 1 pitted Tom Glavine against Reds ace Pete Schourek, an 18-game winner.  After the Reds took the lead on a single by Ron Gant, Schourek held the Braves at bay until the ninth inning.  With the coaches downing their cache of antacid tablets, Chipper Jones led off the inning with a single and Fred McGriff followed with another single that moved Jones to third base.  David Justice then beat out a potential double play ball to shortstop that erased McGriff and scored Jones.  The Braves tied the game but could not take the lead in the inning.  The game remained 1-1 until the 11th.  Two August additions to the team, Luis Polonia and Mike Devereaux (named the NLCS Most Valuable Player), then proved their value.  McGriff led off with a walk before Polonia sacrificed him to second base.  After Javy Lopez grounded out to third, Devereaux hit a hard line drive single to center field to score McGriff with the eventual winning run.  Nursing a 2-1 lead, Brad Clontz entered the bottom half of the inning to pitch .  The Braves had already used closer Mark Wohlers in the 10th.  Clontz immediately gave up a lead off double to pinch hitter Thomas Howard and a new box of antacid tablets was brought from the locker room. Larkin then moved Howard to third with a ground out to second.  Bobby Cox countered by bringing in Steve Avery, normally a starting pitcher.  Avery proceeded to walk Mariano Duncan and Leo Mazzone almost rocked himself off of the dugout bench.  After Cox relieved Avery with Greg McMichael, the former Braves closer induced a double play grounder from Reggie Sanders to preserve the 2-1 victory.  Mazzone exhaled and popped a couple more antacid pills just to be safe.

John Smoltz took the mound for Game 2.  In the top of the first, Marquis Grissom singled to lead off the game and took second base on Mark Lemke’s ground out to first.  Chipper then singled to right field to score Grissom for a 1-0 lead.  The score remained steady until the fourth inning when Fred McGriff led off with a double and Mike Devereaux drove him in with a double of his own.  However, just as Mazzone started to relax, the Reds tied the game with two runs off of Smoltz in the bottom of the fifth inning. Similar to the first game, the second one produced free baseball.  With the score 2-2 in the top of the 10th, the Braves struck hard.  Lemke led off with a single. Chipper moved him to second with a ground out to the right side of the infield.  McGriff received an intentional walk before David Justice singled to load the bases.  With Ryan Klesko pinch hitting for Devereaux, Reds reliever Mark Portugal uncorked a wild pitch scoring Lemke with the go ahead run.  After Klesko popped out, Lopez unleashed a three-run bomb to deep left field to give the Braves a 6-2 lead.  With Braves coaches down to their last bottle of antacids, Mark Wohlers entered the bottom of the 10th.  After Wohlers gave up a leadoff single to Larkin, Mazzone rocked himself off of the bench then rolled under it.  However, Wohlers induced a ground out and two strike outs to secure the victory as Braves trainer Dave Pursley revived Mazzone.  Up two games to none, the series shifted to Atlanta.

With Greg Maddux on the mound for Game 3 and the Braves up 2-0 in the series, Mazzone and the other coaches seemed calm and confident.  However, as in the NLDS with the Rockies, ambulances from Grady Hospital were on alert.  Also, a new supply of antacid tablets arrived in the clubhouse the day before the game.  Maddux and Reds twirler David Wells kept the score 0-0 into the sixth inning.  Mazzone’s rocking pace on the bench had picked up considerably by that point. McGriff led off the bottom of the sixth with a double to right field.  Then Justice flied out and Devereaux walked.  Up strolled light-hitting catcher Charlie O’Brien.  With the count two balls and two strikes, O’Brien blasted Wells’ next pitch into the left field seats for a 3-0 Braves lead.  Mazzone wiped his brow and offered a barely detectable smile.  He became almost giddy after Chipper launched a two-run blast to left field in the bottom of the seventh to increase Atlanta’s lead to 5-0.  The Reds managed single runs off of Maddux in the eighth and Wohlers in the ninth, but the Braves prevailed 5-2.   Mazzone looked the picture of health as he exited the locker room knowing the Braves only needed one more win to finish off the Reds and go back to the World Series.

