This article was written by Jason Foster and published on Sport & State, a new media company founded by Clay Travis that is built around sports, culture, original voices, and live conversation.
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I didn’t think it would ever happen. I didn’t even think it could happen. I hoped, I literally dreamed, but it just didn’t seem possible. There was no way the Braves would ever be good.
For the entirety of my baseball fandom, this team, my favorite team, was just terrible. The ’80s ended badly, and the next decade appeared ready to carry that lame torch after another last-place finish in 1990. Why would this new year be different? It wasn’t that I was pessimistic — I just had no reason to believe otherwise.
I should mention that I was 15, which means I had been a Braves fan for a total of four years, having discovered them in 1987. As an adult, four years is nothing. Hardly a blip. But as a young teen, it felt like it encompassed the majority of my life.
So, from 1987 to 1990, a young person’s eternity, the Braves let me down a lot. The worst of it came in 1988, when I was 12 and they lost 106 games. This was especially disappointing because I had a dream the night before Opening Day that they won that year’s World Series. I cried more than once that summer.
I did a lot research on the 1988 Braves tonight for a now-nonexistant column. It shouldn’t go to waste, so I’ll share a few sad facts. …
— Jason Foster (@ByJasonFoster) April 16, 2016
Not even Dale Murphy, a two-time MVP and my favorite player, could make much of a difference on those late ’80s teams. And when the Braves traded him to the Phillies in August 1990, I wondered whether the team would even be worth watching without him.
Little did I know.
There are certain things in baseball that almost everyone agrees will never be matched: Cal Ripken Jr.‘s consecutive games streak, Joe DiMaggio‘s 56-game hitting streak, Ted Williams‘ .406 season, Nolan Ryan‘s seven career no-hitters, etc.
I’ve got another one: the 1991 Atlanta Braves. Some might consider this a dubious claim, but I consider it beyond dispute.
Even though they broke no big records, lost the World Series and aren’t counted among the greatest teams of all time, there will never be another MLB team like them. And I know there are many others around the country who agree. Because if you were there, you know. Even now, 35 years later, the evidence — emotional and statistical — is overwhelming.
This was a team whose thrilling accomplishments on the field — a worst-to-first season, an NL pennant and runner-up in perhaps the greatest World Series of all time — were matched only by the unity they created off it. Their success that season was so unexpected, yet so enthralling, that it became a notable social phenomenon, a glorious and unique collision of timing and circumstance that will never happen again.
The season was so far out of the ordinary that many referred to the Braves’ success as a “miracle.” I’m not sure whether divine influence played into their success that season, but I do have a funny story about it that I’ll get to.
In any case, whatever word you want to use to describe it, that summer and fall in Atlanta created a real anything is possible moment for millions of people. It was a season that was felt, not just in Atlanta but around the country.
In fact, one could argue that the ’91 Braves were the closest thing the United States has ever had to a truly national baseball team. Outlandish? Maybe, but it sure felt like observable reality at the time.
Of course, context is important.
‘America’s Team‘
The Braves in those days were beamed to around 55 million homes around the country because they were broadcast on owner Ted Turner‘s WTBS superstation. It’s what led Turner to dub them “America’s Team” in the late 1970s, even though the team was mostly terrible. Turner and TBS leaned into the label during the ’80s, even as the team continued to lose a lot more than it won.
But as the ’90s dawned, even through all that losing, which included four last-place finishes from 1986-1990, the Braves had developed an incredibly strong and loyal following. The reason was simple: In the years before MLB.TV and MLB Network, and before ESPN aired several games a week, the Braves were the only nightly baseball option for millions of people. The Cubs aired on WGN, another superstation, but not as many cable systems carried it, making its national reach far less than that of TBS.
So, for legions of baseball fans, apart from NBC‘s “Game of the Week” on Saturday or ABC’s “Monday Night Baseball,” it was the Braves or nothing for about 15 years. Not only that, but the Braves’ ubiquity made them a convenient secondary interest for many people who were fans of other teams. This meant that Braves fans of all stripes were easy to find. From Georgia and the rest of the Southeast to Texas, Wyoming, Washington state, California and beyond, their appeal was vast — even though the team kept losing.
Their popularity almost didn’t make sense. But give a lot of credit to the banter of announcing mainstays Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren, Ernie Johnson and, eventually, Don Sutton, who made the broadcast feel like a gathering of friends — part entertainment source, part learning experience, part comfort. It was almost like watching a baseball game broadcast exclusively for you. There was an intimacy to it all, a sense of shared experience that came from watching years of bad baseball.
It was definitely a parasocial relationship, but the point is that it created a lasting connection with millions around the country. It’s a little hard to explain if you weren’t there. But if you know, you know.
Which brings us back to 1991, when TBS’ already-solid ratings for Braves games began to soar as the team — behind eventual NL MVP Terry Pendleton, eventual NL Cy Young winner Tom Glavine, and the nightly heroics of David Justice, Ron Gant and others — made it clear that something special was underway. As the Braves engineered winning streaks, big comebacks and walk-offs, the network saw its ratings more than double in September compared to the previous year.
Around 1.5 million households, on average, tuned in for each Braves game on TBS that month. That’s an insane number, especially by today’s standards. For comparison, ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” averaged 1.8 million viewers in 2025.
Everyone, it seemed, was a Braves fan. There was a vibe as palpable as the cool autumn air, especially around the Southeast.
