Thank you for taking this session so fast. I didn’t expect I would need to speak with you so soon.
That’s OK. Just tell me what’s wrong and we’ll try to work it out.
Well, this is an annoyance to the point of pain that goes back to my childhood.
Wow. We’re going to jump right in, huh? OK; what about your childhood?
I'm comfortable being a Xennial; the generation that grew up with landline phones, cassette singles and matured along with the Internet. A generation that remembers cable being a big deal and the one channel everyone had - regardless if they paid extra for one HBO channel or just cut a neighbor’s cord - was TBS.
I didn’t “know” anything about Ted Turner, but I knew he owned a broadcast network that played WCW wrestling matches on weekends. I know they played The Andy Griffith Show ad nauseum during the day and at night they would show Atlanta Braves baseball. They called themselves ‘America’s Team’ and it made some sense since I didn’t think WPIX or WWOR were broadcasting G.I. Joe and The Arsenio Hall Show out to the nation.
TBS was a true cable broadcast channel and Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren were the soundtrack to many an evening across the nation; calling every player by their first name and outright rooting for the team. It was like listening to Foghorn Leghorn for 100 games instead of another rerun of Family Ties or skipping the latest Growing Pains. It was a tough time for all of us. And it only got worse once the Braves got good.
They won the World Series in 1991; same time the Falcons were actually entertaining with coach Jerry Glanville, quarterback Jeff George and a four-wide spread formation that looked like what my friends and I did playing pick-up football in the street and on weekends with more kids in empty available green space.
I proudly wore an Andre Rison jersey; rocking the black and red colors that were cool to a teenage mind. But then they lost in the Divisional round and soon afterwards, Left Eye burnt down his house…
Wait, what? What house are you talking about?
Rison was dating Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopez of the 90s girl group TLC. They had four Billboard Number One singles, sold over 65 million records worldwide and one of their members burnt down Rison’s mansion. Then the three posed on the cover of Vibe magazine wearing fire outfits. The 90s were a strange time…
OK, please understand this is an unscheduled session. Let’s try to get back on the subject.
But that’s the thing. The subject is the Braves and even when they went back to losing, they’d find a way to beat the Mets. Even when they lost Skip Caray, they just replaced him with another Caray and the soundtrack continued on a loop. The same song, just a different drummer...
Let’s try to move this forward.
But they never could more it forward and that same cartoon rooster was calling out for all to hear “Braves Win! Braves Win’!”, even when it’s just a game in April. It was infuriating. It is infuriating. At least when it was future Hall of Famers like Greg Maddox and John Smoltz; but now it’s anyone in that stupid uniform!
What do you mean?
I mean; the Mets beat them last year…until they didn’t. And looking back on the box scores of those three losses in late September, it doesn’t read as if the Braves were better. It shows what I felt then and still do today. That the Mets beat themselves. That the bats that were hitting all year went silent without Starling Marte. But that's not an excuse and to focus on three games during a 162-game season is crazy, right? That’s what we talked about before?
Yes, continue.
And it’s not that the Mets blew a 10.5 game lead. It’s that the Braves were 21-6 in June and finished the second half of the season at a .662 clip and the Mets just played .623 the entire season and both teams won 101 games. And it’s like we’ve all forgotten that the team won 101 games last year. That all the time in front of the screen is worth it. My time is worth it because it brings me happiness. I am worth it.
That’s good. I think we’re going to end the impromptu session now. There’s a big four game series where the Mets will see the Braves best arms and that’s the truth.
Upcoming Series: Atlanta Braves at New York Mets
Friday, April 28 - 7:10 pm
David Peterson (1-3, 7.36 ERA) vs. Max Fried (1-0, 0.60 ERA)
Saturday, April 29 - 4:05 pm
Tylor Megill (3-1, 3.96 ERA) vs. Spencer Strider (3-0, 1.80 ERA)
Sunday, April 30 - 1:40 pm
Jose Butto (0-1, 2.79 ERA) vs. Charlie Morton (3-2, 2.76 ERA)
Monday, May 1 - 1:10 pm
TBD vs. Bryce Elder (2-0, 2.17 ERA)
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