Meet the Braves B uilding a winning baseball team takes a lot of time and andd money Few clubs have done it better than the Atlanta a Braves Year in and year out they put good players on the field Some are stars and some are not When they play together as a team however the result is usually a victory The Braves have built their winning tradition over the course of many decades In fact they have been playing baseball longer than any other team During this time fans in r the Northeast Midwest and South have called the Braves their own The club has been the champion of baseball at each stop This book tells the story of the Braves They are an easy team to root for because they play the game well and have fun doing it Atlanta’s players may be grownups but there is still a lot of kid in all of them Tim Hudson shares a laugh with catcher Brian McCann on the pitcher’s mound during a 2011 game 5
Glory Days T he Braves have called three cities home The team started in Boston Massachusetts as the Red Stockings in 1871 in the earliest days of professional baseball More than 50 years would pass before fans started calling them the Braves In 1876 Boston was one of eight cities that formed the National League NL The team changed its name to Red Caps that season The Red Caps had many of the best players in baseball including Deacon White Jim O’Rourke and Tommy Bond The team’s manager was Harry Wright His brother George played shortstop for the Red Caps In the 1880s the club became the Beaneaters A new group of stars led this team including Hugh Duffy Tommy McCarthy Bobby Lowe Mike King Kelly John Clarkson and Kid Nichols Each is now in the Hall of Fame In all Boston won the NL pennant eight times during the 1800s 6
LEFT John Clarkson won 149 games in five seasons for Boston RIGHT This card of David Shean from 1911 shows the team name as Rustlers By the early 1900s the team’s stars had all retired Boston struggled to win without them and went many years without a competitive club The Beaneaters tried everything to reverse their fortunes They even changed their name three times first to the Nationals then to the Doves and finally to the Rustlers Nothing worked In 1912 the team changed its name again this time to the Braves Two years later Boston found itself in last place in the middle of July Then something wonderful happened The Braves got hot and rose in the standings They were baseball’s best team by the end of the season and won their first World Series The Braves went 34 years before they reached the World Series again In 1948 Boston faced the Cleveland Indians but lost in six games 7
