Braves or Red Sox?

Braves or Red Sox

  • Braves

    Votes: 8 8.6%
  • Red Sox

    Votes: 85 91.4%

  • Total voters
    93

8slim

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My grandfather grew up in Roxbury and cleaned the stands at Braves Field after games as a part time job when he was a kid. He passed away in '98 and used to joke that the wrong baseball team moved out of Boston.

It's funny though, all of my (much) older family who remember there being two teams all rooted for the Sox.
 

Rasputin

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Easy question to answer if you’re under 50 (like me) and would’ve missed Aaron and Spahn. Might be a close call if the ‘90s Braves had enjoyed even average postseason luck.
What if you got regular season results and could pretend the postseasons hadn't happened yet? The Braves run of division titles would be remarkably compelling and we'd have the chance to play the Yankees in the World Series a lot. It would be great theater.
 

Al Zarilla

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It's not exactly a fair comparison. The NHL was 30-40 years old at that time and well established. The NBA was only 10-20 years old and having a hard time in many markets. Just to pick one year as an example, in 1962 the NBA averaged about 5,000 people a game league wide. The Celtics were in the top tier with the Knicks and Lakers, who all drew close to 9,000 people a game. So they were well supported for an NBA team of the time. It was just a young league with less interest in general. The Celtics of the 80's were a much bigger deal, but so was the NBA in the 80's everywhere. That was when popularity soared. League wide attendance went from about 10k people a game in the 70's to ~15k in the late 80's. Games were on national TV, and they were live instead of tape delay. It's disingenuous to blame attendance in the two periods on race. Now if you want to make the argument that Larry Bird being white, and Magic Johnson being black created a racial element that allowed the game to be marketed to both demographics simultaneously, while also setting up a rivalry that re-enforced racial division, we can have that discussion and it could be interesting.

Also, at the time the Bruins were way outdrawing the Celtics, to keep 1962 as an example (smack in the middle of the Russell run), the Bruins were last in the NHL in attendance, with only ~11k per game, well shy of the 14k per game the top teams in the NHL were drawing. The Orr era didn't start until the Russell era was almost over. Even in 1970 when they won the cup, the team was in the middle of the league in attendance, and that was only because new expansion teams had been added. And the limited size of the old Boston Garden didn't help. So they were lesser draws in a more popular sport while the Celtics were one of the best draws in a less popular one. It's not a fair comparison either.
The first 7 years of the Russell led Celtics didn’t even outdraw the Knicks, who were mostly terrible in that period. Come on, I knew people in Boston who were fans of all the local teams but stayed away from Celtics games because they were bigoted. As soon as a Cowens led, and then a Bird led team arrived, boom, right to the top in attendance.

I will stop with the race stuff now.
 

Margo McCready

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Dec 23, 2008
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My father was a die-hard Braves fan since they were in Boston and remains one to this day. He's always been bitter toward the Red Sox since it was his beloved Braves that left town. He would never pass up an opportunity to trash the Red Sox to my brothers and me. This only cemented our undying love for the Sox. We desperately rooted for Nick Esasky in the Summer of 1989 after dad declared, "The Red Sox play in that silly little bandbox and they don't even have a guy who can hit 30 home runs." We were big Danny Heep fans that year, too.

It was a fun change of pace to root for the Braves with my dad in the first couple of years of their division title run. But soon enough, the novelty wore off and I was back to one team.

I'd love to see the Braves to win another championship for him. But even more than that, I'd love the Sox to beat the Braves in a World Series. 12-year-old me has been wishing for this since 1989.
 

section15

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What killed the Braves in Milwaukee? Inept marketing. You mention the Celtics.

Marketing the NBA to Boston was a tough task -- in the 1960s, Red Auerbach came up with creative ways to promote the Celtics - particularly offering discount tickets through hamburger joints (Howdy Beefburger) and also inviting high school teams to play before the Celtics games. There were also promos with NBA doubleheaders - yeah, you could see TWO NBA games - almost half the league - for two bucks. And the Globetrotters, and a Globie-type act called the Fabulous Magicians also would play before Celtics games.

Then UHF television came along - and many away games were broadcast on those stations - again, promotion. This is what killed the Braves in Milwaukee - as I said above, Lou Perini would not allow ANY television of any Braves games for too long of a period, and after the craze of a new, contending team wore off, he found out that he had lost the next generation of Milwaukee baseball fans.

