Atlanta’s sad sports history: One lousy title in 149 pro seasons
The initial response to the sight of Atlanta patrons leaving an NFL playoff game with a quarter still to play — this happened only last weekend — was to loose the boilerplate harrumph. “Nothing new here! These people are the fairest of fair-weather fans in all the land!”
That’s always the reaction from national voices, and there was a time when it was the belief of this correspondent. Atlanta’s the city that can’t sell out playoff games and then, when finally it does, the crowd goes home early when the scoreboard gets ugly, et cetera. But 26 years and 10 months of residency have had an erosive effect, and now this neutral-by-profession can say:
Folks, I feel your pain.
Since big-time professional sports arrived in 1966, teams sailing under the Atlanta flag have completed 149 seasons. (We won’t count baseball in 1994, when the World Series was canceled by a players’ strike, or the 2004-2005 NHL campaign, which was scrubbed due to a lockout.) Only one has yielded a championship. That’s a batting average of .007, which is nice if you’re James Bond, less nice if you’ve invested financial and emotional capital in any of those 148 misses.
(Just to clarify: I haven’t included the Atlanta Chiefs’ 1968 NASL title because soccer wasn’t a major American sport. Nor is the Knights’ 1994 International Hockey League championship factored, the Knights having been by definition minor-league.)
The history of major Atlanta pro sports is of the cosmic whiff. Our teams build us up to let us down. The Hawks have never won more than one playoff series in any season since moving from St. Louis. The NHL Flames, who left for Calgary in 1980, didn’t win a single series in six tries. The Thrashers, in operation since 1999, haven’t yet won a postseason game.
The Falcons have won six playoff games in 45 years of trying. The two times they held the No. 1 seed resulted in flops of wildly differing flavor. On Jan. 4, 1981, the Falcons led Dallas by two touchdowns after three quarters and lost. (See YouTube video below.) This January the Falcons led 14-7 only to watch with benign neglect as they were outscored 35-0 in a span of 18 minutes, 25 seconds.
The one time the Falcons graced a Super Bowl — this after the epic overtime victory in the Minneapolis Metrodome that stands as the greatest performance by any Atlanta team — they messed it up. On the eve of Super Bowl XXXIII, safety Eugene Robinson got himself arrested for solicitation hours after receiving the NFL’s Bart Starr Award for citizenship. Was it any wonder the game’s key play — an 80-yard touchdown pass from John Elway to Rod Smith — featured a late-arriving Robinson?
Andruw Jones chases the Leyritz blast -- to no avail, naturally. (AJC file photo)
The Braves, to their credit, reached the World Series five times in the ’90s. They lost four, the first three in excruciating fashion. Bobby Cox, manager of those teams, would later say, “We played better in three of the ones we lost than in the one we won,” and it was just Atlanta’s luck that its one professional title was achieved the year after the players’ strike of 1994, a debilitating event that served to sap some of passion from the moment of long-deferred (and never-repeated) moment of arrival.
We Atlantans know the drill: Whenever one of our teams gets close, Lucy snatches away the football and Charlie Brown goes flying. With a chance to take a 3-1 lead in a World Series, Mark Wohlers throws Jim Leyritz a slider. With a chance to close out the Boston Celtics at the old Omni, the Hawks’ final shot is taken not by Dominique Wilkins but by the sub Cliff Levingston, who offers up a running lefty hook. With a chance to take a 2-1 series lead on San Francisco, the reliever Craig Kimbrel is removed but the shaky emergency second baseman Brooks Conrad remains on the field in what will be the penultimate ninth inning of Cox’s managerial career.
One hundred forty-nine seasons, one victory parade. (Although the worst-to-first Braves of 1991, who lost the World Series when Lonnie Smith dallied at second base in Game 7, held a parade, too. And so, on a predictably rainy day, did the Falcons after their lost Super Bowl.) Over the same span, the modest city of Pittsburgh has won 11 championships — 12 if you count the ABA crown taken by the Pipers. Long-suffering Philadelphia has six titles since 1966. Denver has four, one at Atlanta’s expense.
