1995 Atlanta Braves Retrospective

[selmaborntidefan]

The Braves were largely unchallenged again in the regular season, and the arrived for October 1996 with the same STARTING TEAM (sans Justice) that had prevailed the previous year. They drew the Dodgers in the LDS and won the opener in 10 innings, 2-1, and the second game in LA, 3-2, when Maddux gave up only 3 hits. Facing Nomo with a 1-0 lead in Game Three, Chipper avenged his losing the Rookie of the Year vote the previous year by smashing a two-run bomb that ended Nomo's 1996 season, and the Braves readied themselves to face the Cardinals. This series had felt a lot like the 1995 LDS against the Rockies. And wouldn't you know it? They drew the Cardinals in the LCS. And wouldn't you know it? Ron Gant was back with another chance to avenge Atlanta releasing him. Smoltz and Andy Benes had a pitcher's duel in Game One, but Smoltz prevailed, 4-2, largely because the Cardinals made a key error late in the game. Maddux was not quite his stellar self in Game Two, but the game was tied at 3 when Maddux tired in the 7th. With two outs and a run that scored thanks to an error by Chipper, Maddux intentionally walked Brian Jordan to load the bases right after he had struck Gant out. This brought Gary Gaetti to the plate and when Maddux tried to get ahead in the count with a fastball over the plate, Gaetti drilled it over the fence for a grand slam, and the Braves were done for in Game Two. It was only the second grand slam Maddux ever gave up in his career - both in the LCS.

Gant homered in the first off of Glavine, who had a 1-0 lead, so the Cards were up, 2-1, and they called in the ageless Dennis Eckersley to close out a 3-2 win. In Game Four with Neagle pitching with a 3-0 lead in the seventh, the Cards tied it and won it when Brian Jordan homered off of Greg McMichael in the eighth. The Braves had blown leads in three straight games and were down, 3-1, in games. That's when one of the most amazing turnarounds in history occurred. By the time Smoltz took the mound for Game Five, he was leading, 5-0, as six of the first Atlanta batters scorched base hits. The Cardinals loaded the bases in the bottom of the first, but Smoltz got out of it. Then the Braves added two more runs in the second, 3 in the fourth, and one in the fifth en route to a 14-0 pasting of the Cards. After the travel day, the Cards would have to beat Maddux again. The Braves had a 2-0 lead in the eighth when the Cardinals began stirring again. Wohlers came on needing to get an out to get out of the inning but his wild pitch allowed a run. Atlanta added an insurance run when Rafael Belliard's two-out single gave them a 3-1 lead that was the final score and set up for yet another Game Seven involving Atlanta. And once again it was Glavine on the mound.

After retiring the Cardinals in order in the first, Atlanta replayed Game Five, and they were leading 3-0 with the bases loaded and two out when Glavine came to bat. He lofted a difficult play to left where Gant dove in a desperate attempt to end the inning. Gant missed, the ball rolled to the wall, and the Braves had a 6-0 lead, which was money in the bank with Glavine on the mound. A comeback from a 3-1 games deficit - and the Braves were back in the World Series. In New York, the hearts of Yankee fans went from confident they could beat the Cards to fearful they were facing the Braves. And for two games, they had every right to fear Atlanta.

Game One was delayed a day by run but when the game started, Atlanta's offensive juggernaut that cranked up in Game Five of the NLCS continued. The Braves lead, 8-0, at the end of three and 12-1 at the end of four, which was the final score. 19-year old Andruw Jones introduced himself to the baseball world with two home runs, the first player since Gene Tenace with Oakland in 1972 to homer in his first two series at-bats. Maddux pitched another gem in Game Two, outdueling Jimmy Key and combining with Wohlers on a 4-0 shutout. The Yankees did take Game Three when the series returned to Atlanta, 5-2, but in the fourth inning of Game Four, the Atlanta dynasty seemed as secure as it ever had. Once again, they came to the bat firing off hits and runs, and they were leading, 6-0, at the end of the fifth. Parade plans were already being made for the city of Atlanta.

The in the sixth inning, a simple play turned the series on its head. Rookie Derek Jeter lifted a routine pop foul down the first base line and Dye had to run around umpire Tim Welke in order to make the play. He missed the ball, and Welke never even attempted to move at all. Given a repreive, Jeter singled, Bernie Williams walked, and Cecil Fielder singled Jeter home for the Yankees' first run while Williams scored on an error by Dye on the same play. Charlie Hayes singled Fielder home, and the once imposing lead was now cut in half. But Atlanta shrewdly got out of it with effective pitching changes and got through the seventh giving up just a walk. Then came the eighth inning, and the Atlanta dynasty unraveled right there in the next-to-last game to ever be played in Fulton County Stadium.