Cox picked Steve Avery to pitch Game 4 and all Avery did was shut out the Reds for six innings.  Atlanta took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third on a Lemke single that plated Rafael Belliard.  With Mazzone starting to grab his antacid tablets in the seventh, the Braves still nursed a 1-0 lead.  Cincinnati’s Schourek had allowed the only run of the game but was pitching on short rest, so Reds manager Davey Johnson sent out Michael Jackson (not the pop star, but I could be wrong based on the results) to pitch the seventh.  Grissom led off the inning with a triple to left center field.  After Lemke popped out and Jones walked, Grissom scored on a passed ball with McGriff at the plate.  Jackson then intentionally walked McGriff with first base open.  Up stepped Devereaux who deposited Jackson’s first pitch into the left field seats to give the Braves a 5-0 cushion.  Lopez followed with a double before Jackson intentionally walked Klesko.  After that Jackson Beat It back to the dugout while moon walking.  Dave Burba, Jackson’s replacement, induced a ground out from Belliard before Polonia singled to make the score 6-0.  Seconds later, Mazzone pulled a mirror from his back pocket, looked at The Man in the Mirror, liked what he saw, then began to rock ever so slowly.  Alejandro Pena and Wohlers shut out the Reds the rest of the way, and with the 6-0 shutout, the Braves could begin preparations for their third World Series in five years.  As Mazzone enjoyed an adult beverage after the game, a rumor emerged that a young woman gave him a quick kiss on the cheek to offer her congratulations.  Later, when asked her name, Mazzone wasn’t sure.  He thought he heard someone call her Billie Jean but another referred to her as Dirty Diana.  No matter, the NLCS was a Thriller (Sorry. I just couldn’t resist)!

The Braves became the first team to sweep an NLCS and they did so by executing Mazzone’s plan of keeping the Reds off of the base paths—the Reds managed only four steals, all in Game 2.  Braves pitchers shut down Cincinnati’s offense.  Reggie Sanders, for example, hit 28 home runs and drove in 99 runs during the regular season.  Sanders finished the series 2-16 with no RBIs and 10 strike outs.

The stakes would now be higher against the only team with a better record than the Braves.  The Cleveland Indians stood between Atlanta and the city’s first world title in any of the four major sports (baseball, football, basketball and ice hockey).  The 1995 World Series would become one of the most unforgettable events in the history of the city!

 

The 1995 Atlanta Braves: National League Division Series

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The 1995 season marked the beginning of three divisions in both the National and American Leagues.  The division winners and a Wild Card team, the team with the best record outside of the division victors, comprised the playoff pool.  For the first time in the history of baseball, a team had to win two playoff series to reach the World Series, and the first series was only a best-of-five format. The Colorado Rockies presented the first test for Atlanta.  The Braves entered the playoffs with the best record in the National League but fearful of the Rockies in a short series.  Also, the Braves had to play the first two games in Coors Field in Denver where no lead was safe.  None of the Braves management or coaches believed a short series a true test.  Braves Pitching Coach Leo Mazzone believed a short series detracted from everything a team accomplished over the course of a regular season and negated a team’s depth, which proved a large factor in the Braves’ securing the division title.  He further argued that anything could happen in a short series and the lesser team could win.  Mazzone also knew that the Rockies had hit 134 of their league-leading 200 home runs at Coors Field.  However, the Braves traveled to Denver for the first two games knowing they had Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and an unlimited supply of antacid tablets.

The Braves had beaten the Rockies 30 out of 36 times in Colorado’s short history.  However, the mood in the clubhouse was one of high anxiety.  John Smoltz stated that everyone on the team feared the Rockies in a short series and that Colorado reminded him of the 1991 Braves.  Mazzone‘s goal for the pitching staff was to hold the Rockies to under four runs because the thin Denver air ballooned a pitcher’s Earned Run Average.  With all of this in mind, Maddux toed the rubber for Game 1.  Marquis Grissom’s solo home run gave the Braves a short lived 1-0 lead.  Maddux surrendered three runs in the fourth inning and the team’s concerns began to appear very valid.  With Braves coaches popping antacid pills before, during and after innings, the Braves players began a comeback.  In the top of the sixth, Chipper Jones led off with a long home run over the right field wall to cut the deficit to one.  After a walk to David Justice and a single from Ryan Klesko, recently-acquired Luis Polonia beat out a potential double play that allowed Justice to score from third to tie the game at 3-3.

