First published: Oct. 29, 1995
The world stopped turning last night. The sun came up at midnight. Atlanta turned the other cheek and didn't get slapped. The Braves went to bed -- if they went to bed at all -- champions of the baseball world, to go with the "Miracle Braves" of Boston and the Milwaukee Braves of Wisconsin. Of 1914, of 1957 and of 1995.
Now the deed has been done. Now it can be told, if in this pandemonium, this raging ecstasy, this delirium, it can be told at all. In this city raised from the ashes of war now flies the most coveted flag in baseball. It has been 30 seasons coming, since the franchise left Milwaukee and took up housekeeping among us. For all those years of deprivation, for all those dismal seasons spent in the squalor of the second division -- eight times they finished last -- this was the payback.
To all those fans of the Southeast, who fell under the severe critique of David Justice, there was another payback. In an evening heavily laden with irony, the irony of it all was that the man who provided the necessary offense was Himself -- David Justice, this fellow who looks to the stands for his inspiration. For 5 1/2 innings it had been a scoreless game, an enthralling standoff between Tom Glavine and Dennis Martinez, until Justice led off the Atlanta sixth with a tall home run over the right field fence. It would turn out to be the only run of the game.
Now for the other twist: The victim was the left-handed Jim Poole, who continued a losing day for Georgia Tech, his alma mater, football victim of Clemson University at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Poole had done his job in the fifth, following Martinez to the mound and striking out Fred McGriff on three pitches. Then all that irony was condensed into the one moment he faced Justice, who had come up a rookie while Poole was getting his pitching education across town.
On the thin edge of that one-run margin, the Braves walked a tightrope through the last three innings, bearing out still another irony. In a Series role that had been reserved for Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine applied the masterful finishing touch with a brilliant one- hitter. The one hit was a soft fly that Tony Pena dropped in right-center field opening the sixth inning. He was forced at second, and the Indians had only one more base runner the rest of the night.
What made this finale the fitting event that it was, was the magnificence of it. It was baseball at its very finest, from the pitching to the defense, to which the hitless wonder, Rafael Belliard, applied the signature, running down Kenny Lofton's foul over the left field line at breakneck speed, first out of the ninth inning with Mark Wohlers closing it out. The last was Carlos Baerga's fly to Marquis Grissom in left- center field, upon which this old stadium exploded into one wild burst of emotion. Sanity, however, did prevail.
"30 Years of Waiting Ends Tonight, " read a homemade banner spread behind home plate before the game, and, afterward, while the emotionally wrought fans stood singing in the stands. It wasn't a song I could make out, but that didn't matter. It was a song of joy and fruition.
And what a year it has been for the man behind it all. Ted Turner sat in the field box near the Braves dugout with a few of his friends, a most diverse group including a former president, Jimmy Carter, and Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House, and his wife, Jane Fonda. An $8 billion deal is made, the Braves win the pennant and TBS has grown into exciting manhood, all for a guy who started on a shoestring, and who bought the Braves in 1976, not knowing a passed ball from a foul ball. To him, the risk-taker, goes Atlanta's standing ovation.
It hasn't been a ride across a totally barren field. The Braves won the National League West in 1969, again in 1982, before turning the '90s into their decade. A World Series in ‘91 and a World Series in ‘92, a division championship in 1993, followed by the Year of the Strikers. Bobby Cox had had a near-miss when he managed Toronto in the American League. Was this his doom? A career of near -misses.
Now his destiny has been met. This was the manager Ted Turner fired in 1981, returned as general manager, then back to the field in 1990, then moved from worst to first in 1991. What a lovely diary.
"I'd hire him again, " Turner said the day he announced his firing.
He was as good as his word.
They're down on the field now, celebrating. Steve Avery with his shirt-tail out, Chipper Jones running along the tarpaulin roll, David Justice telling television how much he really loves Atlanta fans, and the world can start turning again.
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