Of all the Atlanta teams to suffer a fate less then ultimate glory, this was my very favorite. This was the year the Braves really made something of themselves.

It began with not only hype, but stupid hype that showed how little respect this Atlanta team had recieved in this heyday of Buffalo Bills and Michigan Wolverines who keep getting to the final game or series of their sport and CHOKING. Not losing but CHOKING. And in Atlanta, before signing fantastic Greg Maddux from the Cubs and Fred McGriff from the Padres, it was headlines comparing them to the Bills that Pendleton, Justice, Lemke, Gant, Smoltz, Glavine and Avery, Blauser, Belliard, Nixon and Stanton and Wohlers had to endure. They were lumped in a ball of national embarrassment and shame, deemed baseball's Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, Darryl Talley, Carlton Bailey, Andre Reed, James Lofton, Mark Wolford, James Gardner, and Cornelius Bennett. As such, we get Greg Maddux and NOW the sports world is flipping out about Atlanta's pitchers? We get McGriff and now it's all about Atlanta's hitters? See what I mean? Unless the Atlanta Braves could win the World Series, they would be regarded as the worst kinds of losers.

I couldn't understand why people would be such dicks about it, but when you consider how annoying it can be to get all geared up for the World Series or the SuperBowl or the Final Four, knowing full well that one team is going to kill the other one? It's fun to see once, but then it's time to see how a new team would fair against the champion. As a Bills fan (WE GOT TERRELL OWENS!!!), you would watch them win the AFC Championship in the first game of the day and then in the afternoon game would be the NFC Championship -- now, back then it was always San Francisco versus somebody, and each time, all three times they reached that afternoon game for the NFC...they would lose. They would lose and you in your Buffalo Bills winter turtleneck would get so excited. You'd go MOM!! DAD!!! We don't have to play the 49ers!! We're going to win the Superbowl!!! All three times this occurred, all three times before Martin Luther King Jr. day and we were off from school, the team that beat the 49ers would go on to beat the Bills.

But back to the Braves. They go into the season and sure enough, they're sucking again like they did last year early on. We figure no problem. They'll be good by June like they did last year. Since we last saw Barry Bonds he signed a 42 million dollar/6 year deal with the San Francisco Giants, which was now a bunch of badasses. Absolute badasses. Oh my god -- it was like when Barkley went to the Phoenix Suns or when Horace Grant went to the Orlando Magic. Bonds was not only better then they ever believed, he filled in precisely the weaknesses that always kept the Giants from winning. He was their best fielder, their best play maker, and even then their most skilled hitter. the great Will Clark, catcher Curt Manwaring, awesome second baseman Robbie Thompson, the next Mike Schmidt in third baseman Matt Williams, they were something.

And unfortunately for Atlanta, June came and they still sucked. JULY came and gone. Sucked. Suddenly it's August 2nd and the Braves are 9 1/2 games behind division leading San Francisco in the National League West. Once again, no strike, no wildcard series, the Braves had to top the Giants and win the division if they wanted to see the playoffs and have a chance at an amazing third straight trip to the World Series. And things seemed to look bad for math majors. But all us cool kids who watched SportsCenter, TBS and read the papers knew -- the Braves were about to play 7 games against San Francisco.

They win all four in San Francisco. Sweep em. They're 5 1/2 out just like that.

Then they win two out of three in Atlanta. 4 1/2 games out. Not bad.

Over the span of those last sixty-five games over the last 2 months, the Braves would go an unbelievable 51-14 and into the final Sunday of the season tied with the Giants. Here were their records, I kid you not...

GIANTS 103-48

BRAVES 103-48

The Braves beat the Astros easily and clinched a tie for the division. Then, like in 1991, the whole city waited anxiously with the monitor on in the outfield...on the Dodger game. Yup. Tommy Lasorda and Darryl Strawberry were on the verge of doing to the Giants what the Giants did to them in 91. People in Atlanta were walking around with T-shirts of Tommy Lasorda and holding up signs reading "LASORDA FOR PRESIDENT". And sure enough, after getting creamed in the first two games, the Dodgers would take this single victory from San Francisco that afternoon and the Braves would celebrate like madmen in front of their equally incredulous fans. It was like the Christian Laettner shot, the Francisco Cabrera hit, everything great in sports rolled into one. The Braves had fought off the nastiest National League team yet Hollywood movie style, and it was back to the playoffs, and thank-you note writing time for Tommy Lasorda.