The game remained tied until the eighth inning.  With two outs, Klesko and Javy Lopez hit back-to-back singles. Cox then pinch hit left-handed hitter Dwight Smith for right-handed hitter Jeff Blauser in order to counteract Colorado pitcher Darren Holmes, a righty.  The move worked as Smith singled up the middle driving in Klesko with the go ahead run.  However, in the bottom of the inning Braves reliever Alejandro Pena gave up a Run Batted In double to Ellis Burks that tied the game at 4-4.

With two outs in the ninth, Jones drilled another home run to give the Braves a 5-4 lead.  The drama was just beginning, however.  Mark Wohlers entered the game to close out the victory.  With one out, Wohlers allowed two singles and a walk to load the bases.  He secured the second out with a strike out of Andres Galarraga and up to the plate came Lance Painter, a pitcher.  Colorado manager Don Baylor gambled and used all of his position players during the game.  Painter was his next best option, but Wohlers struck him out to enable the Braves to escape with a 5-4 win.

Game 2 provided more unsettled stomachs for the Braves.  Marquis Grissom led off the contest with a drive over the fence in right center field to stake the Braves to a 1-0 lead. Lopez drove in Mark Lemke with a sacrifice fly in the third inning, Grissom hit another solo home run in the fourth and the Braves led 3-0.  Just as the Braves began to feel good about their situation, Larry Walker prompted the opening of a new box of antacids with a three-run blast off of Braves’ starter Tom Glavine to knot the score at 3-3 in the sixth inning.  The scored remained tied until the bottom of the eighth.  With Pena on the mound again the Rockies took a 4-3 lead on a Galarraga double.  Heavy breathing ensued from the Braves’ dugout.  With the Braves trailing by one in their last at bat, they showed why they had the best record in the National League.  Jones led off with a double.  Fred McGriff singled him home to tie the game.  Justice then flied out and Lopez struck out.   Mike Devereaux then singled and Cox called on Mike Mordecai to pinch hit for Pena.  Mordecai promptly singled to give the Braves the lead.  Two more runs came home when Colorado second basemen Eric Young committed a two-base throwing error on a ground ball from Rafael Belliard.  Wohlers kept the Rockies off of the scoreboard in the ninth for the victory and a 2-0 series lead for the Braves.  No one from the Atlanta dugout needed medical treatment, but a new order for antacid pills was made as the series shifted to Atlanta.

The pills arrived before the start of Game 3.  John Smoltz then proceeded to allow five runs, but the Braves battled back to the tie the game in the bottom of the ninth when Klesko scored on a Polonia single.  However, Wohlers proceeded to give up two runs in the top of the 10th inning and the Braves could not counter in the bottom half.  The series now stood at two games to one, while nearby Grady Hospital began to prepare rooms for Braves coaches, just in case.

When Game 4 starter Greg Maddux gave up three runs in the third inning, ambulance sirens could be heard in the distance, but before they arrived the Braves countered in their half of the third.  Jones doubled home Grissom and Lemke to cut the deficit to one then the Crime Dog, McGriff, homered to give the Braves the lead and close the door on any Colorado upset plans.  Atlanta added two runs in the fourth, one in the fifth and three more in the sixth to clinch the Division series with a 10-4 victory.  The ambulances returned to Grady with no occupants.

The Braves had survived.  Smoltz believed the Braves were lucky to win the series and noted the Rockies could have swept the Braves in three games.  With blood pressures slowly inching down to normal, the Braves turned their focus to the National League Championship Series against the Central Division champion Cincinnati Reds.  At least this series would be a best-of-seven format, and the Braves’ depth should provide the difference, or so Cox, Mazzone and the other coaches believed.  To be safe, more antacid pills were ordered.

