NEW YORK -- Nine first-place finishes since 1991. One World Series
parade.
Nine years later, and we're still asking the same question about the
Atlanta Braves every single autumn:
Are they one of sports' greatest dynasties of modern times? Or do
they belong in just some legendary runner-up bin with the Buffalo Bills,
Wilt Chamberlain and the Dave Clark Five?
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Total dominance
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The Braves by the numbers over the last 10 years:
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Year
|
W-L
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Runs/gm
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ERA
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1991
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94-68
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4.6
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3.49
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1992
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98-64*
|
4.2
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3.14#
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1993
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104-58*
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4.7
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3.14#
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1994^
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68-46
|
4.8
|
3.57
|
|
1995
|
90-54*
|
4.5
|
3.44#
|
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1996
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96-66*
|
4.8
|
3.52
|
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1997
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101-61*
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4.9
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3.18#
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1998
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106-56*
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5.1
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3.25#
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1999
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103-59*
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5.2
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3.65#
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2000
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94-63*
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5.1
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4.04#
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* best record in NL
# best ERA in NL
^ strike shortened season
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Well, we've done enough sports-talk radio shows to know how most
people will vote. It's a bottom-line world. And the Braves' October bottom
line isn't good enough for most of the planet.
But after 10 seasons of watching this team in action, you'll never hear this
columnist compare this team to the Buffalo Bills. Not now. Not ever.
What happens in October is often a fluke. What happens in the
six-month triathlon that precedes October is almost never a fluke.
This team has survived nine of those triathlons to finish in first
place since 1991. Nine. If you're a Cubs fan or a Phillies fan or an Angels
fan or a Tigers fan, mull that fact over for a moment and see if it's still
possible for you to think of the Atlanta Braves as losers.
Give us a break. Recognize this team for what it is: One of the most amazing
organizations in sports.
As the champagne flowed around him in Shea Stadium late Tuesday
night, Braves general manager John Schuerholz was asked this question:
"When you won the first of these titles in 1991, what would you have
said then was a reasonable window of opportunity for this team to sustain
that winning?"
"Three," Schuerholz replied. "Three years. If you ask what's a
reasonable expectation with all the changes in the game and all the
challenges in the game today, I would say three years."
But three years came, and three years went, and the standings
haven't changed. So what does it say about this team that it's now the 10th
season since then, and the Braves just keep on winning?
"The word I keep using is 'remarkable,' " Schuerholz said. "I don't
know how else to identify it. Over this time, we've had young guys we've
brought up from the minors, old guys we've brought in from other clubs,
young guys we've traded to get other guys, older guys we've had to blend in
with new guys, all these changes we've made -- and we were still able to keep
blending them into a championship mix.
"Is it good architecture? Good construction? Sure, it's all of that.
But for these players, it's still a magnificent accomplishment. Measured
against any accomplishment in our game today as far as longevity, it's
remarkable. It really is."
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“ |
We're the team everyone in our league is trying to
improve itself to catch. They do things a certain way because it's what
we've done. That's flattering. But at the same time, it makes all this more
nerve-wracking.
” |
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—
Tom Glavine
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And it is. Think of what has happened to some of these teams that
have beaten the Braves in October over the years: the Marlins, the Phillies,
the Twins, the Padres.
How much success have those teams been able to sustain since they sent the
Braves home for the winter? It's been closer to 10 minutes than 10 seasons.
So how unfair is it for people to measure the Braves by the World Series
they haven't won instead of all the titles they have won?
"To be honest," Schuerholz said, "I don't worry about those people
anymore. They're the kind of people who get invited to the Jerry Springer
Show. We feel very proud, very positive about what we've accomplished in
this game. So those who feel the need to walk around with a very negative
view of what people do in life -- that's their problem, not ours. I just know
we're very proud of what we've done."
This is the 32nd season of division play. Of the other 23 teams that
have been for that entire era, only five have made it to the postseason as
many times since 1969 as the Braves have made it just since 1991: the
Yankees (12, counting this year), Dodgers (10), A's (10), Orioles (nine) and
Pirates (nine).
And remember, Atlanta would be working on 10 postseason appearances in a row
if their 1994 season hadn't been so rudely interrupted by the fun folks at
Labor Central.
No other team, obviously, has made it into nine postseasons in a row, either. This will be the Yankees' sixth in succession. The A's and
Indians got to five straight. And that's it for the group with a streak even
half as long as this team's.
Sure, the format has changed for the last six of those seasons. But the
Braves also have made it to every NLCS since that format changed. So there
goes that argument, too.
"Look, I understand it," said manager Bobby Cox. "That's what people
remember -- the last thing you do. I still remember losing a football game my
senior year in high school. My coach said, 'You only remember these games
when you lose,' and he's right. That's the only game I remember. Against
Knightsburg High School. We fumbled on the one-yard line."
