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 These Braves are hard to love Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman reports on the NLCS finale
Posted: Thursday October 15, 1998 01:29 PM I have a friend (really, I do) who used to love the Atlanta Braves. His name is Scott— Scott Andrew Capro of Ocean, N.J. We first met in 1990, neighbors in Russell Hall A at the University of Delaware. Scott always wore this crumpled, sat-on-six-too-many-times Braves cap, blue with red script. His keychain, purchased in '86, featured the team's old logo. Scott's prolific vocabulary, unique, was oven-stuffed with words like " Murphy " and " Zane " and " Rafaelramirez " (he slurred it real quick-like). There were also a bunch of irregular phrases—Cappie Speak, I'd call it. "Can you believe we picked up Charlie Kerfeld ... for nothing!?" "There's no better trio than Murphy- Horner - Claudell ." "Don't sleep on Dennis Hood ." " Kelly Mann will carry us to the playoffs." "Where's my vanilla pudding?" (Scott liked vanilla pudding.) I called my old friend Wednesday night, right after returning from San Diego's 5-0 Tomahawk whuppin' at Turner Field. I figured he'd be upset. I figured he'd be crying in front of the TV. I figured ... "Hey, I just got back from class. Didn't get a chance to watch it." Huh? This is a man, 26, with a beautiful wife and baby, who had lived, coughed and died Braves, ever since his favorite player, Chris Chambliss , was acquired from Toronto in 1980. Every day, he would mourn over the demise of Phil Niekro or Andres Thomas or Tyler Houston ; celebrate the coming of Omar Moreno and Bruce Sutter and Bryn Smith . Scott paid $5 to sign Greg Olson 's cast. Saved the ticket stub from John Smoltz 's major-league debut. He was alone—a Braves fanatic when there was no such thing as a Braves fanatic—but he was content. Didn't get a chance to watch it? "Part of the fun of being an Atlanta fan was trying to convince people that the Braves—who finished last four years in a row—could compete with Ken Oberkfell as their No. 3 hitter," says Scott. "My freshman year in high school, I told people the Braves would win the World Series in 1990. I even had that inscribed in my class ring. [Writer's note: They first made it in '91—close enough.] People who I wasn't really friends with, they remember me as the guy who always believed in the Braves. But now ..." There is a pause here. Not for effect or drama. Just because, well, what can he say? Wednesday night, thousands of people paid $45 for Grand Canyon seats. Another couple of hundred paid $25 to stand for three hours. Corporate whities in suits took up all the good spots, drank Diet Cokes, made absolutely no noise and left in the seventh inning ... just to beat traffic. Every single one of them will recall the tough times—when I was at Fulton County with 500 people watching Dale Murphy. Every single one of them is full of poop. The new McStadium, as generic as a Tim Allen punchline, is called Turner Field, after an owner with the ego to name a building after—hey, what the heck?—himself. Hot dogs are $4. Ice cream, too. The Braves' millionaire pitchers exhibit all the emotion of Babe Ruth —in his present state. Following the game, Smoltz gave his usual robotic quotes. Tom Glavine , too. There ain't a Rick Mahler among 'em. Not even a Kerfeld. "I guess, casually, I'm still a fan," says Scott, who is in the process of getting his teaching degree. "But publicly I never admit it. All of a sudden around Jersey City, you see tons of guys wearing Yankees jackets. Most of 'em probably can't name three players. I don't want to look that way. My close friends, they know the truth. I'm real." That's why Scott Capro didn't shed a tear over another Atlanta Braves playoff crumble. That's why he'd trade Greg Maddux and Andres Galarraga and Denny Neagle and Chipper Jones in a second ... as long as Barry Bonnell and Ozzie Virgil come back in return. The Braves used to have character. The Braves used to have spunk. The Braves used to lose 100 games. It sure was fun—wasn't it, Cappie?
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