The Atlanta Braves celebrated with a few hundred thousand of their closest friends throughout the streets of downtown ATL on Friday.
It was their second World Series title, and it was a genuine surprise to even the most die-hard members of Braves nation.
That said, for those of us who grew up as our father’s remote control and were well versed on getting to Channel 17 to hear Skip and Pete do the Braves game, I hope there’s one name with bona fide Chattanooga connections that will be at least thought of in the afterglow of winning it all.
Ted Turner, McCallie class of 1956, was a longtime owner of the Braves, and if not for Turner and the way he used baseball as programming for his fledgling networks – a business model that completely changed sports and launched TBS, TNT and CNN – the Braves would almost assuredly have left Atlanta long ago.
Turner kept the ship sailing when the Braves were easily the worst team in baseball and right there among the worst franchises in sports.