GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN PART 2

As I discussed yesterday, the Oakland A’s had a history of a traveling team, and showed the way for other teams to do the same. They were not the only team to re-locate a second time. There was the Boston Braves, the team that was best known as the 1914 Miracle Braves, and they too had a penchant for moving.

However, the Boston Braves weren’t always the Braves, they were also the Boston Bees, the Beaneaters and even the Red Stockings. You see, before they were even Boston, they were the Cincinnati Red Stocking, the first pro team in baseball, who dissolved and moved to Boston where they took some of the original Cincinnati team to start up the Boston Red Stockings. So the original Boston Red Stocking could lay claim to being the original continuous pro team in baseball, and the continuous playing team in pro sports!

From 1900 to 1913, the Boston entry into the National League only managed one winning season, then the miracle of 1914 occurred to change all that. From 1915 to 1917 the Braves contended but from 1917 to 1932 posted only 2 winning records! In 1935, the Braves tried to rebuild and Babe Ruth came on board with the hope of being the vice-president after being turned down as manager in New York, but the Braves took him on for his draw, and nothing else. He quickly faded and left the team on June 1st, the team didn’t want him on the field because he had become so bad defensively.

In 1948, the Braves won the pennant and lost the World Series in six games to the Indians, and lasted in Boston until 1954.

In 1954 the Braves had moved to Milwaukee, and in their first year were not only treated like heroes, drawing 1.8 million fans and won, winning 92 games! With young stars like Mathews and Aaron and Covington, pitchers like Buhl and Burdett and Spahn, the Braves quickly became competitive. Finally in 1957 and 1958 they won pennants and the World Series facing the New York Yankees, winning the 57’ Series and losing in 1958.

After the 50’s and the early 60’s the Braves started to go up and down, the team was sold to a Chicago group and started the process of looking for a larger TV market. Atlanta had a larger market and a new Stadium built, it was ripe for the Braves. After waiting out an injunction, keeping them in Milwaukee, they moved to Atlanta. The 1967 season was their first losing season since 1952. Then in 1969 the Braves won their newly aligned Western Division, but lost the playoffs to the Miracle Mets on ’69! Ownership changes hands and Ted Turner purchased the club in 1976.

Then in the late 80’s and ‘04’, the Braves went on a run of championship baseball with pennants and a World Series victory over Cleveland in 1995, revenging their loss to the Indians in ’48.

That’s all I wrote, folks!