THE YEARNING OF ATLANTA
Falcons could deliver a magical title to city with so little success
IN 1991, Atlanta was celebrating its silver anniversary as a major league sports city. The Braves had moved from Milwaukee in 1966, the Hawks from St. Louis in 1969. The Falcons had risen from the NFL expansion pool in 1966. The Flames were part of the NHL’s 1972 expansion (though they already had departed for Calgary in 1980). “Championship parades are not commonplace here,” writes Jeff Schultz, the outstanding sports columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They run a close second to Sasquatch sightings.” That quarter century of big-time had yielded shockingly little in the way of anything meaningful for the locals. They had gotten to enjoy the magic of the young Pistol Pete Maravich in the early ’70s, though the Hawks ran a distant third during their season to local chatter about Georgia’s football recruiting and Georgia Tech’s spring game. Atlanta got to celebrate Hank Aaron’s 715th home run on April 8, 1974, when 53,775 stuffed old Fulton County Stadium (and the famed writer Lewis Grizzard, then sports editor of the Atlanta Journal, assigned some reporters to the ballpark’s men’s rooms to interview the unfortunate few who had let nature step in the way of history). Of course, the rest of that homestand featured crowds of 5,114, 3,029, 3,196, 3,079 and 3,131. Atlanta always did have a strong immune system when it came to baseball.
Atlanta got some unforgettable performances from Michael Vick. And then watched along with everyone else when his sinister secret hobby was rerevealed.
Jim Craig appeared on the cover of the March 10, 1980, edition of Sports Illustrated under the headline: THE GOLDEN GOALIE CASHES IN. Craig beat the Colorado Rockies 4-1 in front of the Flames’ only sellout of the season, 15,156 at the Omni. It was also the only game he ever won for them. He was 1-2-1 for the year, and at season’s end was shipped to his hometown Bruins while the Flames gift-wrapped themselves to Calgary, much like their successors, the Thrashers, left for Winnipeg in 2011 after barely a decade in Atlanta.
Oh, yes: The Calgary Flames won the 1989 Stanley Cup.
So two years later, Atlanta was still waiting for a reason to throw confetti out of its downtown office buildings, still desperate for a parade. How much? Well, a few days after Gene Larkin’s flare won Game 7 of the 1991 World Series for the Twins over the Braves, ending perhaps the greatest Fall Classic ever played, Atlanta decided to hold a parade anyway.
And the locals swarmed downtown, 750,000 of them, jamming streets, overwhelming MARTA rail stations.
Writes Schultz: “It was like
an entire metropolitan area screamed in unison, ‘We lost! But we weren’t half-bad!’ ”
Four years later, the Braves finally did win the World Series, thanks to David Justice’s solo home run in Game 6, thanks to Tom Glavine’s brilliant eight-inning, one-hit gem. During the 2006 playoffs, after Glavine had defected to the Mets, he was asked the difference between winning in Atlanta and winning in New York.
“In Atlanta, they still think that team can walk on water, like it was some kind of divine miracle,” he said, laughing. “In New York, while Mets fans are happy, I think there’s almost a sense of, ‘What took you so long?’ ”
That probably seems especially relevant to Atlanta fans now, as their Falcons sit a few days away from taking the franchise’s second crack at winning a Super Bowl. Every now and again, in New York, we snicker about how it now has been five long years since we celebrated a championship, we debate which of our overpriced, underachieving, choking-dog teams will end that insipid drought. Ready for this stat? Atlanta’s major league teams, where we sit right now, are 1-for-167 in winning championships. Read that again. One-for-167. Says Schultz’s Journal-Constitution column partner, Mark Bradley: “Cleveland just came within a run of doubling our total-for-forever in the span of five months. “I say again: Cleveland!” Now, Atlanta is a football town. In fact, there are those who would argue that 1-for-167 is misleading since the Georgia Bulldogs won the old mythical national championship in 1980 and Georgia Tech won the UPI half of the 1990 title (although it probably should be asked: is 2 1/2- for-269 going back to 1966 really that much better?).
But the Falcons are a big, big deal, because football in Georgia is a big, big deal. They were here once before, of course, and that January 1999 appearance forever will be remembered for Eugene Robinson’s ill-timed walk on the wild side the night before John Elway’s final game, and the Broncos slamming the Falcons.
It has not escaped the attention of Boston’s fans or media, of course, that Atlanta is having the kind of miserable stretch that used to befall and befuddle the baseball portion of New England once upon a time. There have been barbs lobbed back and forth, but it seems Atlanta isn’t much engaged in that fight.
After all: Who better knows what the numbers 1-for-167 mean?
Writes Bradley: “If anything, I’d think New Englanders would have a sense of kinship with Atlantans. The Sox — the team that traded Babe Ruth for cash — went from 1919 until 2004 between World Series titles. They had Bucky Frickin’ Dent. We had that rat Jim Leyritz. We both hate the Yankees.
“Isn’t the enemy of my enemy my friend?”