#15 - The Atlanta Braves

According to an Adult Swim bump, Atlanta is the worst sports city in the nation. They've taken home one championship in 153 combined years of professional sports. You might call them just the worst. That's right, Atlanta is worse than Cleveland, which actually only ranked 8th, but fittingly, the Braves beat the Indians for the only Atlanta championship. What I'm trying to say here is, it's not always that much fun to be a Braves fan, unless of course you want to talk smack on the Pirates.

Frankie posted this little bitty video last year, but I always enjoy taking the opportunity to remind him of the last time the Pirates were good and how they let it slip through their fingers and turned it into one of the greatest moments in Braves franchise history.



Of course, without the help of the Braves and one Mr. Brooks Conrad, the Giants would not have been able to experience one of the greatest moments in their franchise history. So, I guess the Braves have a love hate relationship with all those Pirates/Giants fans in the world. Since there are all of maybe one of those in the country, at least he can be conflicted.

And that does it for the 2011 Regular Season

Well, didn't that just take the cake.

In case you've been living in a dark smelly bomb shelter like Butters in the South Park episode where Cartman desperately wants to go the Casa Bonita. There were for games played tonight with playoff implications.

In summary:

Cardinals 8, Astros 0
Phillies 4, Braves 3 F/13
Rays 8, Yankees 7 F/12
Orioles 4, Red Sox 3

Two games went extras. One game was decided after there were two outs in the ninth.

A's Bats Look HOT

Before we begin. He was out. Jerry Meals blew it. Terrible. Horrific. But that's baseball.



I've watched it many many times. It was so close, I totally understand what Meals saw in the 19th inning. However, on that play, where Lugo is dead to rights, almost giving himself up, I think you have to give McKenry the benefit of the doubt. If you are going to have either team win that game, it better be because they earned it, not because you think a player missed a dead to rights tag. In the end, it's an unfortunate ending to a brilliantly played game. Kudos to both teams.

Oh, yes, the A's won too! And they won in style.

Mascot/Team Name Royal Rumble

Sometimes I get to thinking. Though this usually has negative results, every once in a while an idea passes across my frontal lobe that's just too amazing to ignore. During an A's game last week, a few friends and I got to talking about how baseball mascots, as a whole, are none too threatening. But what if we had a mascot playoffs? We take the 8 leanest, meanest mascots (read: team names), and put them in a royal rumble with each other. Let's see who comes out on top.

MLB Preview: Atlanta Braves

Down 2 to 1. Bottom of the 9th. Two outs. Bases loaded. A crack of the bat. Base hit into Left Field. One run scores, winning run rounds third. A throw from Left. A slide, a tag, an umpire.

Safe. Safe at the plate.

With that, the Atlanta Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-2 in Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS. Since that day, the Pirates haven't had a single winning season.

To this day, when I think of the Atlanta Braves, that's the image that enters my brain. I used to watch the highlights from that game over and over and over on a video tape called "The Year in Sports 1992" that came with our Sports Illustrated subscription that year. I literally wore out the film. I can still hear the announcer's voice as he yelled, "Safe at the plate!" in a Dave Flemming voice crack. I can still see the Braves dog-piling on top of Sid Bream at home plate.

The real video is here: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=13062933. Here's what's on YouTube: