Thomas Wolfe, the famous novelist, insisted “You Can’t Go Home Again.” He was wrong, of course, as evidenced again here Monday night when the Atlanta Braves, the descendant of the Milwaukee Braves, opened a three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers with a 5-2 victory.
It’s a complex genealogy. Born in Boston, the Braves moved here in ’53, the first National League franchise uprooted in more than a half-century. The team remained here for the next 13 years, won consecutive National League pennants in 1957 and ’58, and moved again after the ’65 season, transplanted to faraway Atlanta. The town received a replacement in 1970–the American League Brewers.
“Once a Brave, always a Brave,” observed Johnny Logan, 71, who still lives here and was the star shortstop on the pennant-winning teams.
“I never thought we’d see this day. I’m not just glad to see the Braves come back. And I’m glad to see (the Brewers) in the National League where they belong.”
That the successor Braves returned to the scene of the crime and played their first game in County Stadium in 33 years was the result of the Brewers moving to the NL. After suffering four years without a team, Milwaukee inherited the American League’s original Seattle franchise that went bankrupt in 1969 after only one season.
Allan “Bud” Selig, the Brewers’ president who also doubles as baseball’s acting commissioner, remembers the Braves’ last game here like it was yesterday.
“It was in late September, in ’65,” Selig recalled. “We lost to Los Angeles. There was a standing ovation for Henry Aaron and Eddie Mathews. The emotion on that night was unbelievable.
“I was in the stands with Ed Fitzgerald (then the Braves’ co-owner) and a woman came up to me and asked, `Are you Bud Selig?’
“I said, “Yes, ma’am, that’s me.’
“And she said, `Mr. Selig, my heart is broken. You just don’t know how much baseball means to me. It’s breaking the hearts of a lot of people.’ “
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Selig had seldom seen a woman in such despair.
“She was crying as she walked away. Then she walked back toward me, and said, `It’s up to you to get us another team.’ “
Selig was then the president of Teams Inc., a firm hastily organized to preside over the Braves’ last season here.
“Talk about tough, that was tough,” Selig said. “There’s nothing worse than running a team in its lame-duck season.”
Almost all of the players who took the field here Monday night have no recollection of the Milwaukee Braves.
Atlanta coach Pat Corrales, a onetime big-league catcher who also managed three major-league teams, played against the Milwaukee Braves before they moved to Atlanta.
“I was here in ’64 and ’65,” Corrales said. “What I remember is there was nobody here. We used to count the people in the stands. One guy would start the count in the left-field corner and another guy in the right-field corner.”
Bob Uecker, Milwaukee’s longtime broadcaster, and Logan were believed to be the only people in attendance who played with the old Milwaukee Braves.
Uecker was a reserve catcher in ’62 and ’63 and caught the game when Warren Spahn became the winningest left-handed pitcher in big-league history.
Uecker was traded to the Cardinals before the opening of the ’64 season.
“You know what happened in ’64?” Uecker asked. “The Cardinals won the pennant. I played a lot more the next year and do you know what happened that year?”
A squad of reporters hunched closer for the answer.
“We finished sixth,” he said.
Phil Garner, the Brewers’ current manager, was in junior high school in Knoxville, Tenn., in 1996 when the Braves were uprooted.
But some time later, in ’72 or ’73, when he was with Oakland, he played in County Stadium against the Brewers.
“I think it was Hank Aaron’s last year,” Garner said. “He hit a double and was standing at second base. I said to him, `Mr. Aaron, it’s a pleasure being on the same field with you.’
“And he said, `You’re a major-league ballplayer now, you can call me Hank.’ “