Really, can anyone blame us if we’re jaded? Even if we don’t know what will go wrong this time, we’ve seen enough to know something will. We live in Atlanta, where something always does.
By Mark Bradley
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
491 comments Add your comment
Native Atlantan
January 21st, 2011
3:39 pm
I heard this years ago in a bar – probably the Brave Falcon
“Have you heard they have sold the (pick an Atlanta team) to a group of businessmen from the Phillipines? They’re going to move them to Manila and call them the Manila Folders.”
JSS
January 21st, 2011
3:43 pm
Calm Down
January 21st, 2011
3:30 pm
“Dumbo, you have definately assigned an appropriate name for yourself and who gives a rat’s behind about the NASL?”
About the same amount of folks who enjoy watching grown men obsess over 18 year old boys 24/7… About the same who get geeked about putting on a dayglow vest and sitting in a tree stand when it’s 18 degrees and having an orgasm at the sight of a 700 lb American antelope… The list could go on and on….
Ben
January 21st, 2011
3:44 pm
Thanks Mark. I actually find these kinds of articles rather cathartic. I’m so sick of people thanking the Falcons for a great year. WHY? We accomplished LESS than the Seahawks. People want to point to the new ownership and a more stable franchise but NOTHING is guaranteed. You have to take it when you get the chance.
What in our history tells us that “we’ll get ‘em next year”? All evidence says we won’t, and worse it’ll probably be a step back.
Combine this with the current state of things in Athens and it’s enough to want to take unplug from sports in general.
Sincerely,
Sick and tired of being sick and tired
RussDawg
January 21st, 2011
3:44 pm
Gee Whiz Bradley after bringing up all these wonderful memories how about a shot or two of Black Label ?
Pope UGA XXIII
January 21st, 2011
3:46 pm
How about Atlanta’s sad sports journalism history ?
There are times that Bradley & Schultz are about as useful
as a screen door in a submarine
Mark Bradley`s Booster
January 21st, 2011
3:49 pm
There is a reason the Atlanta teams do not win championships which is the fact that they lose the
playoff games to teams that play better when the
stakes are highest. There is no pattern about the loses that can validate any consistent way the loses happen.
any other reason
Bob Griffith
January 21st, 2011
3:50 pm
What about the Chiefs world championship in late 60’s (futbol)
VolGuy
January 21st, 2011
3:51 pm
I must agree with your column. With the exception of a few bright spots, Atlanta pro sports has a history of futility. While it may be true that Atlanta is not a great sports town (and who really cares what others say, anyway), it is equally true that no Atlanta team has a history of consistent success. The Braves burned brightly for a few years, but I think their numerous post-season chokes were at least one reason why Braves fans became blase about them as the years went by. The Falcons appear to be on the upswing, but this year’s playoff embaressment will probaly cause some fans to adopt a “show me” attitude. The Hawks and Thrashers are owned by a bunch of well heeled men who talk a good game while spending more time in court suing each other than they do building a decent team. Th hawks are just good enough to be mediocr and boring and they can’t compete with the better teams in the post-season. The Thrashers are a complete bore. We all know they probably won’t make the playoffs and if they do they will fold like a cheap suit. I think the Thrashers time in Atlanta is coming to a close soon. If it weren’t for the lousy economy, they would probably be gone already. So how long can you expect fans of the Atlanta pro teams to use their hard earned wages (if they have job at all) to pay ever increasing ticket prices for teams that are, in the main, boring, predictable and composed of grossly over paid and under acheiving players?
Former ATL Knight
January 21st, 2011
3:52 pm
@ Dawg Tell…nice try with Cleveland, but last time I checked they don’t have a hockey team. Even in the financial pages, Atlanta teams are near the bottom. See the article in the AJC on Atlanta Spirit. Not only do Atlanta teams not win titles, but they also lose a lot of money. I smell a new open-air football stadium being shoved down our throats.
