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Winning can get boring.
That's probably nothing the masochists that root for the Royals and Cubs want to hear, but it's true. After years of coming out on top after most was said and done, wins aren't quite as exciting as they once were. Think of it like the difference between how you'd feel during the first kiss and how you'd feel hearing your wife's story about "that b---- at work" for the eighth time.
I mention this because, at five games below .500 and with the same odds of winning their division as hitting all the Powerball numbers, the Atlanta Braves have been more fun to watch over the past two weeks than they've been in a long time. And that's coming from a die-hard fan.
So how in Hades could this decidedly mediocre outfit be the one to bring back that lovin' feeling? Some historical perspective should make it clear.
Not sure if you've heard, but the Braves have won 14 consecutive division titles. According to the experts, that's a pretty big deal. But what gets forgotten is, that streak began after six consecutive years of dreadful baseball, with Dale Murphy playing the role of a diamond surrounded by cow dung -- a role Emmitt Smith reprised over a decade later. From 1985-89, the Braves finished no higher than fifth in the NL West, lost no less than 89 games, and managed to drop a 54-106 stinker in 1988.
A team almost has to work to lose 106 games in less than a full season. If the Indians hadn't been so atrocious for so long, the "Major League" movies would have been based on the Braves.
But in 1991, when no one was paying close attention, the Braves got really good. After being 8½ games out of the division lead at the All-Star break, they managed to claw back and win the division on the last weekend of the season. Even though Lonnie Smith blew the World Series when he got okeydoked on the basepaths by Chuck Knoblauch, Braves fans couldn't help but be thrilled that their perennially pitiful franchise made it that far. They lost in the World Series the following year, but that was OK, too. I mean, no one south of Lake Ontario thinks too much of the '92 Series, but everyone remembers Sid Bream making the most improbable turn around third in baseball history to beat the Pirates in the NLCS.
In '93, the last season of the two-division alignment, Atlanta won the last great pennant race. It took 104 wins and 162 games to clinch, but the Braves had their third straight division title. The Phillies sent them home in six games in the NLCS, but that wasn't so bad. It was understandable that a team that couldn't afford to take a day off all season would have been worn down when the playoffs started. Plus, memories of those dreadful teams were still fresh in the minds of Braves fans. It would take more than a Cy Young to make us forget the thrashings Tom Glavine took as a youngster, or watching Rafael Ramirez struggle with ground balls as they skipped off the Georgia red clay on Fulton County Stadium's infield, or Skip Caray and Ernie Johnson Sr. sending birthday wishes to every grandmother in the Southeast and talking about damn near anything to keep from thinking about the shellacking the Braves were taking on a given night.
The Braves weren't going to win the division in the season that never ended, 1994, but they did win the World Series in 1995. And while I agree with Bill Simmons that no one gave a damn about baseball that season, the first after the strike, that was still a great time to be a Braves fan. After seeing our own juggernaut get bumped early in the '93 playoffs there was a special satisfaction in beating Cleveland that season, which won 100 games in a 144-game season. After being overmatched in '92 and watching a grown man be made to look foolish by a rookie on the bases in '91 -- you're damn right I'm bitter -- it was Atlanta's turn to rise to the occasion on the biggest stage. Great times those were, even if no one noticed.
Then came 1996.
The regular season was the same ol'. Won a division, best record in the league, yada yada yada. Atlanta gave the Dodgers a swift one, sweeping them back to Los Angeles. The Cardinals were next, but they came to play. St. Louis took three of the first four games of the series, primed to go to its first World Series in nine years with a Game 5 win at Busch Stadium.
The Braves won the next three games by a combined 31 runs.
But more important than that, it never felt like the Braves would lose. The Cardinals hung eight runs on Greg Maddux and killed Atlanta in Game 2, and Busch Stadium seemed ready to explode when the first pitch of Game 5 was thrown. But anyone that believed that John Smoltz, Maddux or Glavine would lose elimination games to Todd Stottlemyre, Alan Benes or Donovan Osborne also must have been looking for a bridge to buy.
