Why do Atlanta sports fans (and sports fans from all of Georgia for that matter) continue to care about their teams?
Over the past three weeks or so I’ve watched my favorite baseball team, those lovable losers known as the Atlanta Braves, drop 12 of 15 games, including an historically disastrous 0–8 road trip, and drop from a somewhat comfortable first place position in their division to 5.5 games back of first and 3 games out of the coveted Wild Card spot.
To any casual follower of baseball, a skid like this in August represents the very essence of what is often referred to as “a late season collapse.” But it’s hardly a surprise. Just three seasons ago, the Braves capped off one of the worst late season implosions in the storied history of baseball, blowing an 8.5 game lead entering September, finishing the month with a 9–18 record, which left them out of the postseason.
As casual baseball fans also know, futility comes easy to the Atlanta Braves. This is the same franchise that won 14 consecutive division titles from 1991 to 2005 (excluding a strike-shortened season in ‘94)—a stretch of regular season success that it is completely unheard of in any pro sport in the modern era—and yet came away with only one World Series title. This whole being a Braves fan thing hasn’t been easy.
But during the latest swoon, a fellow commiserator said to me something to the effect of “at least we aren’t Pittsburgh Pirates fans.” When I protested, he laid out his argument thus: “Just think for a minute how much pain and suffering the Pirates fans have endured. Sid Bream in 1992, then 20 straight years of losing seasons before they get dropped by the Cards last year in the division. You can say ‘oh man, but at least they knew they were gonna suck all those years’ but that’s total BS. What the fuck are guys like us gonna do all summer long?”
Unfortunately, this got me thinking, would being a Pirates fan really be worse?
It’s a tricky one. Goes back to the old lament that it’s “better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” While I wouldn’t trade being an Atlanta sports fan for any other city/region, I have to admit we have had a special kind of tough luck. Starting around, let’s say the mid ‘70s since it’s a good proxy for the beginning of my life, Atlanta sports teams have had a LOT of almost-but-not-quite seasons with only one major championship.
The Braves have had at least 17 seasons since that time where they had a legitimate shot at winning the whole thing and, as mentioned, they came out with only one title. The Atlanta Falcons got to the brink once, a Super Bowl loss in 1998, and played in a dozen or so playoffs with nothing to show for it. The Hawks have also strung together some playoff years, but have never even made it as far as a conference finals series. No hardware. No rings.
Pouring salt into the wound of our history is the sad legacy of Atlanta’s woebegone NHL teams, the Flames and Thrashers. Aside from the ATL’s dubious distinction of being the only major American city to have NHL teams leave the city twice, these two moribund franchises made it past the first round of the playoffs just once in a combined 15 seasons of calling the city home. Neither won anything of significance, and both relocated to the friendly embrace of hockey’s cradle in Canada.
Bottom line, it’s tough to argue any major American city has been as forsaken by the sporting gods as has Atlanta. Those miserable Pirates fans can forget about baseball every autumn and watch one of the NFL’s best franchises, which has piled on 8 Super Bowl appearances and 6 championships since 1975. They’ve basically averaged an NFL title every 6 or 7 years over four decades. Up there in Steel-town they actually care about their hockey, and Penguins fans have welcomed home 3 Stanley Cups since the 90s.
Looking at the other big cities, the results corroborate my ongoing sense of frustration. Chicago, Boston, New York, LA, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Philly, D.C., St. Louis and Detroit have all won multiple professional sports championships (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) over the same period. I said multiple as in more than one, but in most of the cities listed above, it’s more like a half dozen or so.
From my humbled perspective, Atlanta’s closest competition for misery comes from Cleveland, Phoenix, Seattle and Kansas City. But Seattle just won a Super Bowl and Cleveland, with the acquisitions of NBA superstars Lebron James and Kevin Love, might be on the verge of competing for the next five NBA titles. And don’t look now, but the Kansas City Royals are on an epic tear and could bring home a World Series this year. Atlanta’s toilet-swimming company is about to get even thinner.
But, hey, I can live with the knowledge that Phoenix fans have endured a similar level of sucking. Except that mathematically, even this craptastic sports city is not quite on the same plane as that which is occupied by us lowly ATLiens. The city of Phoenix has watched 104 seasons of professional sports with one major title, which happened in 2001 (more recently than Atlanta’s in 1995, I might add). Atlanta, on the other hand, has just that lone World Series title to go along with 162 seasons of extraordinarily bad professional sports.
In baseball terms, we’re batting .006. Worst in the league among those with at least a full season of plate appearances. Kind of like our starting center fielder and $15 million a year man, B.J. Upton. Yes, being an Atlanta fan is a colossal exercise in pain, akin to traditional Japanese seppuku where the sword takes 40 years to finish its work. But I guess my friend is right. It could be worse. We could be from Cincinnati.