Skeezix
January 21st, 2011
4:01 pm
Why Mark? Why bring up that slider Wohlers thru to Leyritz? Just when I’ve pushed that awful memory way back into the recesses of my mind—you write about it. Now all that pain has returned, as I again see that fat pitch hanging up right over the middle of the plate and Leyritz pouncing on it.
A slider! A slider! From a guy who thru unhittable 100+ mph fastballs!!?? I’m gonna go visit Jack Daniels.
JSS
January 21st, 2011
4:03 pm
Skeezix
January 21st, 2011
4:01 pm
“A slider! A slider! From a guy who thru unhittable 100+ mph fastballs!!?? I’m gonna go visit Jack Daniels.”
At least you’re not cheap!
ATLien
January 21st, 2011
4:04 pm
I don’t believe Seattle has won a pro sports championship. I could be wrong though. I can’t remember if the Sonics, Seahawks, or Mariners have won a title.
With the obvious defensive issues of the Falcons and Liberty Media’s unwillingness to spend the necessary money to compete with the Phillies, I don’t see a pro sports championship in the near future for this city. I like the Hawks, but too many good teams in the Eastern Conference to for us to even make the NBA Finals.
By the way, I want to throw up everytime I hear the name Jim Leyritz. Isn’t he in jail?
Mitchell
January 21st, 2011
4:10 pm
Ben
January 21st, 2011
3:44 pm
Thanks Mark. I actually find these kinds of articles rather cathartic.
Yes, thank you. Somebody gets it.
You’re the man, Ben.
Why people always act like there’s a bright side to this stuff or where they think the bright side is, I do not know.
That’s what’s wrong in this town. People are too forgiving.
Why the hell would I want to buy a “Thanks Bobby” T-shirt in honor of our supposedly great manager? Thanks for what?
For losing the most playoff games in the history of baseball?
Bobby Cox should have been fired in 1996. The only reason he won 2000 games is because he had accountability for losing in the playoffs. He managed with impunity and in one of the least critical media markets in the country.
I’d like to have seen him try to last five years in New York with the pressure Joe Torre had from all around to win championships.
What a joke.
GwinnettDad
January 21st, 2011
4:11 pm
I suppose it isn’t all the unusual for Atlantans to complain about their lack of championships. But get something really straight! No matter how unfortunate Atlantans might think they are, remember this, Atlanta is NOT Cleveland!
And if anybody would wish to trade the records of Cleveland teams for the record of Atlanta teams since 1965, they are out of their minds! They are idiots! Fools! Dolts!
Atlantans can bitch, just as they do about the weather here, but trade with Cleveland? Forget it. Don’t consider it. Bless your good fortune that you share Atlanta’s record, and not Cleveland’s. Did Smoltz or Glavine leave the Braves the year after they won their Cy Young? Did a 2 time MVP call a press conference to announce he was escaping Atlanta? Hell no! Did the Atlanta NFL team leave town? Atlantans have NOTHING to complain about! Nothing!
Atlanta got their baseball team from Milwaukee and their basketball team from St. Louis. People move here by choice.
So bitch if you want, but if you bitch too much, your nothing but spoiled brats, because other cities have it much, much worse.
Mitchell
January 21st, 2011
4:13 pm
… he had no accountability…
Seriously
January 21st, 2011
4:25 pm
You forgot the IHL Cup won by the Knights!!!
JR1967
January 21st, 2011
4:26 pm
ATLien: Seattle won an NBA Title in 1979, winning over Washington 4 games to 3.