1995 Braves: The First Half of the Regular Season

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After the strike’s official end on April 2, Braves’ players and coaches rushed down to West Palm Beach for three weeks of spring training before the start of the shortened 144-game regular season. The coaches focused on getting the players into shape and avoiding injuries.  Both the coaches and the players seemed relieved that the game they loved was back.

As the Braves began spring training in April, general manager John Schuerholz solidified the roster with the addition of Marquis Grissom and Jeff Blauser.  Grissom, an Atlanta native, came via trade with the Montreal Expos.  He brought the element of speed to the Braves that they had not had since Otis Nixon.  A natural leadoff hitter, Grissom either led the National League in stolen bases  or finished in the top three from 1991-1994 and won the Gold Glove in center field the previous two years before joining the Braves.  Schuerholz signed Blauser to a three-year deal.  Blauser had been the Braves’s starting shortstop before his contract ended after the 1994 season and was a key part of the team chemistry developed in the early 1990s.

Before the season began, Schuerholz and manager Bobby Cox decided that young, home-grown Chipper Jones, Ryan Klesko, and Javier Lopez would be in the everyday lineup. Schuerholz also called up relief pitcher Brad Clontz from the minors.

While the Braves players and management prepared for the upcoming season, Braves fans struggled with their emotions.  The strike prompted feelings of anger, resentment and betrayal from fans across the country.  Attendance at Braves spring training games dropped about eighty percent from pre-strike figures.  During spring training and early in the regular season, fans demonstrated their displeasure by boycotting games or coming to games with home-made signs and other forms of expression. While all Braves’ players and coaches wanted to re-establish fan rapport, Tom Glavine especially felt the need to mend fences.  He knew that fans resented him more than others because of his role as the union representative for the Braves.  Atlantans have generally looked unfavorably on unions of all types.  With that in mind, Glavine signed copious autographs and went out of his way to re-engage with Braves fans.

The Braves opened the 1995 season on April 26 versus the San Francisco Giants.  Just over 24,000 fans, less than half of Atlanta-Fulton County stadium’s capacity, saw the Braves defeat the Giants, 12-5.  Greg Maddux pitched five innings giving up one earned run on one hit while striking out five.  He also had two hits and scored a run.   Brad Woodall allowed the rest of the San Francisco tallies.  Fred McGriff paced the 17-hit attack with four hits, including two home runs and four RBIs. David Justice contributed three hits, including a home run and two RBIs.    Chipper Jones had two hits, two RBIs, and scored three times while Jeff Blauser provided two hits and scored two runs.

The opening game win belied the Braves’ play from late April to early July.  The team struggled at times with different phases of the game—pitching, hitting, and fielding.  By the end of the first week of May, the Braves trailed the Philadelphia Phillies for the division lead.  At the end of a five-game losing streak in early June, the Braves were four and a half games out of first.  Bobby Cox knew that if the Braves did not play better baseball soon the division title would belong to the Phillies.  The players also felt the time had come to step up their collective game.  After a team meeting and an abandoned flight to Montreal because of a fire in the cabin, the Braves went on a seven-game winning streak.  By July 4, the Braves had regained first place from the Phillies.

Independence Day provided just enough fireworks for Atlanta.  The Braves took over the top spot in the division with a 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Dodgers scored two runs in the second inning off of Kent Mercker but a David Justice solo home run in the bottom of the inning cut the deficit to one.  The game stayed that way until the bottom of the eighth when an opposite field blast from Ryan Klesko tied the game and a Jeff Blauser single drove in Dwight Smith with the go-ahead run.  Mark Wohlers, recently installed as the closer, pitched a perfect ninth inning to garner his seventh save of the season.

 

By the July 11th All-Star game, the Braves had opened a 4.5 game lead over Philadelphia.  The fun had only begun!

