We are in the midst of a nineties revival. From JNCO Jeans to Pokemon and fanny packs, the resurgence is clear, so it only makes sense for the "Team of the 90s," to dominate the modern era of baseball once again.
The 1990s made the Atlanta Braves America's favorite team, but how did they earn that title? Sure, the underdogs had the luxury of a nightly national broadcast, but it was more than that. The Chicago Cubs were also nationally televised, and you couldn't pay someone outside the city of Chicago to claim Cubs' fandom at the time.
However, growing up in the foothills of North Carolina, exactly five whole hours from the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, I couldn't leave my house without inevitably seeing someone in a Braves hat. And in 1991, fans finally witnessed something they hadn't seen since well before the team's move to Atlanta in 1966—and something Cubs' fans wouldn't see for another quarter of a century:
A championship-caliber baseball team.
A Dynasty is Born
Crawling out of the woeful eighties, bloodied and battered, General Manager, John Scheurholz, and legendary Team Manager, Bobby Cox, collaborated to build a divisional dynasty that would go on captivate America throughout the 1990s. And—despite your personal feelings on the steroid era of baseball—the nineties were a hell of a time to be a fan of the game.
And, boy, was I a fan. I was seven years old when the Braves claimed their first World Series title in my lifetime. It was also the first World Series they'd won in my parents' lifetime. Hell, prior to that 1995 season, the Braves hadn't donned a ring since all the way back in 1957, when my grandfather was only thirteen years old! So, when they began to rack up what would go on to be fourteen consecutive division titles—a feat many believe the sport will never again witness—America reacted.
TBS aka "The Braves' Station"
If you were living on planet Earth during the summers of 1973 to 2007, then the Atlanta Braves were probably on your television. Thanks to Ted Turner, the Braves' too-cool-to-be-that-rich owner at the time, baseball fans everywhere had a "home team" on TBS.
Over the years, as the team's play improved, "Braves Country" spread throughout the Southeast. At the height of their dominance, their popularity exploded to an international level as fans across the globe tuned in to TBS each night to root for their Atlanta Braves. The massive network popularity also gave the team the advantage of signing international players like Andruw Jones at the time, as many domestic and international players alike had grown up watching the Braves on TBS.
Without the exposure (and payroll bump) provided by the network, I'm not sure the Atlanta Braves would have become the greatest team of baseball's greatest era.
Gold in the Golden Age
I know, I know, the 1927 all-white Yankees, or whatever. Yeah, no. The '90s were better.
As far as pure entertainment goes, it was the Golden Age of baseball, and I was living for it. The title of this very blog comes from that youthful obsession. I would eat, breathe, and sleep the game. The sport was thriving and "cool" for arguably the first time since the seventies. In September 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's streak of playing in 2,131 consecutive baseball games; a record that had stood comfortably strong since 1939. Later in the decade, a race for the home run record captivated the whole world for an entire summer.
And from 1991 to 2005, no team in Major League Baseball was stronger than the Atlanta Braves. They had suffered heartbreaking back-to-back knockout losses in the '91 and '92 World Series, but I was too young to even really understand why we were all crying. But come the '95 season, the strike was over, and I was finally old enough to fully participate in Braves Mania.
One summer afternoon in the mid-90s, Skip Caray had lulled my grandfather to sleep with his pregame coverage. I wanted to watch cartoons (sue me, I was in second grade). Just before first pitch, I crept over and snatched the remote control from the arm of his chair.
Well, before the channel even finished changing, my grandfather bolted upright in his chair and said, "What the hell are you doing? Maddux is pitching!"
I remember thinking how cool it was that an "old man" could still hold such a love for a game. Similar moments throughout my childhood fueled my investment and interest in the sport, and even though my grandfather fell asleep again in the second inning, it was men like him who validated the phrase "America's Pastime."
The Culture of Cool
Spanning the Golden Age of baseball, the Braves had arguably the greatest pitching rotation in the history of the game. Prior to acquiring Maddux, they bolstered their rotation by trading Doyle Alexander to the Detroit Tigers in return for fastballer, John Smoltz. Their stellar draft picks were coming to fruition in the southpaw star, Tom Glavine, and the supremely underrated hurler, Steve Avery. They were set on the mound, guaranteed to entertain on a nightly basis, but the fun didn't end there.
Two-sport superstar, Deion Sanders, was showing up to playoff games in a helicopter, drenched in his "Primetime" style. Fred McGriff nearly burned down a stadium. Bobby Cox was well on his way to securing the all-time ejections record. John Rocker became New York's ultimate villain, and unfortunately kind of a giant prick. Chipper and Andruw Jones were destroying baseballs and terrifying opponents. The team was having a blast (perhaps too much fun at times) and it showed on the field. That team had something that should seem familiar to fans of today's team. They never quit. They were never out of it, and they'd always come back the day after a loss with a fresh approach to battle. Though they had their share of struggles during their reign as the premiere National League juggernaut, it was an American League team that troubled them most.
The Damn Yankees
Despite being the most decorated and popular team in the history of the game, for every Yankee' fan you meet, you'll meet three more people who are physically triggered by the sight of pinstripes. It comes with the territory of twenty-seven World Championships and forever the highest payroll in the league.
The New York Yankees are the only legitimate argument against the claim of the Braves being the "Team of the 90s." After all, they did beat the Braves in the World Series both times they faced them that decade. Remove the Yankees from the equation and this would no longer be an opinion piece. That's how beloved the Braves were at the time, and there was one major factor that had most of the world on their side.
The Underdog
That's right. When facing the Yankees, they were always the underdog, and you know enough about baseball (and life) to understand why people would flock to support the worst-to-first Atlanta Braves over the perennial posh powerhouse living it up in the Bronx. Okay, so, the Braves did lose to the Yankees in both the '96 and '99 World Series, but no other team won more games than the Atlanta Braves that decade.
In the years 1990-1999, The Braves won 906 regular-season games. The Yankees' wins over that time? 879.
And then there's pennant wins. The '90s Yankees won three American League pennants. The underdog Atlanta Braves? Five—and it very possibly would have been six if not for the strike-shortened season of 1994.
I remember a lot about nineties baseball. And though my memories may be tainted with the homeristic bias of passionate fandom, in them, the whole world loved the Atlanta Braves.
Here We Go Again
There was no denying the culture that had consumed the Atlanta clubhouse back then. It was an energy that permeated the screen and filled the living rooms of millions each summer (and thankfully most autumns). It was a vibe that slowly faded into the late-2000s and completely vanished as the team stumbled back into mediocrity during the 2014 season, winning just 79 games—the first time they finished at under 80 wins since 1990.
Gone was the culture, the passion that made the Atlanta Braves America's favorite team. The Braves tore down their roster and rebuilt from the ground up, revitalizing their farm system and promoting Braves' lifer, Brian Snitker, to manager. Through a series of blockbuster trades, intelligent drafting, a bit of a scandal, and a whole lot of patience, the Braves slowly began to remind us all of the team we'd grown up idolizing. It all came together toward the beginning of the 2018 season, with the historic call-up of then twenty-year-old international superstar, Ronald Acuña Jr.
The immediate spark of Acuña Jr. would propel the Braves to their first winning season, and their first Postseason appearance in five years. The addition of interesting and exciting characters such as Ozzie Albies, Eddie Rosario, Spencer Strider, Jesse Chavez, and Michael Harris II, has brought a familiar life back to the clubhouse, and it translates to wins on the field. In just a few short (yet painful) years, General Manager Alex Anthopoulos has completely reinvigorated the Atlanta Braves with a fresh culture of baseball that has proven to breed success and most importantly—
Fun
It is a game after all.
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