GwinnettDad
January 21st, 2011
4:27 pm
Oh, and a few more things, a special on ESPN recently had the biggest turning points in NFL playoff history. Rated 3rd and 2nd all time? John Elway and “The Drive” defeating the Cleveland Browns was rated 3rd. Can you imagine? Yeah, “The Drive” damaged the brains of a bunch of decent Browns fan, and the scars haven’t healed today. Ernest Byner’s fumble on the 2 yd. line that robbed the Browns of a 38-38 tie, after being down 31-7 at half, was rated 2nd. Or being up 2-1 going into the bottom of the ninth in the 7th game of the World Series, and losing 3-2 in 11 against Florida in 1997? It’s Cleveland that can legitimately sing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows the sorrow!”
Un-fair weather fan
January 21st, 2011
4:28 pm
Mitchell: “Why the hell would I want to buy a “Thanks Bobby” T-shirt in honor of our supposedly great manager? Thanks for what?
For losing the most playoff games in the history of baseball?
Bobby Cox should have been fired in 1996. The only reason he won 2000 games is because he had accountability for losing in the playoffs. He managed with impunity and in one of the least critical media markets in the country.”
Boy is that ever the truth. You’re spot on, Mitchell.
Ben
January 21st, 2011
4:28 pm
Yeah Mitchell, misery loves company I guess. Hopefully this current generation of Atlanta pro fans passes their bitterness off to their kids and the next generation will be less forgiving and hold ownership and players more accountable.
ATL4life
January 21st, 2011
4:30 pm
It is the city that causes us to lose. Tear down all the stadiums and build in Flowery Branch or Gwinett.
Ben
January 21st, 2011
4:31 pm
GwinnettDad, what do you want, a medal? Okay, you win. Cleveland is the absolute worst.
But, for all your bluster and yelling, Atlanta has exactly ONE more Championship than they do.
Pretty sure they already had more playoff series wins in basketball than the Hawks BEFORE Lebron was there. Pretty sure they have more post-season NFL playoff wins in their history a well.
You’re right. Cleveland is loserville but don’t act like Atlanta isn’t a suburb of Loserville.
mashby11
January 21st, 2011
4:32 pm
Mark I appreciate the article and even though I do invest into each of the 4 sports teams in Atlanta, we are simply a microwave city that needs the patience of a crock pot. Though I agree, it is a sad thing that we can’t seem to win we need to give the Falcons and Hawks (and those other birds that no one really cares for) a few more chances. The Falcons are on the right track. The Hawks are on the right track. I believe it starts with the top and down from there. The Falcons are the only ones who want to win. The Braves have some crappy ownership, the Hawks and Thrashers have people who don’t care about our great city!
As in most of your annoying articles. I do agree with you to some extent, but I also want us to know that we need to have faith in our teams. Whenever people lose the wounds hurt. All it is, is that is needs to take time.
One more...
January 21st, 2011
4:49 pm
Don’t forget UGA. They won the title “#1 Party School” and the Fulmer/Richt Cup.
And there are the infamous red panties.
gt
January 21st, 2011
4:51 pm
Southerners really don’t care about pro sports. Like everything else in America, athletes are grown down south. They start in our high schools and work up to our colleges and then are picked off by a Pittsburgh or a Buffalo to be exploded for civic pride when most of the areas they play had nothing to do with these talented carpetbaggers outside writing checks ,a thing found most objectionable when done at the lower levels. There is something about watching a fat bellied truck driver, drunk in the end zone patting down a player that has just scored a touchdown that just doesn’t work here. Why even be loyal to one pro sport’s team, unlike college these mercenaries have absolutely no control of where they play, and outside the money wouldn’t be caught dead in places like Utah or Kansas City. And for a sport’s writer who is nothing more than a high paid ticket salesman, who if not for these gypsy athletes would be having to find a real job, to berate the place that allows him this life of Riley is even more over my head. As long as we have the homegrown kids playing in Athens and in Atlanta, against other homegrown kids why do we need an alternative of a northern adoption system making us watch our southern kids wearing Philadelphia or New York or New England colors beating the people who made them who they are in the first place? Most of the people coming late and leaving early are Yankee transplants that live up the 400 carter like refugees, and spend 24/7 talking about the dumb southerns. I think the first time I ever heard the F word as a kid was in old Atlanta Stadium at a Falcons game and I have been saying it with a Yankee accent every since.
