It has been almost 25 years since the Braves won a World Series, almost 19 years since they won a postseason series. But fans with access to Fox Sports Southeast will be able to watch them win it all this week.
Across six nights, the regional sports network will show the entire 1995 World Series between the pitching-rich Braves and the heavy-hitting Cleveland Indians — the only World Series the Braves have won since moving to Atlanta in 1966. The rebroadcasts will start Monday night with Game 1 and will culminate Saturday night with Game 6. Each telecast begins at 7 p.m.
The rebroadcasts, a nostalgic way to fill airtime amid the coronavirus pandemic that has shut down live events, will be set up each night with new remote interviews with two star pitchers from the '95 Braves.
“A lot of stations are pulling out tape off the archives shelves,” said Jeff Genthner, senior vice president and general manager of Fox Sports South and Fox Sports Southeast, “and we’re so appreciative and so thrilled to be able to add a special spin to it by having each game fronted with Chip Caray interviewing the great Hall of Famers Tom Glavine and John Smoltz leading into each telecast in this 25th anniversary of the championship.”
A highlight from those interviews will be Glavine retelling the story of his famous challenge to the Braves’ hitters during a still-scoreless Game 6 of that World Series: “ ‘Come on, boys, get me one (run), because they’re not getting any.’ ”
» RELATED: Glavine, Klesko look forward to watching rebroadcast
The 1995 Braves had six future Hall of Famers – starting pitchers Greg Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz, rookie third baseman Chipper Jones, manager Bobby Cox and general manager John Schuerholz. Cleveland, though, had gone 100-44 in a strike-shortened regular season with a powerful lineup featuring sluggers Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Eddie Murray and others.
“They had a bomb squad,” Ryan Klesko, who hit three home runs for the Braves in that World Series, recalled last week. “I think we definitely were the underdogs in that series.”
It was a tight, tense series throughout. Five of the six games were decided by one run, including one game that went 11 innings. Braves pitchers posted a 2.67 ERA for the series, holding the Indians to a team batting average of .179. The Braves won the championship-clinching Game 6, 1-0, at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on Oct. 28, 1995, behind eight one-hit innings from series MVP Glavine and a sixth-inning home run from David Justice.
Before the stay-at-home and social-distancing realities of the pandemic, Glavine often would encounter Braves fans who fondly remember that series and, particularly, that Game 6.
“Somebody will come up to me … and say, ‘Hey, I just want to thank you,’” Glavine said. “And then they’ll go back to ’95, and they’ll talk about how they were lifelong Braves fans and were at that game that night and how much it meant to them as a Braves fan and an Atlanta fan to be able to live that and see that.
“It probably happened a little bit more recently, before we all got into this lock-down, and maybe it coincided with the 25th anniversary and more attention on it again,” Glavine said. “But it seemed like, over the course of the winter and early spring, there were more and more people who were doing that with me. It’s a nice feeling, a great feeling, when people do it. My reaction usually is, ‘It was a pleasure, I enjoyed doing it, and I wish we got to do it again, but unfortunately we didn’t.’”
It’s all still in the archives, though, to be brought out again this week.
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