Thanks to Jay Jackson for this! (Instagram: @jayjaxon)
Well. It’s official. The 2016 regular season of Major League Baseball came to a close this afternoon. Half the year devoted to America’s favorite pastime, already come and gone, with ten teams moving on to the playoffs in hopes of winning the World Series.
As of this writing, I have been a devoted fan of the Atlanta Braves since Game 6 of the 1996 NLCS; coming up on twenty years. When people find out that the Braves are my favorite team, and that I grew up watching them (on the TBS Superstation!), the following questions usually follow: “Are you from Atlanta?” or “How did you become a Braves fan?” I always have a hard time really putting into words the love I have for this team, this franchise. Because it runs deep.
I actually used to hate baseball. Hated playing it at school and had zero interest in watching. Whenever I’d see it on TV, the hitter would always get out, and I wondered how in the world did they ever score? On the night of Game 6 of the 1996 NLCS, where the St. Louis Cardinals were playing against the Atlanta Braves, I was flipping channels on TV, sitting by myself in the room I shared with my older brother and sister. I would flip channels so fast my parents would worry I’d break the TV. But in the midst of that blur of channel surfing, I stopped, the way Michael “Squints” Palledorous stopped when he saw Wendy Peffercorn walking towards him (Honk if you know the reference!).
On the TV screen, up to bat, was the most gorgeous man I had ever laid my eyes on: For the Braves. The catcher. Number 8. Javy Lopez.
I became so smitten that I stopped channel surfing. True to junior high age, I wanted to know everything about him, so I turned the volume up in hopes that Joe Buck would casually drop some piece of trivia about Javy in the middle of calling the game. I learned he was the starting catcher, which was great because when the Braves were playing defense, he’d be in almost every shot behind the hitter. The downside was he would have his catcher’s mask on, so I couldn’t always see his face. Aside from his looks, I loved the sound of his name, and I loved that he wore my jersey number.
I was antsy throughout Game 6, and then Game 7, wanting the Braves to hurry up and get three outs so it’d be their turn to hit and they’d go through the lineup to Javy’s spot, and he’d be up at bat again for me to stare. But he couldn’t be up to bat all the time. In the process of trying to get every glimpse of Javy, I realized Game 7 was the last game of Ozzie Smith’s professional playing career. Even though I hadn’t followed baseball up until then, I knew who Ozzie Smith was, and I felt a bit sad about his era coming to a close (It also didn’t hurt that Royce Clayton, his successor, was easy on the eyes too.). The sport was starting to pull at my heart strings.
The Braves defeated the Cardinals, winning the NLCS and advancing to the World Series for the second straight year. Javy was named the MVP of the NLCS. I was happy – I would get to see more of Javy on TV, but also because I was proud that my new crush was also a damn good ballplayer.
I subsequently arrived late to numerous volleyball practices that year, since practice coincided with game times. I couldn’t tear myself away from the TV not just because of Javy but because I was actually seeing the game of baseball being played. I saw how they scored. I saw the majestic trajectory of home runs, the amazing speed the ball would travel when Chipper Jones threw a baserunner out from the hot corner, HOW DOUBLE PLAYS WERE TURNED. I started to see it all, and fell in love with it. I paid attention to those plays, whether they were 5-4-3 or 6-4-3, and what the difference was. I listened intently to Joe Buck’s play-by-play commentary to know what a full count meant. I learned there are more pitches than a fastball. I had stumbled upon a whole world I had so foolishly ignored, and I wanted to forget everything else and live in it.
If anyone outside of my family was paying attention to my behavior back then, they’d know a change was occurring in my life, because I was never late to volleyball practice. Thankfully my family humored me as I hogged the TV every chance I got during the World Series (it pays to be the baby). They didn’t know it was because of Javy. To them, I all of a sudden took up an interest in baseball. Both are true. You might think, you were just a girl in junior high with a huge crush, it was just a phase. You were borderline stalker-ish learning your crush’s job just to be closer to him.
No.
I admit, my crush on Javy is what led me to baseball. Once I learned the game though, it became a part of me. No one pushed me to learn it. My brother never played on a baseball team, and neither did my sister. My sister did however, play volleyball, and once I was old enough to join my grade’s CYO volleyball team, I did what my sister did. Even though I enjoyed playing, I felt like I was expected to play just because she had played. Same thing with cheerleading (Yes I was a cheerleader. From eighth through twelfth grade.).
When you’re the youngest, and especially when you grow up behind an overachieving sibling, and especially when said sibling is only a couple years older than you, and of the same gender, and who you constantly get mistaken for even though you look nothing alike and your names sound nothing alike, you’re always looking for your own thing. Baseball became my thing, and specifically Atlanta Braves Baseball became my thing.