Jeff
January 21st, 2011
4:52 pm
I thought I had seen it all, until a few weeks ago when the Atlanta Dream had a chance at the WNBA title and they flashed on the screen a graphic with ” Atlanta Major Sports Titles” showing the Chiefs in ‘68, the Braves in ‘95 and the Dream in 2010 with a question mark. Seriously?
Sports Illustrated twice has had articles on Atlanta Sports titled “Losersville USA” and is likely preparing a third one…..
Billy Bob
January 21st, 2011
4:58 pm
goddamn I use to hate the way the Cowboys did their silly little “everyone up” at the line before the offensive snap.
The new Cleveland | Rowland's Office
January 21st, 2011
5:08 pm
[...] new Cleveland Posted on 01/21/2011 by atlmalcontent| Leave a comment Mark Bradley reviews a sorry history: Since big-time professional sports arrived in 1966, teams sailing under the Atlanta flag have [...]
SID
January 21st, 2011
5:08 pm
What the heck, everyone made $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
GwinnettDad
January 21st, 2011
5:16 pm
@Ben, Atlanta is a VERY distant suburb behind Buffalo, for sure, and Milwaukee as well. Atlanta at least has a professional hockey team. Besides, how many comedians make fun of Atlanta vs. Cleveland? How many TV shows have Atlanta in their title to suggest ridicule or incompetence? How many movies? (”Major Leagues”) Nah! Ben, you have no idea!
Oh, yeah, I might be guilty of an official rant. Doesn’t my rant prove my point? You can’t rant like a brain damaged Clevelander cuz you don’t have the scars. Nobody in Atlanta does! YOU never grew up in a stadium that seated 72,000 minimum for baseball (80,000 for football) and had maybe 2,500 people at a game night after night in the 60’s. The applause of the few refugees, er fans, seated resonated like they were yelling inside of a large steel garbage can! You haven’t been at a baseball game that was forfeited in the 9th inning because too many drunk fans ran out on to the field during beer baseball night, and Billy Martin for the Texas Rangers couldn’t see their right fielder, so both dugouts emptied swinging baseball bats. No, Ben, you’ve got nothing close. You’re not even, so to speak, in the ballpark..
GSU Eagle 91
January 21st, 2011
5:17 pm
That Atlanta Chiefs title in 1968 is just as valid a title as one in any of the other 4 pro sports.
So we have 2…not just 1….
This Falcon team was not good enough to win the Super Bowl…Corners who can’t cover one-on-one, weak defensive tackles, and no speed at the skill positions outside of Roddy White, and Harry Douglas, who played very little.
Matt Ryan needs a young TE with Speed! Tony G is a HOF’er but he cannot get open anymore..and another speedy WR who can catch the ball, giving Roddy some one on one coverage with the opposing D…
jerry
January 21st, 2011
5:21 pm
It’s the owners, stupid, it’s the owners.
jerry
January 21st, 2011
5:22 pm
The Falcons were not good enough because the people in charge did not make them good enough.
j
January 21st, 2011
5:24 pm
You are right Jerry, thats the problem. We just have rarely had ownership that cares enough about winning titles to spend enough money to get one, Ted Turner notwithstanding. Falcons, Hawks, Thrashers (and Flames) have all been mired in awful ownership/management situations for as long as I can remember. Hell, even the DREAM can’t win a title.
tman
January 21st, 2011
5:26 pm
Why’d you have to include the Dallas clip, Mark? Bad memories. I watched that game when I was fifteen, and had a bad feeling about it the whole time. I just KNEW Dallas would come back, and sure enough, they did. Ugh. BTW Mark, I’ve been reading your columns about the same amount of time. Back to when you had a moustache and curly hair. Keep up the writing!
j
January 21st, 2011
5:26 pm
Arthur is obviously a wonderful owner, so maybe the better management will yield a championship soon, but i wont bet on it. We could all have become millionaires betting against this city’s sports teams.
