Avenging Southworth

If the Braves are 21 games over .500 at any point this year, the franchise will have achieved a milestone: it will have a .500 record over the course of history, the first time it would be true since June 3, 1923, with the 17-25 Braves charting their usual course in doom. This would be a stunning turnaround for a franchise that hasn't seen much glory outside our lifetimes.

From 1876, the Boston Red Stockings (later the Beaneaters, but tragically not the Gashavers) were one of the best organizations in baseball. Led by Harry Wright, the guy behind the Cincinnati Red Stockings (a theme, perhaps?) and professional baseball in general, they started off pretty well, tailed off, and roared back in the '80s and '90s, winning as much as the famed Hanlon/McGraw/Jennings law offices/Baltimore Orioles but not as loudly. Coming into the 20th century the franchise had a winning percentage of .585 - not shabby at all.

Then they stopped winning. The American League shook a lot of things up, but the American League entry in Boston (then the Pilgrims - the Sox wouldn't become the Sox until the NL club went under new ownership and ditched red to be the Doves after team owner John Dovey; the AL club took up the red immediately and never gave it back) didn't take a lot from their city rivals. What was more likely the problem was that Hall of Famer Frank Selee took his amazing scouting and managerial talent out of Boston and into Chicago, where he molded the Orphans/Cubs into winners and handed them over to Frank Chance for assembly-line pennant-winning. The Beaneaters won 102 in 1898 and lost 102 in 1906. Two of the merged teams of the era, the Giants who had inherited from the Orioles, and the Pirates pretty much buying the old Louisville team, combined with the Cubs to win every pennant in the NL from 1901 to 1913. It was a bad time to be a not-them fan.

When the Federal League came along and shook things up just like the American League had, things changed particularly in the NL, and so we get the Miracle Braves. Going into 1914, the franchise winning percentage was .506, a far cry from the .585 at the start of the century but still respectable. Three years of contention staved off the loser label, but the Braves couldn't keep up the winning and sank back into the muck.

On June 3, 1923, the Braves stood 3084-3084 as a franchise. They haven't seen .500 since.

It's hard to understand from our perspective, but the histories of the Braves and Phillies looked remarkably similar up until the '90s. From 1920 to 1950, the Braves finished next-to-last or last 14 times, the Phillies 22 times. Both changed their names in the FDR administration and changed them back in the mid-'40s. (Braves became Bees, Phillies became Blue Jays. No, really.) Both had their seasons of glory bunched with each other's for awhile - until Milwaukee, the Braves only showed up in the World Series in 1914 and 1948; the Phils were in 1915 and 1950. By 1990, the stats read:

Braves: 6 years in the playoffs, 4 World Series, 2 World Championships
Phillies: 8 years in the playoffs, 4 World Series, 1 World Championship

The Braves having won a lot in Milwaukee took a lot of Phillies-type phutility off the team image, but in terms of ultimate results the Braves hadn't done much better than the Phillies.

Until 1991.

Say what you will about only getting 1 Series ring from the Cox era, but more than anything the Braves were redefined as a team in history by winning with ridiculous consistency in the '90s. They could have continued to be in the Cubs/Phillies mold of losers (Cubs lovable, Phillies not so much) like they had been for most of their history, but two decades of winning can change a lot.

If the Braves can get to .500 for the first time in 85 years, that would just put a ! on it. Billy Southworth was an outfielder on that 1923 team and their best hitter; he would later guide the Braves to their 1948 pennant. A 92-70 record this year would say to history that brave Southworth shall not have been mortally wounded in vain.