To be fair, in the 1950s, sports team owners didn't know whether to embrace television, or fear it. Early NFL telecasts - particularly experiments with the Los Angeles Rams and home game telecasts in the early 1950s were blamed for laggard attendance thus the NFL "no home game" blackout policy went into effect. It carried over into other sports, including the NBA, NHL, and MLB (not as stringent). Any time a new technology comes along -- some people fear it, some look at it cautiously, some embrace it.

Example = fifteen years ago, radio people I knew scoffed at online streaming, probably out of fear. Now, many are "independent consultants" (read = "no job") and the entire radio business is teetering. but....back to TV...

It wasn't until the mid-1960s that they finally understood how they could use TV to their advantage. Thank Vince McMahon, Sr., and his wrestling show promotions, to teach them. His then "World Wide Wrestling Federation" was a regional operation, he syndicated his product and it got people to come out and pay to see it. All sports finally figured out - if you televise at least PART of your schedule, people might want to come out and buy tickets to see your product.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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My father was a die-hard Braves fan since they were in Boston and remains one to this day. He's always been bitter toward the Red Sox since it was his beloved Braves that left town. He would never pass up an opportunity to trash the Red Sox to my brothers and me. This only cemented our undying love for the Sox. We desperately rooted for Nick Esasky in the Summer of 1989 after dad declared, "The Red Sox play in that silly little bandbox and they don't even have a guy who can hit 30 home runs." We were big Danny Heep fans that year, too.

It was a fun change of pace to root for the Braves with my dad in the first couple of years of their division title run. But soon enough, the novelty wore off and I was back to one team.

I'd love to see the Braves to win another championship for him. But even more than that, I'd love the Sox to beat the Braves in a World Series. 12-year-old me has been wishing for this since 1989.
Old Braves fans are a stubborn lot.

When I worked as a reporter in Revere during the late 90s, I would go to the corner store every day to pick up the papers and grab some breakfast. Every day I'd see the same handful of older guys hanging around, solving the world's problems. Eventually I started talking to them and after discussing city politics, we'd talk baseball. Two or three of the guys were Boston Braves fans and like your Dad, hated the Red Sox. They said it was harder to keep track of the team once they moved to Milwaukee and the first few years in Atlanta, but once they were on TBS, they were back to watching them play every day and they loved it. They'd often schedule their day around that night's game.

One day I asked them, "The Braves left almost 50 years ago. Why didn't you just follow the Red Sox?"

One of the guys answered, "Because the Red Sox aren't my team. The Braves are my team. I'll always follow them."

And that stuck with me. Here are a couple of guys who had their teams ripped from them during the worst part of their lives, their childhood when you are at your most sports crazy, and they just stuck with them. It didn't matter that their team moved a few thousand miles away and then moved again and reached heights that they never experienced in their hometown. The Braves were their team and they were loyal.

The last few years I started working with the Boston Braves Historical Association and it's made up of a number of guys like the ones I met in Revere. Guys who recall seeing the Braves play at the Wigwam and remember the pain of losing their team. But they're keeping that Braves memory alive. If you, or someone you know, is interested in joining the BBHA, send me a PM. I can let you know how to do it*.

* BTW, this post was not an elaborate ploy to get people to join the BBHA.
 

Flunky

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One day I asked them, "The Braves left almost 50 years ago. Why didn't you just follow the Red Sox?"

One of the guys answered, "Because the Red Sox aren't my team. The Braves are my team. I'll always follow them."
I know it's not baseball, but I don't root for the Carolina Hurricanes. It's dumb to stick with a team that abandoned you (for whatever reasons).
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I know it's not baseball, but I don't root for the Carolina Hurricanes. It's dumb to stick with a team that abandoned you (for whatever reasons).
I don't think it's "dumb" at all. Glenn Wesley and the other Whalers/Hurricanes never did anything to you, it was Peter Karmanos. You can still root for the players and the team, without necessarily liking the owner.

Despite being best pals with Donald Trump, I still like Bob Kraft's football team.
 

Flunky

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I don't think it's "dumb" at all. Glenn Wesley and the other Whalers/Hurricanes never did anything to you, it was Peter Karmanos. You can still root for the players and the team, without necessarily liking the owner.

