The Braves are in a playoff race, but does anybody care?
See? Some folks were in the house Monday. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
The announced crowd at Turner Field on Monday was 25,046. I’d guessed the actual attendance as 15,000 and thought I was being kind. But no matter the number, the image was clear.
Another big baseball game in the A-T-L.
Another unpacked house.
And here I’m supposed to get all righteously indignant and say something like, “It just goes to show what a lousy sports town this is. If this game had been in Boston or Chicago or New York, you couldn’t have gotten a ticket.”
But you know what? I’m not going to say anything like that. Because I don’t really care about the folks in Boston and Chicago and New York. (And anyway, I just came from a Patriots game in Foxborough, where Gillette Stadium was officially sold out but empty seats were apparent.) Besides, this time I feel no call for indignation, righteous or otherwise.
As I tried to note last night, this is a weird sort of stretch drive. It crept up on all of us, the Braves included. It wasn’t until last week that things got interesting, and when the Braves returned home only 2 1/2 games behind Colorado they were facing some powerful mitigating circumstances.
School’s in session. The economy’s adrift. Lots of locals are still bailing out basements after last week’s rain. And let’s be honest: The Braves haven’t been flavor the month for more than a months of Sundays. Lately we’d gotten in the habit of keeping one eye — one only — on the Braves and saving our real enthusiasm for the Falcons or the Dawgs or Tech or even the Hawks.
But now the Braves are in a race we never saw coming, and we’re only just catching on. I’d imagine the crowds will increase as the week unfolds, and if the Braves keep winning I’d expect 40,000 on Friday night and that many again on Saturday afternoon. And Sunday afternoon, if the game is meaningful, could well be sold out. (The Falcons are off this week, FYI.)
And I’ve long since stopped associating raw attendance numbers with depth of fan interest. We didn’t ever tune the Braves out; we just followed them a bit less closely. These hadn’t become the dark days of the ’80s, when, as the joke went, you could leave two Braves tickets on your windshield and come back and find four. Most of us will have no trouble finding our way to the ballpark this weekend. We’ve all been there before, many times.
And even if there were only 25,000 (or 15,000) on hand Monday, it wasn’t a bored corporate gathering. These were folks who knew what was going on and who’d come to see baseball. “The crowd was into it,” Bobby Cox said afterward, and it was. It didn’t feel like just another night at the ballyard. It felt like a night at the races.
And, on another Braves-related matter: Getting way ahead of ourselves, we wonder how the playoff rotation might look. Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz? Vazquez, Jurrjens, Hanson? And what happens to Derek Lowe?
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
310 comments Add your comment
Know before you go: Atlanta Braves playoff race games | Inside Access
September 29th, 2009
4:48 pm
[...] the lackluster attendance at last night’s game, I get the feeling that the place to be this week will Turner Field, where the Atlanta Braves are [...]
Chris
September 29th, 2009
5:09 pm
The Braves have a ton of fans outside Atlanta. We can’t make the games, obviously, but we’re no less excited about the current playoff chase. Go Braves!
Extremus
September 29th, 2009
5:11 pm
I live in northeast Tenessee, so obviously I can’t just drop everything and come to the ballpark. I’ll be honest; I love the Braves and would be delighted (like everyone else here, even the doubters) if they somehow manage to surprise everyone and win it all. But I’m afraid to even begin watching the games again on TV; not yet, anyway. Historically the Braves have never been in a playoff race this far into a season and NOT gotten in, so one could argue that much is on their side.
I think what seemingly killed the electric atmosphere and the fan enthusiasm actually happened long ago, right about the time that baseball dropped into the Metrodome outfield in the tenth inning, or we watched the Blue Jays celebrate on our own field and mock the Chop chant after winning the Series in ‘92 (the year Sid Bream slid home and we thought for sure this was destiny dialing our number), or maybe being quickly polished off by the Phillies after that grueling divisional run in ‘93. By the seventh game of the ‘95 World Series, David Justice came under fire because he spoke out about what he considered to be an apathetic fan base and challenged everyone to come out and support the team. They did, and he rewarded them with the games lone run and the lone world championship for Atlanta in any pro team sport.