Wanting to make sure the Braves won the game, Cox sent Wohlers to the mound to get six outs instead of his normal three. Hayes hit a little dribbler down the third-base line that Chipper waited to go foul - but it never did. Darryl Strawberry singled to left, but Wohlers then got Mariano Duncan to bounce what appeared to be a rally-killing double play to Belliard, who had just entered the game for defensive purposes in the seventh. Belliard booted it but recovered - but he got only one out, leaving runners at the corners. Backup catcher Jim Leyritz came to the plate, having entered the game in place of Joe Girardi, and he belted a game-tying home run off of Atlanta's closer. The game wound up in the 10th and the 4.2 million dollar man, Avery, walked in what turned out to be the game-winning run. Just to make sure Atlanta couldn't come back, Klesko dropped a fly ball that allowed another run, and the Yankees won, 8-6.

The dynasty was over - but nobody knew it yet.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Nobody watching the game anywhere in the world could have possibly dreamed that October 24 night in 1996 that the Atlanta Braves would not win another World Series game for TWENTY-FIVE YEARS and two days. Nobody - not even the most partisan Yankee in the world - would have believed that then.

The following night, Smoltz pitched a gem and lost, 1-0, when Marquis Grissom dropped a fly ball that allowed the game's only run to score. And in Game Six, the Braves never really threatened after Joe Girardi's third inning triple, losing the game, 3-2, and the series, 4-2.

How did the Braves lose? They outscored the Yankees, 26-18, outhit them (.254 to .216), had more hits (51-43), twice as many homers (4-2), and struck out 7 fewer times with more doubles as well. The Yankees made more errors, too (5-4). Atlanta beat the Yankees in every conceivable statistic possible except the one that mattered. The Braves had a much better ERA (2.33 vs 3.93).

Granted, the stats are skewed somewhat by the Atlanta blowout in Game One, but it was almost as though Atlanta handed the Yankees both Games Four and Five with stupid plays, bad breaks (like the umpire interfering with Dye), and off field emotion. From the moment Atlanta lost the lead in the eighth inning of Game Four, they never led again the rest of the series.

And now they had to decide what to do.


1997 AND ONWARD

It is a basic rule of thumb that if you look at a World Series-winning roster five years after the win, there are somewhere between 4-6 players left on even the very best teams. Just three days after the season, the Braves dumped Terry Pendleton, whom they had acquired for the post-season run in 1996, and Walton. They granted Mark Lemke free agency, but he came back for one more year in Atlanta. They also basically told Avery to stuff it and sent him way as a free agent. He signed with Boston for two seasons and went 16-14 with an ERA near 6.00 and was finished, though he bobbed back into the majors in 2003 with the horrific Tigers team of that year. And they traded Greg McMichael to the Mets for Paul Byrd.

Then came the blockbuster deal that showed how little sentimentality remained in Atlanta. On March 25, 1997, the Braves packaged the guy who caught the final out of the 1995 World Series (Grissom) with the the guy who hit the homer to win it (Justice) and sent them to Cleveland for Kenny Lofton and lefty reliever Alan Embree. Two days later, the Braves sent Dye (while his stock was hot) to the Royals for Michael Tucker and Keith Lockhart. When the Braves opened their new stadium, Turner Field, in April 1997, they were down to Chipper/Klesko/Lemke/Blauser/Lopez in the starting lineup. The Big Three - Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz - remained and Neagle had the best season of his career in 1997, goin 20-5 with a 2.97 ERA. The Braves won 101 games, and it looked like that anticipated World Series rematch with Cleveland might just happen.

Well, Cleveland did uphold their end of the deal anyway.

Baseball introduced inter-league play in 1997 as a way to make back money lost during the strike. They also awarded two other franchises to play in 1998 (more money for the owners) and turned a blind eye to the scandal developing right in front of them with steroids. Not counting the small three-game series' that teams played in interleague, the Braves had a winning record against all but 3 NL teams they faced. They were 5-6 against Pittsburgh, 5-6 against the Rockies (the first time Colorado ever got the best of Atlanta) and a rather mundane 4-8 against the Florida Marlins, who they wound up facing in the NLCS. And if fans weren't sure the dynasty died when the Leyritz home run cleared the wall, they were on the day of October 12, 1997, the day John Denver plummeted to earth to his death - and so, too, the Braves.