Despite being best pals with Donald Trump, I still like Bob Kraft's football team.
All I'm saying is, you're better off not pining for the girl that dumped you. I am happy for Wesley that he got a cup win like I'm happy my ex is happily married with kids and all that. I moved on, it's the right choice.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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All I'm saying is, you're better off not pining for the girl that dumped you. I am happy for Wesley that he got a cup win like I'm happy my ex is happily married with kids and all that. I moved on, it's the right choice.
Thank you for the final word and the kewl metaphor, Bill Simmons.
 

Flunky

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Who pissed in your cornflakes? WTF kind of Doping is that? Keep up the good work.
 

lexrageorge

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The first 7 years of the Russell led Celtics didn’t even outdraw the Knicks, who were mostly terrible in that period. Come on, I knew people in Boston who were fans of all the local teams but stayed away from Celtics games because they were bigoted. As soon as a Cowens led, and then a Bird led team arrived, boom, right to the top in attendance.

I will stop with the race stuff now.
Bill Russell's presence on the team had nothing to do with the empty seats at the Garden. NBA was still in its infancy. And the Cowens/Bird references are just lazy.
 

lexrageorge

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I always wonder why fans in one city with two teams pick one and hate the other. I always thought if there was any team repping Boston, I’d root for them or check out their games. I went to BU, but if BC was playing Minnesota in hockey, I’d still root local.
The Braves were long gone by the time I was born, but my dad followed both teams. He was a Braves fan first, but did follow the Sox during the Ted Williams years, and then became a life long Sox fan in the 1967 season.

I've always thought it would be cool to have both an AL and NL team in Boston, especially back in the days before interleague play. I know I certainly would have cheered for both, picking one only when they played each other. Of course, there is no way Boston could have sustained two teams in the modern era; for years, both the White Sox and Cubs were considered "mid tier" teams when it came to revenues, and Chicago is much larger than Boston.
 

section15

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Bill Russell's presence on the team had nothing to do with the empty seats at the Garden. NBA was still in its infancy. And the Cowens/Bird references are just lazy.
As I said = marketing. I'm a baby boomer - and I became a Celtics fan in the mid-60s, when I was marketed to, and saved my pennies to buy tickets to games, and I was old enough to take the bus or train from Lawrence to Boston (and then got my license).

My father was not that much of a basketball fan. Baseball, yes. Braves and Red Sox? Yes. But Celtics? Not that big of a deal for him.

And by the time Dave Cowens was on the team - I could buy my own season tickets - as did others in my age group and income bracket. It had nothing to do with the color of Bill Russell's skin, but more to do with the fan base finally wanting Celtics tickets and being able to afford the money and the time to attend games. And the Boomer generation came of age around the time Cowens made his debut.
 

JimD

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I know it's not baseball, but I don't root for the Carolina Hurricanes. It's dumb to stick with a team that abandoned you (for whatever reasons).
I have a few friends who were diehard Whalers fans - I can't say they have the same devotion to the Hurricanes but they were happy for their success and still follow the team.
 

nighthob

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The first 7 years of the Russell led Celtics didn’t even outdraw the Knicks, who were mostly terrible in that period. Come on, I knew people in Boston who were fans of all the local teams but stayed away from Celtics games because they were bigoted. As soon as a Cowens led, and then a Bird led team arrived, boom, right to the top in attendance.
The Knicks also played in a market several times the size of Boston's in a larger venue. You would expect them to have outdrawn the Celtics every year, rather than only occasionally. So saying "Racism!" still doesn't really get anywhere.

The Celtics attendance didn't go "boom, right to the top" with Cowens' arrival. They were generally at/near the top of the league in attendance throughout the title era. It's just that the NBA wasn't a very big draw overall in its youth.

If you want to use absolute numbers, the Celtics' average attendance didn't regularly pass 10k/game until Cowens' third season, but that was an overall league trend as the Celtics were still a top three draw in the league (If I recall correctly it did pass 10k/game 2-3 times during the Russell era, the overall range was 8k-10k per game).

Now if you want to argue that wide acceptance of the NBA was due to racism, that's a different conversation. But comparing the Bruins' and Celtics' attendance numbers isn't an apples to apples comparison as Boston had a long NHL history (including all time greats and titles) in the 60s and the Celtics were still establishing themselves.

The general canard is that it takes a generation for teams to take root in a region (and I'm saying canard as the arguments for this are more logical than statistical) and the Celtics' took root in the region during the title era. It was the children of the 50s and 60s that grew up Celtics fans and transmitted that fandom to their kids that created the waiting list for season tickets.