1911A1
January 21st, 2011
5:26 pm
I see two issues at work here:
It would be interesting to see the percentage of faithful fans that are Georgia natives; I suspect it would be disproportionately high. As has been mentioned many times in these blogs, Atlanta is a region populated by a majority of people from other regions (if not countries.) I was a Braves fan back when Joe Torre was catcher; that should tell you which group I’m in. But the issue remains, the majority of people here come from other regions and bring their old loyalties with them.
Another issue – one that has also been mentioned numerous times – is that because pro sports is a relatively new phenomenon in Georgia (45 years vs. 100+), there isn’t a multigenerational fan base like there is in a New York or a Chicago. There is such a base, however, at the college sports level – witness the number of posters on these blogs with the screen name of “Fill-in-the-blank Dawg” for proof of that.
Najeh Davenpoop
January 21st, 2011
5:43 pm
How many teams with bad ownership have ever won titles in any sport? ATL’s sports teams have been cursed with bad ownership for the majority of their existence. The Falcons finally have a good owner. The other three teams are still waiting.
J.C. from N GA
January 21st, 2011
5:44 pm
TU-SHAY! Mark
J.C. from N GA
January 21st, 2011
5:46 pm
Yes indeed Mark Bradley: TU-SHEY!!!
FACTS
January 21st, 2011
5:56 pm
@Najeh Davenpoop
Finally the truth. Mark Bradley you wrote an article about ASG today about lying, Atlanta has been the victim of poor ownership for years. The problem with being an Atlanta fan, is you look at things like its a honeymoon til you realize you are not gonna make it. Blank needs too demand more accountability on the defense, the Rooney’s have!
Billy Jack
January 21st, 2011
6:00 pm
the utube video from Jan 1981 hurt again..thanks MB…that was a gut shot..still hurts
call me crazy but the 1981 loss hurt worse than last Saturday’s in my pea brain..I’m 42 and feeling blue
Robert
January 21st, 2011
6:03 pm
How many major prizes for sports writing have AJC sportswriters won? Just curious.
Dejay
January 21st, 2011
6:14 pm
Oh man, I remember being at AFCS for that game. That had to be the longest ride home I ever had in my life. I never saw my dad cry before or since that game. I still can’t stomach the highlights to this day and since I don’t feel like flinging my laptop in disgust after watching Roland Lawrence get spun around like a top again, I won’t watch them today. Bring up ‘1980′ to any longtime Atlanta sports fan and the terms ‘prevent defense’ and ‘Too Tall was offsides and the refs blew the call’, will come up along with a slew of ‘f’ bombs. A poster was on point earlier when he said that there was a pall over the city afterwards because we all knew that season was our shot to win a title. We knew that then-owner Rankin Smith was going to gut the team in order to save $$$ (and no small wonder, a players strike came about a year later) and it would take years to get back to that point. Mix in the Missing and Murdered Children case going on and the Flames leaving town around the same time and I can tell you, it was a bad, BAD time to be a sports fan here.
Now fast forward to today. The problem we have in this town is the lack of accountability from the folks in charge. Mitchell hit this on the head, a bullseye on the mark. The lack of postseason success by the Braves (and to a smaller extent, the Hawks) has ruined sports watching in this town FOREVER. Because of that, we always go in with our emotions (and checkbooks) guarded because no matter how good things appear to be, the other shoe always seems to drop like an anvil does on Wil E. Coyote (last Saturday night ring a bell?)
It’s not just because they lost in some of the most indignant forms possible to man; it’s because the guys in charge can still wake up the day after, eat cereal, walk around town, and crow about how ‘great’ a season they had. You think Patriot fans in Boston are crowing about their 14-3 season right now? You think Eagle or Raven fans are sending e-mails thanking their teams for such a successful regular season?
