Short spring didn’t hurt reliever McMichael

It’s been 20 years since the Braves won the World Series, a season that started with the players on strike.

Replacement players went to spring training but never played a real game, and the Braves took the division lead for good on July 4 and won nine of their first 10 postseason games before taking the Series title in six games against the Cleveland Indians.

Reliever Greg McMichael, now 48 and the club’s liaison to Braves alumni, was in his third season in the Braves’ bullpen that year. For McMichael and the Braves, it was a short spring.

Replacement players spent six weeks at spring training before the strike ended, and the regulars went back for three weeks. Were you able to get your arm ready?

I was probably glad I didn’t have to spend six weeks in camp. It was probably a bigger deal for the hitters and the starting pitchers. Spring training was always easy for me. I had to get one or two pitches ready. In fact, during the strike was the first time I began teaching high school pitchers. So I wasn’t sitting around.

The team bounced back from a tough ’94. The record was 6846 and six games behind Montreal when the strike hit.

I thought the best team we had was ’93 and that was a big letdown, and then in ’94 we just couldn’t get things on track. But what happened was the strike blurred all the negativity out and we were all kind of starting fresh. The strike was kind of a reset button for us.

The team finished the regular season 90- 54, 21 games ahead of the Mets and Phillies.

We didn’t have any hiccups. The bullpen shaped up after a couple of months, and Mark (Wohlers) took over the closer’s role.

You came over from the Cleveland organization and had gone through the minors with such talented players as Albert Belle. Their offensive lineup was awfully good.

It was, but a lot of those players were at the beginning of their career. They were very young. Now if you look at it from a historic perspective, it was a great, great line- up. But we always felt our starting pitchers could handle them.

You mentioned that World Series wiped you out.

You have to remember, this was the first for me; most of the other players had been in the Series. There was a lot of stress and anxiety. It was pretty darn exciting, but I didn’t understand how fulfilling it was until years later.

Do you still wear your World Series ring?

For special events I put it on. It’s definitely something the fans want to see.