Oh man. The 1993 National League Championship Series. This was an identity crisis for alot of people from other cities who loved the Atlanta Braves. On one hand, you had the mighty Braves. But on the other hand, you had a Philadelphia Phillies team that served wonderful extrapolation purposes. Everyone knew the kinds of people on this ball team and liked hanging out with them and in many cases wanted to be like them. Not until the 96 Chicago Bulls had a team come around with so many options for self-identification as a young fan. You had Darren Daulton, the chick magnet who told the world ladies liked the Phillies despite themselves in the same way Joe Dumars served to tell the world that the Detroit Pistons could shut up, be studious, respectful and professional...despite themselves. The rest of the Phillies were like the guys in high school who get high and drink on the hill, which ironically fit the times because the way to get serious starpower in your sports team, ones the kiddies could look up to, was to make them resemble the movie Dazed N' Confused. I kid you not. It worked like a charm. They were bringing the '60s back in pop culture in the '90s, and the 93 Phillies were literally like the flunkies who don't expect to play but are there specifically as part of the baseball team. There was fat John Kruk at first base who could hit a ton, there was the great Lenny Dykstra from the 86 Mets who still dove into the centerfield wall whether he planned to catch the ball or not, Jim Eisenrich who was like Cal Ripken Jr. if he was Remi in Higher Learning, there was the goofball Kim Batista, there was Dave Hollins at short and Milt Thompson somewhere and Mickey Morandini sometimes at second, and yes...Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, #99, the reliever who fell down after throwing his pitches. What a team this was. It was Hells Angels and Woodstock participants in Philadelphia...versus a group of battle-tested Southern farmers who worked to death and would do the same to you in the Atlanta Braves.

Game 1 was in Philadelphia, two days after the Braves finished a 104 win season on the last day to clinch their third division title. They were exhausted. And the first five Atlanta hitters not only went down, they literally went down swinging. Five straight strikeouts. Who is this young unknown pup on the mound for Philadelphia getting more and more famous by the second?

Curt Shilling.

Yes, long before the bloody sock, this son of a b was manhandling the Atlanta Braves. And it went into the ninth inning with Philadelphia up 4-3. But then something great happened. The Phillies were on the verge of winning with a 6-4-3 double play...and Kim Bautista at short THREW THE BALL OVER THOMPSON'S HEAD ON ACCIDENT!!! The Braves would tie the game on a sacrifice hit and things looked swell. But in the ninth, Kim Bautista brought home the winning run. He redeemed himself before the Philadelphia fans could demonize him and throw crap at his house.

PHILADELPHIA LEADS SERIES 1-0

But in Game 2, with a runner on in the second, Fred McGriff would hit a ball to left that the Philadelphia outfielders would just stand and watch leave the park. It literally travelled over 530 feet. They were all close to the diamond and didn't even bother to move their feet. They didn't need to test it to see if it was possible. They just knew. And so it was 2-0 Atlanta and they won the game. Greg Maddux got the win.

SERIES TIED 1-1

Game 3 in Atlanta looked bad for a while, but the Braves came back in the sixth and seventh innings and won handily. The score was alot more lopsided then the game actually was.

ATLANTA LEADS 2-1

Game 4 will always be remembered as nonsense. The officials cheated us. I don't care. Ask any Atlanta fan who was there that day for Game 4 of the NLCS in 93. Every single time a swing came close, the home plate umpire would say we went and he'd call us out. We lost 2-1 on a double play ball. It was so annoying.

SERIES TIED 2-2

In Game 5 on Monday afternoon (Happy Columbus Day), the Philadelphia Phillies asserted themselves going up 3-0 into the top of the ninth. We TIED IT!!!! You have to get footage of this inning. I forgot. I know Jeff Blauser was a big part of it and Raphael Billiard knocked a few RBIs. But it's not well-known for a pretty good reason. The game went into the 10th, and Lenny Dykstra, one swing of the bat against Mark Wohlers the Braves reliever, THWACK!!! Homerun Lenny Dykstra. Atlanta was stunned. The Phillies won the game and the series returned north.