The Braves have met their share of Knightsburg High Schools over the
years, too, of course. They met Jack Morris. They met Lenny Dykstra. They
met Jim Leyritz. They met Kevin Brown.
|  | | Andres Galarraga, center, celebrates with his teammates after the Braves wrapped up yet another division title. |
But stuff happens. Anybody can fumble on the one-yard line. Anybody
can hang one pitch to Jim Leyritz.
Not anybody can survive losing John Smoltz and still finish first. In fact,
try to think of any other team that could.
The Braves did this year, though. They lost one of the most
dominating big-game pitchers alive for the entire season. They replaced him
with a man who was released by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (John Burkett). And
they still finished first, beating a team with a $90-million payroll (the
Mets) to get there. Who else does that?
"If you had said to somebody in March that John Burkett would pitch
the division-clinching game for our team in September, most people would
have been saying you were nuts," said Tom Glavine, now the only Brave to
play in every one of those nine championship seasons. "But that's what this
team has been all about -- people coming in, filling in holes and doing a
good job."
It hasn't been easy these last two years. In '99, they lost their
cleanup hitter (Andres Galarraga) and their closer (Kerry Ligtenberg) before
they played one game. Then they lost their catcher (Javy Lopez) halfway
through the season. And they still got to the World Series.
Then this year, they lost Smoltz to spring-training Tommy John surgery. Yet
not only will the Braves go to the playoffs without him, but they still will
lead the league in ERA without him.
"You don't replace a guy like John Smoltz," Glavine said. "You only hope to
make the effect of losing him a little less severe. With Smoltzy this year
and Galarraga last year, and Javy and Kerry, we never felt as if, just
because one player goes down, we wouldn't be as good a ball club. Even with
Smoltzy going down, we still felt we had three starting pitchers as good as
any staff in baseball, and we'd be able to carry on. And we've done that."
But the loss of Smoltz was different from all those other losses. Other
Braves had gone down in other years. But never before had that list included
one of their big starting pitchers. And starting pitching remains the
essence of what the Braves are now, just as it did way back in 1991.
"When he went down, it was more of an emotional blow," Glavine said. "All of
a sudden, one of our Big Three, or Big Four, went down with a season-ending
arm injury. And that's not something we had to deal with before. There was a
little more uncertainty from that than we've faced before."
But Burkett showed up to win 10 games. Terry Mulholland won nine.
They traded for Andy Ashby, and he has won eight just since the All-Star
break (four in September). So the Braves survive.
They don't go into October as the prohibitive NL favorites. They don't go
into October even knowing their three or four starting pitchers are clearly
better than anyone else's. But Maddux (19-8, 2.91) and Glavine (20-9, 3.47)
have been the two best pitchers in the league not named Randy Johnson. So no
one needs to hold any telethons for this staff, either.
This year, though, the Braves survived more than Smoltz. They
survived John Rocker Mania -- a daily stress injection from the first day
they showed up at the Disney Sports Complex in February until the day Rocker
dodged a beer bottle heaved from the stands at Shea Stadium on the day they
clinched. How many other teams could have survived that?
"I've always felt," Glavine said, "that if any team could face that
situation and not have it be the difference between having a good year and a
bad year, it's us."
One locker away sat Mulholland. He has been a part of three
different playoff teams -- the '93 Phillies, the '98 Cubs and the '99-'00
Braves. He has no trouble identifying the quality that makes the Braves
different from any other club he has played on.
"This team," he said, "has got the professionalism thing down pretty
well."
"Here," says Maddux, "they don't just bring in guys who can play.
They bring in a certain type of player."
They're called pros. And that's what separates the Atlanta Braves
from all the contenders and pretenders around them. It isn't money. It isn't
luck. It isn't SuperStation exposure. Pure and simple, this is the most
professional group of baseball players we've ever run across, run by as
professional a front office-manager tandem as you could find anywhere.
And that's why these first-place finishes just keep on coming. And it's why
this group understands the significance of what it's done -- unhappy October
endings or no unhappy October endings.
"With each year goes by," Glavine said, "you recognize the law of
averages is starting to go against you a little -- especially the last two
years, with some of the stuff that's happened. You've got to wonder how long
we can keep doing this. But we enjoy doing it, and we want to keep doing it.
"It isn't easy. We're the team everyone in our league is trying to
improve itself to catch. They do things a certain way because it's what
we've done. That's flattering. But at the same time, it makes all this more
nerve-wracking."
There will be more nerve-wracking days to come in the four weeks
ahead -- four weeks that will decided how this particular Braves team is
remembered. But unlike Bobby Cox, we won't remember the last game this team
plays, no matter how it turns out.
We'll remember nine years of astonishing excellence.
If it's other things you remember, hey, send our regards to Jerry
Springer.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com. | |
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