As a comparison have a look at how long it took for the Patriots to take root in this region. I'd argue that it wasn't until the Parcells era that the Patriots really took root in the Boston. They could draw fans in the years that they were good, but back in the blackout era Pats' games got blacked out at least once a year because they couldn't sell out their venue. They had a much longer run in the middle and lower reaches of attendance than the Celtics ever did. Heck, during one of the Pats' crap runs attendance was so bad that they were within a hairs' breadth of becoming the St. Louis Patriots.

As an anecdotal I'll offer this, I'm a Patriots and Packers fan because my father grew up in this region after the Redskins left and he adopted the Packers as his team (he went to school with a Packers' player) and I inherited that fandom from him.
 

Al Zarilla

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I knew people that told me they eschewed the Celtics because they refused to cheer for, or go to see black men play. My father in law and brother in law were two, among others. Obviously the people I heard that from were a very small sample size, and my respect dropped for these people, but that sort of thing was also there there in a much larger sample size. Sad thing was the Celtics signed the first black player in Chuck Cooper, had the first black NBA superstar and the first coach, both Russell. You guys arguing about the Boston community rejecting those Celtics to a degree might as well argue that Jackie Robinson didn't get a lot of hate.

I say agree to disagree, over and out.
 

richgedman'sghost

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Al so you are saying that because you have some racist family members, the rest of the Boston fandom was racist as well? Talk about small sample sizes. I tend to agree with nighthob's post that alot of the differences in team attendance between the Bruins and Celtics can be attributed to marketing. In 1966 during the height of the Russell era, the NBA turned 20 years old while the NHL was 48 years old. As nighthob states, it takes at least a generation for a sports team to take hold in the community. Nighthob's generation was the first one to really grow up with the Celtics. As that group grew up, so did the the Celtics popularity.
But hey nice to know you had some racist relatives. I'm sure they were a bundle of laughs at parties.. Other than them, you do not seem to have any proof to back up your cries of racism. I tend to support arguments that are backed up by reasoned and logical statements and not anecdotal evidence.
 

Kliq

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The thing is as the league progressed it only got more black; it isn’t like the 60s were peak time for black players in the NBA; far from it. Sure when Cowens came in the best player on the Celtics was white; as opposed to Russell, but Russell played with Cousy, Havlicek, Heinsohn, etc. so it wasn’t like the team lacked white players; just like how Cowens’ teams didn’t lack black players. Over time people became more accepting of watching black athletes in general; which nullified much of the racism that was preventing people from liking the NBA. There was definitely a group of prospective fans who didn’t want to watch a team with multiple black players in the 60s, but it wasn’t like once Cowens came in the team became super white.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
Al so you are saying that because you have some racist family members, the rest of the Boston fandom was racist as well? Talk about small sample sizes. I tend to agree with nighthob's post that alot of the differences in team attendance between the Bruins and Celtics can be attributed to marketing. In 1966 during the height of the Russell era, the NBA turned 20 years old while the NHL was 48 years old. As nighthob states, it takes at least a generation for a sports team to take hold in the community. Nighthob's generation was the first one to really grow up with the Celtics. As that group grew up, so did the the Celtics popularity.
But hey nice to know you had some racist relatives. I'm sure they were a bundle of laughs at parties.. Other than them, you do not seem to have any proof to back up your cries of racism. I tend to support arguments that are backed up by reasoned and logical statements and not anecdotal evidence.
Wow, defensive much?

"The rest of the Boston fandom was racist as well" is a straw man. Nobody's saying that every single Boston sports fan of the 50s through 70s was a Pixie Palladino clone. But racism has been a serious, pervasive problem in this city's culture for a long time, and sports fans of that era are unlikely to have been a magical exception. I think the burden of proof is on those who would claim they were.

Also "anecdotal evidence" is not the opposite of "reasoned and logical statements", it's the opposite of statistical evidence--which is likely to be hard to come by here, unless someone has a poll of Boston sports fans about race from a half-century ago sitting in their back pocket.
 

phenweigh

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Wow, defensive much?

"The rest of the Boston fandom was racist as well" is a straw man. Nobody's saying that every single Boston sports fan of the 50s through 70s was a Pixie Palladino clone. But racism has been a serious, pervasive problem in this city's culture for a long time, and sports fans of that era are unlikely to have been a magical exception. I think the burden of proof is on those who would claim they were.