It was at this point that things began to get strange for Braves fans. For the first time ever, we had come to expect to win. After spending the first half of the '90s happy to make the playoffs and thrilled for whatever we got once there, we were becoming a little entitled. The Braves were perennially the best team in baseball. We could claim loyalty to the world champions and were primed to win another. No longer a surprising, heartwarming story, the Braves were poised to become a dynasty -- the first in the big leagues since the Big Red Machine.
Then came Jim Leyritz. I'd love to say more about that one, but I'd prefer not to vomit. Just know that it was that home run that changed everything for those that love this team (not to mention Mark Wohlers, whose control and wife both left him in the next 18 months). With that one swing of the bat, our expectation of winning and feelings of entitlement, our chance to feel like Yankees fans always seem to feel, was gone. Andruw Jones' two home runs at Yankee Stadium as a 19-year-old were no less impressive, but they were totally irrelevant.
Right then, the dreams of a dynasty ended.
It's been 10 years since Leyritz, and nothing has changed. But instead of being shocked by something like that, Braves fans have come to expect it. No one could have expected the turning point against the Marlins in the '97 NLCS to be the widest strike zone ever, but it was impossible not to expect something to go wrong. In '98, rumor has it that San Diego's Sterling Hitchcock leased his soul to a gentleman in a red suit in exchange for the best series of his life; the Padres beat the Braves in six and Hitchcock won the NLCS MVP.
The '99 Braves won 103 games, the most in baseball, and were headed to their fifth World Series of the decade. There was still a chance to become a dynasty.
Actually, there wasn't. When a team goes up 3-0 in the NLCS like the Braves did against the Mets, then loses two in a row and has to come from behind at home -- after blowing a five-run lead, mind you -- to win in extra innings on a bases-loaded walk, there can be no enthusiasm about the World Series.
And, as expected, they were swept by the Yankees.
It was more of the same until this season. The Braves would win the division and then find a way to lose in the early rounds of the playoffs. No matter the season, it was all the same.
Therein lies something strange. Just as the Braves were expected to win, they were expected to lose. The regular season was little more than a formality for all those years, but so was the postseason.
That causes an almost joyless life as a fan. There's never happiness when your team loses, but there wasn't even happiness in winning. This was what the Braves were supposed to do. The team was so far removed from misery and ineptitude that division titles were expected. But it was so close to Leyritz, Livan Hernandez and Eric Gregg that losing seemed inevitable.
No one would dare call this a curse. It seems only the really big cities are cool enough to have the struggles of their teams become so overhyped that they approach supernatural status. But for Braves fans, this ain't cool. The more I think about it, the more it sounds like a psychological disorder.
But let's fast-forward to this season and, more importantly, the point of this exercise. The 2006 Braves are not good. They've got heavy lumber in the lineup, but also their worst bullpen since the old days. Oh, that's saying a lot.
May and June were terrible. Many Braves fans had to accept the reality that for the first time since the first Bush administration, we were rooting for a bad baseball team. Not only were they bad, they were painful to watch. And to make matters worse, the Mets were winning the division. That would make the carpetbaggers in New York start talking smack, and it doesn't get more miserable than that.
So I gave up. Loving losers hurt too much, so I found diversions like that World Cup thing all my friends from other countries were talking about. I must say, it turned out to be pretty cool, the way they bounced that ball off their heads.
Then that was over, so I had to get back to the Braves. And lo and behold, they were winning.
And for the first time in about 10 years, that didn't feel normal. It felt good.
Yes, the Braves can be boring. The players are quiet and corporate, and the ones that aren't tend to get traded. Lots of people are tired of seeing them in the playoffs every year, the same way Braves fans are tired of seeing them lose in the postseason.
But here the Braves are, 11½ games behind the Mets, five games out of the wild card, with a worse record than the Brewers and the Rockies. But they've won 11 of their last 14 games, and it feels as good as ever.
It's unlikely folks in Atlanta will party like it's 1995 this October. But these last two weeks have felt a lot like 1991.
Bomani Jones is a frequent contributor to Page 2. Tell him how you feel at bomani@bomanijones.com.