All seemed right with the world, and the Braves were busy sweeping aside the outmatched Yankees in ‘96, when Mark Wohlers just happened to throw an eighth straight slider to Jim Leyritz, and from that moment, I (and I believe many others) knew we were destined to lose that Series. More postseasons came and went, and the best year in, year out regular season-record baseball team on the planet found some way to break our hearts or have everything turn against them seemingly on a single play, every single time, and often it was because they were just out-hustled and out-played by on-paper lesser teams who came in with more hunger and passion. Those fans not jaded by the amazing run of success began to wonder if this team was cursed, forever able to compete but never able to create a true dynasty. In short, we came to expect nothing less than winning it all from the teams we had; nothing else mattered when the dust settled, so several Hall-of-Fame careers came and went perhaps not as much appreciated as they should have been in retrospect.
Here we are a few years later, and as several folks here have already remarked, it’s not like we don’t care; it’s simply that unlike the years past where this Braves team stayed on a highly competitive level from start to finish, this time it just has a surreal feeling to it, because the 2009 Braves have been anything but consistent. They’ve somehow managed to put together a very impressive run, much as Colorado did two years ago, but as the Rockies learned in the World Series, at that level of competition even a hot average team will be exposed for what they are: average. It just doesn’t feel RIGHT. Even if the Braves make the playoffs this year, don’t expect the fan fever to return immediately, maybe not even if they make it to the World Series. Most memories of this team’s postseasons past aren’t those that center around Sid Bream’s slide or Marquis Grissom’s catch; they’re much more painful in nature, and that’s hard to get over.
Because anything less than a world championship is a failure in professional sports, and especially in a city that’s become accustomed to seeing legitimate chances to win it all come and go in heartbreaking fashion time and again. That said, let’s go Braves!!!!
Mark Fowler
September 29th, 2009
5:13 pm
I’m writing this a few hours before tonight’s game. In a few hours the Braves may be 3 games back, with 5 to play, or they may be 1 game back, or they could still be at 2.
The fans who say “don’t get your hopes up because the Braves will only disappoint you as they have in the past” don’t understand that “getting your hopes up” is PART of the JOY of baseball. Part of the collective consciousness of Red Sox and Cubs Nations is their shared suffering over decades of getting close… but not winning the big one.
Fans who became dulled by the 14 consecutive post-seasons for the Braves, and soured by only one World Series win, don’t remember the good old days when less than 1,000 people would “pack” old Atlanta-Fulton County, only to watch Darrel Chaney and company lose 100 games a year.
The Braves fans of that era are hyperventilating that the Braves are a mere 2 games out with 5 to go.
The chase is part of the fun. If we’re let down, eh, we’re let down. The Braves didn’t help or hurt my salary one dime (or one yen as I’m an American Serviceman on Okinawa right now). But if the Braves win – I will rejoice! And my joy will be all the sweeter because it joy was preceded by anticipation – which was preceded by hope.
I Believe.
Batcork
September 29th, 2009
5:41 pm
Personally the air went out of the balloon after that Reds series and it just started coming back in the first or second game of the Nats series last weekend. I can’t help but wonder if the same is true for lots of people.
Bitter memories of failed runs in 2000-05 are still on the taste buds. I believe the Rockies WILL lose 3 games this week, but that Reds series could recur any day now and I have to say I’m guarding my emotions a little.
Still, I’ll be there Thursday night for sure. Maybe Saturday too. It’s thrilling to be in the hunt in the last week – the last three years were despiriting.
HAL
September 29th, 2009
5:59 pm
Enter your comments here talk about compelling and then mention the nfl// i thought a sighn at the colts game summed up the nfl pretyy well national felons league maybe that what the braves need a roger clemons or an otis nixon so the people can relate lol
Tomahawkin
September 29th, 2009
9:38 pm
Mark Bradley
You know fans in the “A” Don’t care about the braves when Tony Homo and the Cowgirls game results on the radio preceed the braves highlights…
The first comment of your blog speaks volumes
Ross
September 29th, 2009
11:23 pm
Well there’s your answer – as if it weren’t already obvious. Jones and Huddy, failures of Braves past – and not Prado and Diaz, who look forward, not backward into failure.
One should limit the number of southerners in critical positions. They always lose the same war.
MadFan
September 30th, 2009
9:36 am
They sucked last night, just like we all knew they eventually would.
Chris
September 30th, 2009
12:10 pm
I prefer a decent school system over ‘culture,’ thanks.