Atlanta and Florida were tied 2-2 in games, although Florida had dominated their games better than the Braves had. (One of Atlanta's wins may have been due largely to an unknown injury suffered by starter Alex Fernandez early in Game Two). A Cuban refugee named Livan Hernandez took the mound and pitched the best game of his major league career. It wasn't that difficult, either, as home plate umpire Eric Gregg gave Hernandez a strike zone that extended from Miami all the way back home to Cuba. Yeah, he gave Maddux the same ridiculous zone, but Maddux was a control pitcher and Hernandez kept throwing stuff so wide it couldn't have been reached with a 4 x 8. Florida figured no need to run long counts on Maddux and began swinging early in the count. They weren't overly successful but they won the game, the most notable sight being Fred McGriff called out on strikes by a final pitch that damn near hit the dugout. Two nights later, Glavine had one of his first-inning collapses, and the Braves were finished.

For real this time.

In 1998, the Braves won a franchise record 106 games, this a decade after losing a record 106 games in 1988. By that time just 3 years later, McGriff was gone (replaced by Andres Galarraga), Lemke was gone, Blauser was gone (replaced by Walt Weiss), and the Braves had five pitchers (Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Neagle, Millwood) who won at least 16 games, an incredible feat. But they fell into too deep a hole to climb out of in the NLCS and lost to the Padres.

The Braves would win eight more division titles in a row, but only once would they even make it to the World Series and never would they even win a single game. The Braves went from being adorable losers that people loved, to the team people loved to hate, to the team people would say "thank God" every time they got eliminated - to a team nobody thought about anymore. Maddux and Glavine would eventually win over 300 games each and make the Hall of Fame while Smoltz would convert for several years to the game's best NL closer and then return to the starting rotation as an aging stud on a team whose glory years were long gone. Most of the Atlanta players who won the 1995 World Series were out of baseball before the calendar flipped over to 2000. The last Atlanta player to retire who was on the 1995 post-season World Series roster was Chipper Jones, who suffered the cruel fate of his final game being in the very first NL wildcard play-in game against the Cardinals, the game where umpre Sam Holbrook called an infield fly rule on a ball that landed in the next county.

Three pitchers - Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz - all made the Hall of Fame as did Cox, the GM, and Chipper. Twenty-six years later, the Braves finally won another World Series, stunning the baseball world with a shocking out-of-nowhere triumph over this generation's 90s Braves, the Houston Astros. All of them lived to see it - but not by much. Dwight Smith became the first member of that World Series roster to pass away this past July 20 when he succumbed to congestive heart failure at 58.

The Braves players from that time are all in their 50s or older now, a number entering the fourth quarter of their lives. But they brought a lot of joy to a city that had known little for over a century and while they may not have been a dynasty, they will always remain champions for 1995.

It's been a fun and busy year this year, and I apologize for the 4-5 times I was so late posting. My work schedule has adjusted several times this year, but I hope this was enjoyable for some of you.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

OK.....we've covered the exciting season (1991) and the championship season (1995).....is there something we want to do next year? (I'm asking now because it would be better for me to get to work on some of it rather than daily anxiety).


Here are some possibilites - and they don't HAVE to be the Braves but that seems to work.

1957 Milwaukee Braves World Series championship season (Hank, Spahn, Eddie, Red)
1964 Phillies collapse (four-team race)
1967 four-team AL pennant race (Red Sox, Tigers, Twins, White Sox)
1978 Red Sox-Yankees race
1993 The Last Pennant Race (Braves-Giants...but it ends with a whimper and a loss for ATL)
1998 -next year is the 25th anniversary of the Home Run Chase with McGwire and Sosa (yikes!)

It's too soon to do 2021, and the current Braves are still competitive.


Thoughts?

 

[B1GTide]

OK.....we've covered the exciting season (1991) and the championship season (1995).....is there something we want to do next year? (I'm asking now because it would be better for me to get to work on some of it rather than daily anxiety).


Here are some possibilites - and they don't HAVE to be the Braves but that seems to work.

1957 Milwaukee Braves World Series championship season (Hank, Spahn, Eddie, Red)
1964 Phillies collapse (four-team race)
1967 four-team AL pennant race (Red Sox, Tigers, Twins, White Sox)
1978 Red Sox-Yankees race
1993 The Last Pennant Race (Braves-Giants...but it ends with a whimper and a loss for ATL)
1998 -next year is the 25th anniversary of the Home Run Chase with McGwire and Sosa (yikes!)

It's too soon to do 2021, and the current Braves are still competitive.


Thoughts?

My vote would be 1998. That was an amazing year to be a baseball fan.