Books: When the Braves Ruled the Diamond

When The Braves Ruled The Diamond

Baseball season is hard upon us and it looks as though the local NYC teams will be making a serious push as contenders for another Subway Series. The Mets were the hot team last year while the Yankees fell short.

Team rivalries have been a big topic-While little can compare to the animus between Yankee fans and the Boston Red Sox, the Mets have their own hostilities with the Atlanta Braves. While not even close to the record the Yankees have amassed over the years, the Braves have done themselves proud with some 14 titles.

This year also marks a major anniversary in baseball: 25 years since the Atlanta Braves started a streak of 14 consecutive first-place finishes: a combo of division titles and such, including one World Series championship — a record for any professional sport.

To mark the occasion, veteran baseball writer Dan Schlossberg has written When the Braves Ruled the Diamond: Fourteen Flags Over Atlanta. The 292-page hardcover, which features a foreword by Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox, is the first book to document every detail of the celebrated streak.
From 1991 through 2005, the Braves parlayed powerful pitching with potent hitting that produced under pressure. Cox won with veteran teams, young teams, slugging teams, and several times with teams that emphasized speed and defense. His clubs captured 100 wins in six different seasons.

In When the Braves Ruled the Diamond, Schlossberg covers the record-breaking era that transformed Atlanta from the Bad-News Braves to America's Team.

Readers will discover the strange fact that career home run king Hank Aaron does not hold the single-season club records for either home runs (Andruw Jones) or runs batted in (Gary Sheffield). They will find that the 1993 Braves failed to reach the World Series because they lost the National League Championship Series to a team (Philadelphia Phillies) they outscored 33-23. And they will learn that Atlanta pitching held the powerful Pittsburgh Pirates in the last 22 innings of the 1991 NL playoffs.

The author, a New York native who somehow became a lifelong Braves fan, has also written 36 other books. The book is available from www.amazon.com or major booksellers.