And for the folks who want to call people like us a bunch of ‘Negative Nancies’, answer this question; would Bobby Cox had gotten a sendoff in NYC, Philly, or Boston if he led any of their teams to 13 playoff defeats in 14 straight chances like he did here? With three HOFers in his rotation? With guys like Justice, Gant, McGriff, Lopez, Chipper, Big Cat, Sheffield, et al in his lineup at varying times? No need to respond because we all know the answer, don’t we? Yet he was as safe as a newborn baby in his mother’s arms here. Even after Jim Leyritz and Sterling Hitchcock. Even after expansion teams like the D-Backs and Marlins win as many (and in the Marlins’ case, more) titles than they do. Even after squads who never win like the Cubs and Astros finished splashing champagne on each other in the middle of Turner Field. And the national media have the gall to wonder why sooooo many folks threw up their hands and stopped going to playoff games???? Really?
The Hawks can win 50+ games again and no one will care because we know that they have NO SHOT AT WINNING THE EAST AS CURRENTLY CONSTRUCTED. That’s not my opinion; that’s a fact. The Braves can have another 90-win season and they’ll still have a hard time getting folks to the ballpark. Why? Because the perception is that they’ll find a way to lose in October (again). Again, that’s not my opinion; that’s a fact.
The challenge the Falcons have is to not become the Braves and, dear Lord, not the Hawks. They talk about ‘the process’, which is working so far. Now it’s time to accelerate that process by bringing in the finishing pieces after the CBA is done and not settling for just making the guest list in the hot club like the other two love to brag about. What I’ve heard from AB so far gives me confidence that he knows what direction the wind is blowing and won’t allow complacency to ruin his franchise like it did the other two. The main reason why folks have so little faith in the Braves and Hawks is because they are completely satisfied with having a winning program, making the playoffs, and nothing more. How else can you explain Bobby Cox sticking around so long while Grady Little and Buck Showalter get run for losing in the playoffs elsewhere? No small wonder, both the Red Sox and Yankees started winning titles after they were sent packing; go figure.
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater
January 21st, 2011
6:17 pm
maybe we need sherman to come through again and burn the city and start all over again?? thoughts??
Najeh Davenpoop
January 21st, 2011
6:18 pm
I’m just tired of hearing the national media criticizing Atlanta sports fans, as if we have some championship caliber franchises in Atlanta that we are not supporting. The Hawks in the mid-80s drew well until the fans started to realize that they would never get over the hump in the second round. The Braves drew well throughout the ’90s until the fans started to realize that their window of opportunity to win titles was closing. The Falcons drew well when Vick was here, and have begun to draw well under the new regime, despite the lack of a playoff game. The Thrashers, well… let’s not go there.
We get criticized in particular by the national media for not supporting the 50 win Hawks, but even those of us who are die hard Hawks fans realize that this team’s ceiling is far below what it takes to win a title. And it’s not like they are doing anything to improve the team to that elite level anyway.
Bottom line is, Atlanta sports fans may be hard to please, but we are not stupid. Why the hell should we support franchises that clearly are not interested in winning titles?
Ted Striker
January 21st, 2011
6:19 pm
I once suffered bitter losses as much as any fan. There’s nothing remotely pleasant about any loss. However, I don’t worry nearly that much about such things now.
If your the woman you love develops stage 4 breast cancer or you find yourself caring for both parents because of illness/injury — or any number of things like could happen in life — sports losses tend to hurt a little less.
Sports has never been better in my view. The wins are still wonderful and the losses don’t have nearly the same sting they once did…it’s not life or death.
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater
January 21st, 2011
6:23 pm
agreed Ted Striker that family comes first before anything.
FACTS
January 21st, 2011
6:26 pm
Tom Landry was a genius look at the way he spreaded the defense!
ohmy
January 21st, 2011
6:27 pm
1968 Atlanta Chiefs. NASL Champions…2