The A-1 headline of the Atlanta Journal on Oct. 4, 1991: “It’s Title Time in Tomahawk Town.” It was brilliant in every way – pithy (six words), alliterative (four T-words) and mood-of-the-city-capturing (that was our summer of foam tomahawks). The Braves were about to open their final homestand of the season now recalled as worst-to-first, but weren’t yet in first place by themselves. They were tied with the Dodgers.
By Saturday afternoon, after two wins here and two L.A. losses in San Francisco, those Braves were National League West champs. They would claim 13 more division crowns over the next 13 completed seasons, but the first of those sits on its own special shelf. Titles Nos. 2-14 were expected, more or less; No. 1 was a gift from the previously unfeeling baseball gods.
These Braves aren’t home and dry. Those of us old enough to recall the 1964 Phillie Phold – 6-1/2 up with 12 to play! – know never to say never. That said, the local club looks for all the world to be bearing down on an achievement that would, on the shock scale, run second only to worst-to-first. (This would be third-to-first; the 2017 Braves finished in the middle of the NL East.) This team wasn’t expected to be this good this soon, but here it is. And, unlike its ’91 forebears, who surged after the All-Star break, it has been here all year.
The past week had seen the Braves essentially lap the East field. Ahead by 2-1/2 games on the morning of Sept. 8, they gained a full game on second-place Philadelphia five days running. When finally the Phillies beat the Marlins on Friday, the Braves kept pace by beating Max Scherzer for the second time this season and making him look as bad as a great pitcher ever does. The magic number shrank to nine.
It remained there Saturday afternoon after what may have been the worst game ever. Braves pitchers combined to walk 14 Washington batters, eclipsing the franchise record first set by the Boston Bees in 1938. The Braves’ radio crew named reliever Chad Sobotka its star of the game for being the only pitcher (of seven) deployed by Brian Snitker not to walk anybody.
Julio Teheran might have pitched himself off the Division Series roster in a fourth inning that beggared belief: The Nationals sent seven men to plate, none of whom put the ball in play, and still scored the go-ahead run. To his credit, Teheran struck out the side. To his discredit, he walked four. He was gone after that, having needed 90 pitches to register 12 outs.
“We’ve been winning games with high walk totals,” Snitker said afterward. (Though none this high.) “That’s going to bite you. … If you’re walking guys, there’s no defense for it.”
Ah, well. After winning six in a row, the Braves were due a clunker. This qualified on every level. They managed only two hits, one of the infield variety, and one run, that unearned. Perhaps they were numbed into stupefaction. Land masses form in less time than it takes Jeremy Hellickson, the Nats’ starter this day, to work an inning. Had he not been forced to recuse himself after swinging the bat – he missed Teheran’s pitch, FYI – in the fourth, we’d have been looking at a five-hour game. As it was, the proceedings sped by in a brisk three fours, 41 minutes.
Between Hellickson’s human-rain-delay act and Teheran’s inaccuracy, the game had ground to a halt even as the score remained close. Then it got un-close. The Braves lost 7-1. Thus was their pennant drive slowed for one muggy afternoon. Their lead had been reduced to seven games, pending Philly’s night game, with 14 to go. That’s not insurmountable, but it’s darn close. There’s also this: Over 5-1/2 months, the Braves have been the East’s best team by some distance. There’s no reason to believe they’ll collapse in the final fortnight. This could/should be over with a week or so to spare.
And here we step back to say: Who among us saw this coming? Not I. I believed this would be the season when the Braves started to get good again; turned out they were good from opening day. I guessed they’d go 80-82; they’ve already won 83. They’ve had one losing month. (That was July. Even in March, they were 2-1.) Baseball Prospectus assesses their chances of winning the East at a rather encouraging 99.5 percent. As they say in English soccer, they’re nearly there.
And I’ve love to say I’ve readied a catchy headline to fit the occasion. Trouble is, “It’s Title Time in Tomahawk Town” was claimed – I wish I knew the name of the AJC staffer who authored it, but I don’t – 27 years ago. That one tripped off the tongue so easily that, on that Friday night in October ’91 when Steve Avery beat the Astros, former colleague I.J. Rosenberg and I started singing it, Sinatra-style, in the press box. (No recordings exist, thank goodness.)
But what headline fits the, er, tenor of these times? What does in six-or-fewer words what that classic did then? “East Is East, Braves Are Best”? “Snit’s Charges Conjure Cobb County Clinching”? Not even close. But give me another few days. I’ll try to think of something suitable, knowing already that I won’t.
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