Also "anecdotal evidence" is not the opposite of "reasoned and logical statements", it's the opposite of statistical evidence--which is likely to be hard to come by here, unless someone has a poll of Boston sports fans about race from a half-century ago sitting in their back pocket.
Racism has been a serious, pervasive problem in America's culture for a long time. I think the push-back from Al's posts are because (at least how I read it) he is regarding racism has the primary factor, and I agree with those who are challenging that assessment. Adding another anecdote, my dad was bigoted and it didn't stop him for rooting for the Russell/Cousy/Havlicek Celtics.
 

Plantiers Wart

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Red Sox all day. Until maybe today. Or last year. My cousin Sean Newcomb who grew up a Sox fan is part of a young Braves rotation.

Be nice to root for him at home.
 

James Pease

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Mar 16, 2018
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Thanks, everyone! Your hypothetical steals my youth and deprives me of growing up a neighbor of Eddie Mathews! The Braves moved here (Milwaukee) when I was 2 and left when I was 14, another tragedy of the ‘60s.


One thing that occurs to me under the “What if” scenario is that I have no reason to imagine the Red Sox would have moved here if they had left Boston rather than the Braves. There was a new ballpark to play in here but there was no connection between Yawkey and MKE as there was between Perini and his AAA franchise, the old Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association.


So where would the Red Sox have moved to? Baltimore might have been the leading candidate. Perhaps KC? Or maybe they would have really been audacious and moved to LA, dragging along the A’s out of Philadelphia to San Francisco with them a few years before the Dodgers and Giants headed west. Had the Braves not moved here in ’53, Bill Veeck would likely have moved the Browns here that year or the next.
 

BostonWolverine

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I would definitely keep the Redsox. I worked as a security guard in Fenway in 2004 and that is still one of my greatest memories.

I do have to bonus points to this alternate universe since fever pitch wouldn't be a thing anymore.



Edit:looks like I got beat to the punch
 
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jaytftwofive

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Jan 20, 2013
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Bill Russell's presence on the team had nothing to do with the empty seats at the Garden. NBA was still in its infancy. And the Cowens/Bird references are just lazy.
Don't be naive. It wasn't just fans, it was the media also. My God there was a commercial in the early to mid 70's for a market(Maybe Stop and Shop) that had Hondo, Cowens and Don Nelson?????? Nice player but why did they take him over two superior black players- Jo Jo and Silas?? Take a guess. I would talk to fans about how great Maxwell was in the playoffs in 81 and 84 and they would say yeah he's good but how about Bird and Mchale. It existed so let's not be naive. It is a lot better now I agree. As far as the Braves, it would have been fun to have 2 teams in the city. (I was born in 1957) My dad saw Ruths last major league game with the Braves. Philadelphia had two teams and lost the A's I think a year or two after the Braves left. They of course found much success in Oakland after an in between stop in K.C. I vote for Red Sox obviously but often wonder what two teams would have been like.
 

nighthob

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Don't be naive. It wasn't just fans, it was the media also. My God there was a commercial in the early to mid 70's for a market(Maybe Stop and Shop) that had Hondo, Cowens and Don Nelson?????? Nice player but why did they take him over two superior black players- Jo Jo and Silas??
You’re thinking of Bradlees and I think that may have been a Havlicek call as they had a sponsorship deal with him. As far as I remember there were a bunch of Hondo commercials for the department store but just one where he appeared with Cowens and Nelson. And I don’t think I saw it more than a couple of times (I vaguely recall Cowens and Havlicek throwing ABA style basketballs at Nelson, it’s the only reason I remember it at all).
 

jaytftwofive

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You’re thinking of Bradlees and I think that may have been a Havlicek call as they had a sponsorship deal with him. As far as I remember there were a bunch of Hondo commercials for the department store but just one where he appeared with Cowens and Nelson. And I don’t think I saw it more than a couple of times (I vaguely recall Cowens and Havlicek throwing ABA style basketballs at Nelson, it’s the only reason I remember it at all).
It was Bradlees. They're not still around are they. And Apex, Lol. Anyway, you do see my point. No black players in ads in 1960's or 70's. Max won the Finals MVP in 81 and Rick Robey got a commercial not Cedrick. I mean come on Robey over Maxwell. That always bothered him. I think Jim Rice was the first Boston black athlete to get a local commercial. I'm just trying to say it wasn't just fans, it was the media also.