Impetus: The Braves trade homegrown superstar outfielder Jason Heyward to the Cardinals for pitcher Shelby Miller.
Sports fans are fickle creatures. Some let every single action determine every single mood they have. Some let the outcome of every single game determine whether or not the remainder of the day or week is worth being chipper or sore about. Then there are others, like me, that like to believe that they’re capable of viewing sports fandom in a more comprehensive and big picture kind of way, and do their best to maintain a façade of indifference and maintain a cool head to no matter what happens, because we silently have the teams that we support and cheer for, in the privacy of our own homes.
Over the span of the last eight years or so, I think I’ve been every possible sports fan, especially when it came to baseball. There was a time when I watched every single pitch in every single game I could, and my mood would elevate and deflate with every called strike, force out, double play hit into, and of course, every run scored. When the Braves won, I was relieved, and sometimes happy. When they lost, I was miserable and crabby.
Then came a period of time in which such things didn’t bother me as much, and ultimately all I really wanted was to see the Braves win games. Who was on the roster began to concern me less, as long as they contributed something, whether it be stellar offense, solid defense, or even being a mentor on the bench and helping create the myth known as “team chemistry.” Sure, this didn’t mean I was devoid to the emotional roller coasters such as the retirement tours of Braves legends like Bobby Cox and Chipper Jones, but ultimately, I just wanted to see the Braves succeed, and fantasized about what it would be like to live in a world where the Atlanta Braves were world champions.
Eventually, my general fandom of baseball has waned throughout more recent years, and I’ve gone to referring to myself as the “worst baseball fan on the planet.” I watch fewer games, attend even less, and have prioritized collecting baseball bobbleheads over just about anything else other than my ultimate pursuit of visiting all 30 MLB ballparks, and as much minor league baseball as possible in between. However, amidst this stretch of supposed ambivalence, I’ve still been able to maintain that I was a Braves fan, and I still enjoyed wearing my Braves cap whenever I visited new parks, and kept an ear to the ground at what the Braves were doing, and what their chances were to make, and ultimately fall out of the playoffs each successive year.
However, over the course of the last year, the Braves have made it really, really difficult for me to continue liking them. I get that when the day is over, baseball is still a business, and businesses’ goals are ultimately to make money, but I’m also in this naïve old school camp that believes that business can successfully be conducted with a modicum of integrity that doesn’t leave people scratching their heads and thinking “was that a scumbag move?”
When the Braves suddenly announced out of nowhere that they were going to move the team from the ghetto into Marietta, it left quite a lot of people confused on how this had abruptly happened, seemingly out of thin air. When the details finally came out, it turned out that the Braves and Cobb County officials had basically conducted all business secretly, and deliberately made the announcement at the eleventh hour and 59th minute, so that any opposition there possibly could have been would have entire been too shocked to react, or they simply wouldn’t have enough time to fight. Ethically, it was a completely renegade method of making things happen, but what was done was done; the Braves were going to be moving into Marietta, estimating by the 2017 season, and nothing could really be done about it.
Personally, I didn’t necessarily agree with how the Braves did it, and certainly did feel that it was an underhanded tactic, driven by greed and veiled racism, but there was no turning back. It wasn’t really going to make me turn my back on the team and renounce the existence of the Braves or anything.
But then the Braves announced that the new ballpark was going to be called SunTrust Park. Long story short, I have great disdain for SunTrust Bank on account of the fact that they laid me off in 2007 along with the rest of my department and like 1,000 other employees across the company landscape, because a bunch of old white men demanded to get their annual raises or bonuses, or some other convoluted corporate bullshit that happens to corporations all across the world.
When the Braves gave SunTrust the naming rights to the new ballpark, I really, really felt like I was slapped in the face by the local team that I had supported since I moved down to Georgia. Sure, it’s never been about me, and an entire business entity couldn’t care less about one individual, but basically I reached a point where I just didn’t want to visit the new ballpark at all. I know to never say never in this instance, because there will be a time in which curiosity takes over and/or free tickets will be made available to me, and I’ll go, but I really fucking hate that the Braves had allowed for the new ballpark to become SunTrust Park.
My resolve was cracking, but I still remained steadfast that I wouldn’t yet turn in my Braves fandom card in. Watching the occasional game on television was still something that wasn’t horrible for me yet, even though I would occasionally see more SunTrust logos than I probably would have wanted to see. Furthermore, the Braves had a roster full of players, whom despite striking out a little too much for true enjoyment, still had the capability to be an exciting team that could make watching the game fun from time to time.
That all took a tumble today, with the Braves having apparently what appears to be somewhat of a fire sale, the term used to describe when a team unloads valuable assets at a rapid pace, in order to replace them with cheaper alternates. No one of the recent trades were as big as the Braves trading all-star outfielder Jason Heyward to the Cardinals for a starting pitcher.
As stated earlier, no one player is bigger than the team itself, but Jason Heyward had always held a special place in my sports fan heart. His debut game is still a memory that I recall to anyone who wants to know why sports are so great, and easily one of the sports moments that I’d been privileged to be witness to when it happened that I would definitely classify as being “magical.”
All that’s over now though, with Jason Heyward shipped off to St. Louis, for what’s basically the equivalent of nothing. Shelby Miller is an alright pitcher, but hadn’t been the same since coming back from injury. In the game of sports trades, the Cardinals cleaned up on the Braves and without question “won” this trade without any doubt.
The point of all this though, is that I think I’m really done with the Braves. Although no one player is bigger than the team itself, it really aggravates me in which the manner in which the Braves basically let Jason Heyward go. Obviously, there’s a lot that fans will never be made privy to, but in today’s invasive sports reporting, it’s still pretty easy to find out whether or not teams even made effort or some of the finer, more intimate details behind the scenes that lead to actions like this occurring. It’s like the Braves didn’t really try to bother keeping Jason Heyward at all, and resigned themselves to the fact that when he became a free agent, he would have without question priced himself out of the Braves’ reach.
Who really knows if the Braves even tried or not to extend Heyward behind the scenes? It doesn’t really matter, because one of the most popular superstars on the team over the last four seasons is no longer with the team, and it’s a moot point. I get the rationale behind why Heyward was moved, because he was likely going to become a free agent and the Braves would get essentially nothing for when he inevitably left, but the message I interpret from this preemptive “conciliatory” trade is that the team is so focused on the business aspect of things, that they simply don’t notice the backlash of Braves fans that might just be upset to see Jason Heyward go.
And that’s what the Braves have become over recent years, since the team traded ownership from Ted Turner to Liberty Media, so it feels like to me. Business over all else, and playing within a specific set of rules. Stay within the budget. Don’t overspend. Maximize profits while minimizing costs. Chew up a player’s best years before unloading him for younger cheaper assets later.
The bottom line is that the Braves have been trying really hard to get a fan like me, and anyone who happens to think like me, to alienate the team. Between the unethical manner in which they began building of the new ballpark, that’s unfortunately going to be named after a company that I absolutely abhor, and then the trading of a player that pretty much every Braves fan hoped would lead the franchise back into the championship hunt, I think they’ve succeeded.
Never say never, but I really do think that I hate the Braves now. Everything they do, just pisses me off and upsets me, and I really don’t want to support them any further. I’m not going to forget the good memories Braves baseball has brought me in the past, but god damn, is it going to be difficult for them to make me feel like wanting to like and support the team again any time soon.