 

 

1995 Atlanta Braves Season: Spring Training

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The baseball strike that ended the 1994 season continued into 1995.   The owners and players  had no love loss for the other.  Both sides believed their position was the only one that mattered. The owners proposed a salary cap and the division of local broadcasting revenue among all of the teams.  The owners argued that without a cap and revenue sharing small market teams would be forced to cease operations.  The players adamantly opposed the proposal.  Compromise, much less a settlement, seemed a distant hope.  The Braves prepared for the season with replacement players at their spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Florida during February and March.

Potential replacement players and minor leaguers mingled together in the minor league clubhouse.  Braves management kept the major league clubhouse closed.  The Braves offered players who made the Opening Day roster $115,000 to play the season.  Many of the players earned as little as $1,000 per month in the minor leagues so such a salary motivated the men to do their best to make the team.

However, the Braves coaches felt less excited about the upcoming season than the players. Bobby Cox rode in a golf cart between fields and played as much golf as he could.  Leo Mazzone complained about the lack of talent among the pitchers in camp.  Of course, who wouldn’t after having coached Greg Maddox, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Steve Avery?  The position players did nothing to make the coaches forget Fred McGriff, Javy Lopez, David Justice and Ryan Klesko.

Braves regulars passed the time away at home with various activities while hoping the strike would end.  Greg Maddux spent his time on the golf course, as did John Smoltz.  Mark Wohlers worked at an automobile body shop.

Nothing remarkable took place in West Palm Beach until tragedy struck on March 25.  News reports detailed that a Braves replacement player had been murdered. Police found Dave Shotkoski, 30 years old, lying dead after a gunshot wound.  Apparently, Shotkoski had gone for a walk near a bad part of town.  Someone on a bicycle tried to rob Shotkoski, a confrontation ensued, and the robber shot him.  Police found a trail of blood where Shotkoski had tried to pull himself to the street.

Shotkoski had a wife and an eight-month old daughter. He had reached the Double A level professionally as a pitcher in 1991 and hoped to make the Braves roster for the 1995 season.  The news of his death rocked the clubhouse.  Terry Blocker and Shotkoski had become friends while in camp together.  Blocker took the news very hard and cried when thinking about Shotkoski’s widow and fatherless baby.

Blocker took it upon himself to find the person who had murdered Shotkoski.  Blocker canvassed the streets in the rough neighborhood near where Shotkoski was shot and figured that people would talk to another African-American.  Through conversations with some of the residents of the neighborhood, Blocker gathered enough information to help the police find Shotkoski’s killer.  The police arrested the murderer on a Sunday.  On Monday, the Braves cut Blocker.  The Braves gave Felicia, Shotkoski’s widow, the benefits from a $10,000 life insurance policy they had taken out on him.  Two unnamed Braves players contributed to a trust fund set up for Alexis, Shotkoski’s little girl, but none of the players ever called Felicia to express their sentiments.  Braves officials did honor her on Opening Day of the regular season, helped with a fund raiser at a minor league game in Pennsylvania and convinced Shotkoski’s hometown near Chicago to name a street after him.  Mrs. Shotkoski believed the Braves organization could have done more.

A few days after police arrested Shotkoski’s killer and Blocker’s release, the 25-man roster of replacement players headed to Atlanta for three exhibition games.  The players participated in the first two games in late March but on March 31, Sonia Sotomayor, current Supreme Court Justice, ruled as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York that the owners had committed unfair labor practices under the National Labor Relations Act. Her ruling gained support from the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after the owners appealed, thereby forcing the owners to be bound by the rules and stipulations of the prior collective bargaining agreement.  The players then voted to end the strike and baseball was set to return for an abbreviated 1995 season.  Each replacement player received $5,000 upon his release.

