Braves baseball just isn’t what it use to be

Is there anyone wondering the same on that thought other than me? Maybe the Atlanta Braves are tossing that same question around in their minds as they now have all winter to think about it.

I’ll have to admit that I didn’t watch an entire Braves game from start to finish all season. This was the first season in many years, if ever, that I have failed to hang in for the entire nine innings. I was, however, ready to jump on the bandwagon and ride into the playoffs with the Braves.

As the regular season was winding down and the race with the Cardinals was narrowed down to the final three games, I checked scores via computer and watched a couple innings of the second Braves loss to the Phillies. I then begin thinking that the third game of the Braves/Phils series would be the charm.

Meanwhile, during the Braves first two losses in that critical series, the St. Louis Cardinals were breathing down our necks also chasing that wild card slot. St. Louis had the easier of the two tasks by playing an Astros team that was terrible all year. In game three of both series, I was glued to ESPN2 as the Cards whipped Houston and eyed my iPod at the Braves scores as Philly beat Atlanta 4-3 in 13 innings. That final Braves loss clinched the National League wild card sport for St. Louis and left all of us Braves fans wondering how that could happen.

As I tried to manage keeping up with both games, I began to think; “Hey it’s not so bad!” Despite being a Braves fan all my life, I wasn’t too upset at what unfolded on that night. There was a reason for not giving up on baseball for the post season. There’s a local product on the Cardinals, which still gave me a reason to enjoy the post season. Madison County’s Jake Westbrook, the former Rockie, Yankee, and Indian is now wearing a Cardinal on his cap and is once again in the post season. Jake was not included as part of the pitching rotation in round one versus Philadelphia but was still on the roster. So I became a full time-post season Cardinal fan.

With all the hype about that race to capture the wild card, I still can’t help but think about my lack of interest in watching Braves baseball on TV this past season. I can’t figure out if it’s just burnout or the fact that the Braves’ teams of today are just not as exciting as the team of the 90s. I have to lean towards blaming my burnout on the years of being spoiled all throughout the 90s run. How players like Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Ron Gant, and David Justice helped springboard a team from worst to first. How those Braves gave Atlanta its only world championship in any sport.

Could it be possible that the success of the 90s has spoiled us and has caused us to lose interest in the Braves of today? It’s possible that we expect that success every year but as the Braves fail to meet our expectations our interest levels are overtaken by the familiar feeling of “Here we go again.”

As a kid, I grew up watching the Braves and following players like Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Bruce Benedict and many more. Most of my nights after my own Little League games I can remember racing home to watch the Braves. Those same Braves that struggled to win 70 or 80 games and played in old Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. The excitement was something to remember. I can remember watching those Braves of old with my grandfather who was just as much of a fan as I. Despite those teams being in dead last and somewhere around 20 games out of first place, we would get loud and excited as if they were playing for the title. The excitement levels would sometimes reach such a high that it would cause my grandfather to open his heart pillbox, forcing us to turn the game off.

The Braves’ run from worst to first in 1991 kept them from being the club of old that I watched as a kid. There was no more last place position for the Braves during those teams of the 90s and even into this decade. But on the flip side, the years of playing in the fall classic from year to year to a team that collapses each season might have just caused me to lose interest.

I’ve become that Braves fan who looks for the bandwagon and jumps on towards post season. But I get tired of the wagon losing its wheels during crunch time.

Dallas Bordon is the former sports editor for The Danielsville Monitor/Comer News and regular contributor to The Madison County Journal.