1995 Atlanta Braves: World Series Game 6

August 11, 2017 By Leave a Comment

250px-Atlanta_Braves_Insignia.svg

 

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.

Filed Under: Baseball Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

August 8, 2017 By 1 Comment

250px-Atlanta_Braves_Insignia.svg

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!

Filed Under: Baseball Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1995 Atlanta Braves: World Series Games 1 and 2

July 28, 2017 By 1 Comment

250px-Atlanta_Braves_Insignia.svg

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!

 

 

Filed Under: Baseball Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,