The 43rd Anniversary of Hank Aaron’s 715th Home Run

Photo by Chris Evans

Photo by Chris Evans

April 8 was the 43rd anniversary of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, which broke the record of Babe Ruth set over 50 years prior. Aaron received scores of death threats and hate mail as he neared Ruth’s record. Throughout the chase, Aaron maintained a calmness and grace that belied the worry and anxiety he was feeling. Aaron persevered and finally hit 715 on April 8, 1974, at Fulton County stadium, on a 1-0 fastball from Dodgers’ pitcher Al Downing. Attached is the audio from the three broadcasters at the game: Curt Gowdy with NBC, Milo Hamilton with the Braves, and Vin Scully with the Dodgers. Pay close attention to Hamilton’s and Scully’s calls.

 

 

Spring Training and the Braves

 

 

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Spring training for baseball teams preparing for the upcoming season has existed since the 1890s when the Chicago White Stockings (now the Chicago Cubs) began the preseason ritual in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1896. Soon the Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and Brooklyn Dodgers began calling Hot Springs their spring training home.  The Boston Beaneaters (became the Boston Braves in 1912) joined the spring training  extravaganza in Norfolk, Virginia in 1901.

Since Norfolk, the franchise has trained at numerous sites:  Thomasville, Georgia (1902-1904, 1907); Charleston, South Carolina (1905); Jacksonville, Florida; (1906) Augusta, Georgia (1908-1912); Athens, Georgia (1913); Macon, Georgia (1914-1915); Miami, Florida (1916-1918); Columbus, Georgia (1919-1920); Galveston, Texas (1921); St. Petersburg, Florida (1922-1937); Bradenton, Florida (1938-1940, 1948-1962); San Antonio, Texas (1941); Sanford, Florida (1942); Wallingford, Connecticut (1943-1944); Washington, D.C. (1945); Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (1946-1947); West Palm Beach, Florida (1963-1997), and Orlando, Florida (1998-Present).

The Braves are set to move to a new home beginning in the spring of 2019 in Sarasota County, Florida.   This $75 million to $85 million complex will have a stadium seating capacity of about 9,000 and six full and two half practice fields.  Braves officials have been considering a new spring training site for the last couple of years because other major league teams have moved farther away, thereby increasing travel time for spring training games. The Houston Astros, which were located in nearby Kissimmee, and the Washington Nationals, which were located about 60 miles away in Viera, moved to a new facility in Palm Beach County that they will share beginning this spring.  The closest opponent now is the Detroit Tigers, an hour away in Lakeland. So when not playing the Tigers, the Braves have to bus at least two hours to play another team. The Braves do not want to substitute teaching and training time for travel time.  For another couple of spring training seasons, the Braves will remain in Lake Buena Vista as part of the Disney family.  The Braves and Disney partnership came together in a circuitous manner.

With the lease in West Palm Beach to expire in 1997,the Braves began negotiations with Palm Beach County officials in 1993 for a new stadium, but problems arose as to where and how to build the new stadium, according to a February 27, 1996 article in the Sun-Sentinel of Broward County, Florida.   The new $25 million stadium was to seat around 7,500 and be shared with their stadium partner at the time, the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals).

The Walt Disney Company approached the Braves in 1995 about becoming the main tenant in a new sports complex, planned for opening in 1997, after the Tampa Bay Devil Rays declined the multi-billion dollar company’s offer, according to a February 28, 1996 Orlando Sentinel article. Initially, the Braves declined the offer because of on-going negotiations with Palm Beach County officials. The Palm Beach County deal began to unravel early in 1996, largely because of a private developer’s insistence on pocketing most or all of the parking fees, according to the Orlando Sentinel article. At that point, the Braves contacted Disney officials and negotiated a deal within a week. Braves President Stan Kasten summed up the negotiations, “We got done here (at Disney) in a week what we couldn’t do in three years down there.” The Braves signed a 20-year lease to play in 9,500-seat Cracker Jack Stadium (now Champion Stadium) in the Disney Wide World of Sports complex (now the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex) and beat the Cincinnati Reds 9-7 in their first game in their new spring training home, on March 28, 1997.

The Braves and Disney signed a one year extension to the lease that will keep Atlanta in Champion Stadium through the 2018 spring training season. At the time of this writing, Mickey and Minnie Mouse remain undecided on whether to follow the Braves to Sarasota County.  However, rumor has it that Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy are all in.