The Braves unfortunately lost to the New York Yankees in the ’96 World Series, which broke my heart, because by the time the Yankees were spraying each other with champagne in their clubhouse, I had become invested in (my secret pretend boyfriend Javy’s) team: Chipper’s high socks and swagger paired with his easy-going grin (and what a name too), a young Andruw Jones making history hitting a homerun in his first two World Series at-bats, the solid middle infield tandem of Jeff Blauser and Mark Lemke, and of course the Big Three, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz. I was pulling for them. I could’ve gone for any other Major League Baseball team but there was something about the Braves – aside from Javy – that drew me to them. Perhaps it was that they played for the city of Atlanta, who had just recently hosted the Summer Olympic Games (which of course, I had watched). Or perhaps it was the way they carried themselves. They were the champs in ’95, but they didn’t seem cocky, at least not to me. I didn’t like the vibe I got from the Yankees, and I didn’t like that they had come from being down 2-0 in the Series to eventually win in six games.
After the Series was over, I didn’t know how I’d be able to see the Braves again. I had become so invested at the tail end of the season, even I was beginning to think it was a phase. But some months later in April, again while looking for something to watch on TV, I saw on the TV listings channel, “MLB Baseball: Chicago Cubs vs. Atlanta Braves.” The 1997 season was starting, it was Opening Day, and I had learned that TBS was the Braves’ channel. My brother reluctantly told me that TBS broadcasted the Braves’ games almost every single day. I could watch them, all the way from California. And so, it began.
There are parallels to the baseball season and life. You set your goals (World Series), you prepare yourself for achieving them (spring training), and you begin your journey (regular season) with the people in your life who will support you and help you get through the wins and losses (teammates). You overcome adversity (injuries), you compare yourself to your peers and motivate yourself to improve (opponents), you ignore the haters (opposing fans), and you try to live your life right (rules and umpires). While the Braves set out to achieve their goal year after year, I did the same for myself: started working in high school to start saving up my own money in the hopes of one day buying my dream house, graduated high school and got into a good college, graduated from college to get a good job that I enjoyed…
That’s kind of where I felt like my string of 14 consecutive division titles ended. When the Braves’ run ended in 2005, their success changed, and so did mine. We had both had consistent, linear success up until that year. Everything afterwards was hit or miss. The Braves would either make the playoffs and then not advance very far, or not make the playoffs at all. I would interview for jobs I really wanted, and not get them. Relationships failed, friendships faded, I felt less and less accomplished with every month and year that passed.
But one thing definitely remained the same, and that was my devotion to the Braves, whether they won or lost. My crush on Javy softened, and my affection for the team became a hybrid of the support one gets from a friend, a teammate, or even a parent. I looked to them for comfort, yet I also felt very protective of them. Tuning in to a game for a few hours was an escape for me, allowing me to forget any disappointments for the day in the hopes that between the team and me, one of us would get a win. That’s why I took their losses pretty hard. It’s why I would feel so incredibly jolted when a teammate that was beloved by players and fans alike, would either be lost to free agency or a trade, injury, or retirement.
Year after year. Twenty years and counting.
The Braves became my babies. It’s like I knew them. And when they would get out of a jam by striking someone out, inducing or turning a double play, make an unbelievable, sprawled-out catch in the outfield, or drive in any run – I felt like they did that for me. When they would be on a losing streak and finally broke it, it gave me hope that anything in my life that was bringing me down would eventually break. When they’d be on a winning streak, it was like they were telling me, we got this, we got you, don’t worry about us, now go ahead and do your thing (whether it be a job interview, dance competition, etc).
When you’re a baseball fan, you feel the camaraderie that comes out of that clubhouse and that dugout through the course of over six months. That team becomes likes family, because they are like family to each other, and you’re just a fly on the wall. And every year when I would swear up and down that the current team was the best one ever, to not lose any player or gain any new ones, sure enough the business of baseball would force me to adjust to change. It’s not possible to keep all my favorite players on one team, they’d be too deep at each position and no one would get playing time.
The offseason scares me the most, because on the final day of the season, like today, it’s never a guarantee if all the players you’ve grown to love will become part of another team come Opening Day, which means you’ll have to root against them. How do you root against guys who brought you joy, who gave you a victory, or who amazed you with their athletic prowess? It’s heartache, it’s disappointment. But if there was ever any sport that teaches you to have tough skin (not sure if I’ve gotten really tough skin today, but definitely tougher than before, I’m still quite sensitive), perseverance, and grit for the long, lengthy grind of the season/life, it’s baseball.
And if there was ever any team to teach me that despite the disappointments and changes, there is always something unique to myself, there are always my own victories and reliable consistencies, combined with humbleness, class, and rich history, that no one could take away, it’s the Atlanta Braves.
And especially with the way they finished their 2016 season today…the future will always look bright.
Does that answer the question?