The tangible evidence went beyond a proliferation of Braves hats and T-shirts at school or around town. It was the PA announcer at a high school football game giving Braves score updates over the loudspeaker on Friday nights. It was the percussion section of the marching band leading an impromptu rendition of the Tomahawk Chop — and the crowd gleefully joining in. It was pastors using the Braves as a sermon illustration.
The vibe traveled well. Even “Saturday Night Live” eventually got involved.
That “SNL” episode aired during the World Series vs. the Twins, a series that averaged nearly 36 million viewers in the United States. That’s an unheard of number today, when the World Series usually averages fewer than 16 million viewers.
Obviously, media consumption has changed a lot over the past 35 years, and baseball’s place in the overall entertainment landscape has lessened, but that big number certainly speaks to the nation’s investment in the outcome in 1991. And no disrespect to the Twins and their fans, but the investment was driven primarily by a specific, nationwide interest in the Braves. America’s Team, indeed.
Living on a prayer
But weeks before that, as the Braves inched closer to their first division title in nearly a decade, the idea of a World Series in Atlanta — or, more importantly, a World Series win — became the most important thing in the world for me. My young teenage mind couldn’t imagine a greater sense of joy. Nor could it imagine anything more crushing than if they somehow lost or, worse, ended up not making it at all.
That was my mindset on Oct. 1, 1991, the first time I remember lifting an earnest prayer for the Braves to win. I mentioned earlier that I had a funny story about divine intervention. This is it.
The Braves entered that day a game out of first place with five to play. They were playing the Reds in Cincinnati, and things went downhill immediately. After one inning, the Braves were down 6-0. My hope plummeted. A 6-0 lead in those days was like a 14-0 lead today. It just felt impossible. I was sure this would be the game that ended the party.
But the Braves chipped away at that lead, causing my hope to flicker, and went into the ninth inning down 6-5. Reds closer Rob Dibble came on for the save. He was a big deal. He threw 100 mph when that was novel. I was really worried. So I turned off my 13-inch black-and-white TV, an already out-dated device I superstitiously believed held some key to the Braves’ success, and prayed.
This wasn’t a brief, typical sports-fan prayer. It wasn’t a “Dear God, please let them win” prayer that’s said or thought thousands of times by thousands of fans in just about every big game. It was a close-your-eyes, take-a-deep-breath-and-really-lay-it-out kind of prayer. Again, I was 15. There was nothing I wanted more than for the Braves to reach the postseason. To come so close and fall short would be devastating, or so my youthful brain thought. So I said the prayer, then turned the TV back on for the start of the ninth inning.
Mark Lemke led off with a single. Deion Sanders pinch ran and stole second. Pendleton flew out. Up came Justice. On Dibble’s first pitch, Justice crushed a fastball over the right-field wall for a two-run homer. The Braves led 7-6. I couldn’t believe it.
A few minutes later, the Reds went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth and the Braves escaped. The win kept them one game behind the Dodgers in the NL West. Over the next few days, the tide turned and the Braves finally overtook LA to win the division on the second-to-last day of the season.
Did my prayer actually make a difference against the Reds? I don’t know. I don’t claim to know how God handles such heartfelt but silly requests. All I know is that I prayed for them to win, and they won. So, two weeks later, I tried again during the World Series.
As my hormonal and sleep-deprived teenage body endured a stressful and emotionally exhausting Game 7 — which had been preceded by several other stressful and emotionally exhausting games — I pleaded with God to please let the Braves finally break through against the annoying(ly good) Jack Morris and win it all. The Twins had already won the World Series in 1987. It didn’t seem fair for them to win this one.
Alas, I didn’t get the answer I wanted. The Braves lost 1-0 in the 10th inning on a bases-loaded walk-off single from Twins bench player Gene Larkin. It’s the last time I cried because of sports.
But America’s Team had put on a good show. Game 7, considered one of the best finales in baseball history, averaged more than 50 million viewers in the United States alone. No domestic World Series audience has matched that number since. For comparison, last season’s Game 7 between the Dodgers and Blue Jays averaged 51 million viewers across the U.S., Canada and Japan combined.
There’s nothing like the first
It didn’t take long for me and a lot of other Braves fans to move on and appreciate all that 1991 had been. An estimated 7,000 people showed up at the airport at 4:30 a.m. to welcome the team home from Minnesota. Heck, the city of Atlanta threw the team a parade to celebrate the incredible ride. There was no guarantee that the Braves would ever be that good again, so it was reasonable to think it might’ve been a once-in-a-lifetime happening. That uncertainty only enhanced the specialness.
Of course, 1991 was not the only time the Braves were good. They famously turned that success into 14 straight division titles, five NL pennants and the 1995 World Series championship. Not to mention another stretch of excellence that continues today. But in terms of season-long joy and nightly thrills, nothing will ever top 1991. Because there can never be another first time.
The 1991 Braves were the first team that got me excited about the future, the first team that made me nervous, the first team that made me truly care about the World Series, the first team that made me seek divine intervention on its behalf, the first team that broke my heart. It was kinda like a first love in that way, and it’s impossible to duplicate your first.
Even for fans who experienced the Braves’ division title in 1982, or even the first one in 1969, the 1991 campaign ascended to an echelon which no other season has ever reached. Not even 1995 or 2021. The ingredients were just different.
For one out-of-nowhere season during one unique point in history, the Braves brought the masses together over a baseball miracle.
That’s why, for me and millions of others, even 35 years later, there’s 1991 and then everything else.
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