PHILADELPHIA LEADS 3-2

The big problem, in a nutshell for Atlanta during this era, was relief pitching. Braves GM John Sherholz tried very hard and understood their value, but still figured that if he got Greg Maddux, then the other three would do better because of more rest. That and the fact that our hitters were awesome, so it's not hard to understand why Sherholz pretty much bet the farm on the Atlanta Braves never, ever putting themselves in a position where the game's still undecided towards the seventh inning and beyond. And if the game's not close at that point, it doesn't matter who is in relief. Little did he understand what I call the Danny Ainge rule. The Danny Ainge rule goes like this -- I don't care how good of a team you are, many members of PAST good teams are still in the league. They know what you're doing, seen it all before, are not so stupid as to let you rout them, and if they stay even with you late, and you put them in a position where they can perform individually against your team, you just might get beat. And that's what happened to the Braves.

Game 6 featured Greg Maddux, with Tom Glavine set to go in Game 7. The entire controversy going into that Wednesday night was the same one I always had -- with a four man rotation, John Smoltz can't start Games 1, 4 and 7 like he always did and which brought the Braves success. Instead he got Game 2 and 5 and we wouldn't see him again in the series. That was stupid. Tom Glavine in Game 7 I don't care how loyal a Braves fan you are...don't do it. Don't trust it. We never believed, not a soul in fact, believed that Greg Maddux could lose Game 6 to make this discussion null and void.

With a runner on, Darren Daulton I believe was the one who hit a liner that landed against the wall in rightfield all slowly so it didn't bounce and David Justice had to run a mile in order to retrieve it. By the time he got it and launched a throw, Daulton was into third base without even a slide.it was 2-0 Phillies.

Greg Maddux managed to catch a hard liner from John Kruk that went right for his ankles. But that was it. The Phillies won the game, some fool ripped off his shirt and started screaming in happiness, it was dumb.

Dumb dumb dumb. This team was more awesome then that.

And now, if you can take it, here's a brief recap of what happened since.

In 1994, the Braves were off to their best start in franchise history and far ahead in first place...but then there was a baseball strike in August and the season was over.

In 1995, the Braves won the World Series with a whole new cast. Only David Justice, Mark Lemke, Damon Berryhill and the pitchers remained from the 91-93 seasons. No Pendleton, No Gant, No Nixon. Atlanta fans remember this evening not necessarily for the World Series win, but the comments that David Justice made in that morning's paper -- "If we lose, what do you think would happen? They'd kill us." Many Atlanta fans booed David Justice when he came up to bat during this game. He was awesome though and caught the final out and the Braves finally won.

In 1996, this Braves team started to make me smile, these new cats of Chipper Jones and Jermaine Dye (MAN HE WAS GREAT THEN) and Javier Lopez. They were just terrific. And we went up 2-0 in the World Series against the Yankees with two cold, cruel dominating wins at Yankees Stadium. We went up 6-0 in the sixth inning of Game 4. And we lost. Jim Leyritz hit a 3-run HR in the 9th to tie it and then a guy who was brand new to the game, an 18-year old kid named Derek Jeter, hit a solo HR in the 10th.The Yankees tied the series, and then won in six.

In 1997, the Braves lost in the NLCS to Jim Leyland's Florida Marlins. The old Pittsburgh manager came back to get revenge.

In 1998, the Braves lost in the NLCS to the San Diego Padres. Tony Gwynn's second world series in fourteen years.

In 1999, the Braves went to the World Series and faced old teammate David Justice and the New York Yankees. There would be no early jitters and stumbling from the Yankees this time, and they murdered Atlanta in a sweep.

In 2000, the Braves went to the NLCS and lost to the Mets who they beat in the NLCS the year before.

In 2001, the Braves lost in the NLCS to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Curt Shilling again.

In 2002, the Braves lost to the San Francisco Giants in the first round.

In 2003, the Braves lost to the Chicago Cubs and Kerry Wood and has has a hot wife.

In 2004, the Braves lost to the ...I don't remember. But these last couple ones, straight through 2007, I think the Rockies beat them there, were stupid.

GET BETTER ATLANTA!!! KNOW YOUR HISTORY!!! BE INSPIRED BY IT!!! GLAD I COULD HELP!!!

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