In 1995, a ten year old Rob Brown sat in a booth of The Shalimar Diner, a 1950's themed burger joint in Shalimar, Florida, with a ten inch TV set into the wall by every table. It wasn't often that I got to stay up late to watch a baseball game, but then again, it wasn't very often that my baseball team was playing to win a World Series, either. My old man had taken me out for a burger and a milkshake, because there was nothing better to celebrate - or perhaps forget - a moment like this than that silver tin cup filled with goodness.
A young Rob sat adorned in a Braves hat a few sizes too big, and a t-shirt gifted to him by Ashley Powell at his birthday party a few months before. Tom Glavine, my favorite Braves player, took to the hill, 27 outs away from winning the first professional sports championship of my young life.
A few hours later, that milkshake turned into one of celebration as a 1-0 scoreline earned the Braves the title of World Champions.
After the game, pops handed me one of those memories that stays with you, inexplicably, for the rest of your life.
"Look around. Remember this moment. Because winning isn't easy, and winning championships doesn't happen often. It might never happen again, so don't ever forget what this feels like."
Fortunately, pops was just slightly off. The Braves would win another World Series. It would happen 26 years later, and his son wouldn't be a starry eyed 10 year old, but a 36 year old sports talk radio show host; one that had come to believe he had seen his last World Series Championship.
Those 26 years of waiting weren't kind to fans of the Bravos. The disappointments seemed to stack one on top of another, year after year. September first-to-worst meltdowns happened. Cy Young Award Winners would turn ice cold in the playoffs. Infield fly rule decisions (which still don't make sense) would cost Atlanta pivotal games. Multiple 3-1 series leads would melt away, leading to disappointment after disappointment after disappointment.
I never forgot what that night, at the Shalimar Diner felt like, because after every disappointment, I'd remember what dad told me: these things are hard, and they don't happen often.
Sunday before last, the Braves held a 3-1 World Series lead, but in game five in Atlanta, the Astros bats got hot. Houston took game five, and edged one game closer. Back to Houston.
The moment we had waited for, the moment we had been trained to expect, arrived. The Braves lost their ace Charlie Morton, who would've likely been worth another win, in game one. Their bats went silent in game five. Their second best bet on the hill, Max Fried, got his ankle stepped on and was being attended to by trainers. It felt like the wind was out of the proverbial sails for the Braves, and it was only a matter of time until the collapse happened.
Again.
I didn't know if that night's bourbon was going to be one of celebration, or one I would use to forget. There was no way the Braves would beat a white-hot Astros team, in Houston, with their third best pitcher, in an elimination game seven. It was do or die.
The trainers left the hill. Fried stayed in the game. And for six innings, he was magnificent.
Then Jorge Soler crushed a baseball that may still be locked in a low earth orbit. Freddie Freeman, a veteran of a dozen campaigns and perhaps the most beloved member of the team since Chipper Jones, added a solo shot of his own.
"And the Atlanta Braves are World Champions!" screamed Joe Buck, as Dansby Swanson hit Freeman in the mitt at first to record the final out of the World Series.
The celebration was on.
In 1995, a ten year old Rob Brown celebrated with the biggest chocolate milkshake in the sunshine state.
In 2021, 36 year old Rob Brown celebrated with the biggest bottle of bourbon in his liquor cabinet.
It was all worth it. Two and a half decades of heartbreak. Two and a half decades of letdowns. Two and a half decades of great pitchers falling apart in big spots, great hitters going ice-cold under pressure, of umpires making inexplicable calls to put the Bravos in the hole.
Two and a half decades of memories, of trips to Fulton County Stadium and Turner Field, of stories from grandpa and catch with dad and trading baseball cards of our favorite Braves during English class.
And I wouldn't change any of it.
I'm not a crier. Nothing short of the demise of Ol' Yeller gets the onions cut or the dust kicked up in the room.
But there I sat, a week ago tonight, on the couch, by myself, bourbon in one hand, the other raised up and wiping away the lightest layer of tears. And still, a week later, I don't feel ashamed about it.
This team was a huge part of growing up for me, and for millions of south-easterners in my demographic. There were days racing home from the school bus, because the first brother in the house got to put their game on - and little brother, being a Cubs fan, wasn't just going to let me watch David Justice. On the rare occasion I didn't win the race, it was across the street to Grandpa's house to watch with him while he told stories of watching Hank Aaron and Dale Murphy, and explaining why today's players would "never" be as good as the heroes of his day.
Saturday mornings, the local little league fields were the home of armies of Fred McGriff's and Javy Lopez's and Ryan Klesko's taking BP against the tiniest of Tom Glavine's and Greg Maddux's and John Smoltz's. Every year, one team would get to be the Braves and wear the red and blue, and every other team set their sites on taking those wannabes down.
This franchise was, and is, embedded into the DNA of kids my age from Florida to Tennessee, from South Carolina to Mississippi. It's part of your blood. You were a Braves fan, or you were the weird kid who didn't get picked to play catch with the rest of us. It was mean, it was bullying, and it was what you got for not loving the correct team in our part of the country.
Sports are our escape from life. They're something to talk about when you don't want to talk anymore about the things you have to talk about. And, as ironic as that statement may make the next one, they are the source of so much strife. Nothing in life do we so joyfully invest not just our money but our time and our energy and our emotion in like we do sports, with such a small return on investment. Only one team can be crowned each year, and way more often than not, it won't be yours.
But as Bob Brown Jr. said to his namesake at the Shalimar Diner a decade and a half ago: winning championships isn't easy. It doesn't happen often. Some people will go their entire life and never get to see their team lift a trophy, will never get to stand on the side of the road at a championship parade, will never get to buy a hoodie to tell the world that their team is better than yours.
So, Braves fans - drink this in. Remember it. Don't ever forget the feeling of that night a week ago. Don't let the memory of the feeling of watching that dogpile happen, seeing the commercials for championship hats, and listening as Snitker told the locker room "you'll be World Champions for the rest of your life" slip from your memory.
Because winning championships is hard, and it's rare.
And if it's another 26 years before The Team of the South does it again ... I'm sure that will be worth the wait to remember this moment as well.
