By Tom
The St. Louis Cardenales finished a three game series against the Atlanta Braves in thrilling fashion. St. Louis won the series with a thrilling rubber match that saw Adam Wainwright be a real human on national television, a couple of lead changes, and a game-winning 3 run home run by Tyler O’Neill. The Cardinals are a much different team than earlier in the year when the Braves took 3 of 4 from them in Atlanta in dominating fashion. Both teams are red-hot in August; with the Cards posting a 20-6 mark and the Braves sitting at 17-9. The Redbirds sit atop the NL Central as the Braves continue to gain ground on the 1st place Mets since early August.
It’s the kind of series that warrants the saying “playoff atmosphere,” as it features two really good teams with exciting players. The Braves sport rookie sensation Spencer Strider, a starting pitcher who will likely shatter Kerry Wood’s rookie K/9 record in a season. Strider has dominated the Cards in his 2 starts this season punching out 19 in 12 innings. The Braves also have their own potent 1B and 3B combo in Matt Olson and Austin Riley, who have combined to slug 58 homers and drive in 170 runs so far. While I have participated in making fun of Riley at times, he is an elite 3rd baseman who would be a perennial MVP front-runner if Paul Goldschmidt wasn’t going apeshit and Nolan Arenado being Nolan Arenado.
However we’re not here to be respectful to the Braves or the part of their fanbase that doesn’t want to secede from Atlanta for, erm…reasons; we’re here to make fun of these goofuses who had to eat crow after posting these series of bold and BRAVE hot takes.
Ha! That’s funny. I’ve learned since 2013 that talking shit in baseball is like playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded revolver; don’t do it. The game is already unpredictable enough, the fucking Yankees who were really good are now really bad. The Baltimore Orioles may make the playoffs, okay. Grind that up, mix it with detergent, heat it over a spoon, shoot it directly in my veins and have Jimmy McNulty stumble over my corpse. The Baltimore fucking Orioles are 7 games over .500.
Some background, SportsTalkATL is a sports website. That’s it, kinda like this one. They have a podcast where they discuss college football, the Braves, Hawks, Falcons, etc. They’re also really into sports gambling so that’s…nice I guess. They’re just some schlubby white guys, like me and my crew, talking shit and wearing cowboy hats for some weird reason.
Anyway, usually when it comes to talking smack I try to keep it as absurd and, somewhat, light-hearted as possible. The last thing you want to do is say something that can be used to flame you later. But it seems the folks at SportsTalkATL.com just can’t help themselves. In addition to saying that the Cardinals were easily sweepable and are a terrible minor league team, they offered a very problematic tweet after Dansby Swanson homered off Ryan Helsley.
Helsley, who is Cherokee, went on record in 2019 saying that the Braves’ chop is…um, well you know bad and offensive. If you like your historical racism with even more systemic irony, the 1832 landmark decision Worcester v. Georgia, which established Native American sovereignty, was established to protect the encroachment of Cherokee lands by Georgian settlers and the US government, only for Andrew Jackson to ignore that and commit the ethnic cleansing we now know and love as the Trail of Tears. Hooray American ImperialismTM!
SportsTalkATL has routinely defended the chop as a tradition, pointing out that the Braves organization has sought counsel with neighboring tribes who have professed no offense taken by the tradition. And while it’s a good thing that the Braves have made steps to smooth over relations with local tribes–although there are numerous institutional problems plaguing tribes that are not just about a stupid baseball team–their appropriation, and frankly mockery, of Native culture is not as universally popular among Native Americans as they would like to believe. And as if this wasn’t evident enough, a bunch of white suburbanites doing a tomahawk chop and chant is…a little weird, right? It’s weird when anyone does it.
All that aside, certain factions of the Braves–change the name too–fanbase are up in arms that the St. Louis Cardinals took 2 of 3 from their team. The discourse being that the Cardinals are an inferior team in both talent and opponent compared to the Atlanta Braves. This grumpiness could be traced back to the Adam Wainwright trade, but let’s briefly take a look at some of these points before putting this one to bed.
While the Braves did win the season series against the Cardinals 4-3, play in a more accomplished division, and are the reigning World Series champs, their superiority over the Cardinals is perhaps a flash in the pan. Braves fans have pointed out that the Cards are where they’re at because of the Reds, Pirates, and Cubs being so bad, despite them being in a division with the worst team in the MLB–the Washington Nationals–and going 10-3 against them. Should we negate Atlanta’s 19 wins against the Marlins and Nationals? How about their 14 wins against those NL Central bottom-feeders?
Speaking of those bottom-feeders though, Atlanta is where they’re at because, like the Cardinals, they beat the teams they’re supposed to beat. Aside from being 19-7 against the Marlins and Nationals, they’re also 14-6 against the NL Central’s worst teams, and 11-3 against the Giants, Rockies, and Diamonbacks. The Cardinals are 25-13 against their division cellar-dwellers, 6-3 against the Marlins and Nats, and 13-6 against the NL West. You’ve probably guessed what these two teams have in common and why Braves talk of ATL Supremacy may be illusions of grandeur.
Against teams with winning records the Braves and Cardinals are anything but superior. The Cardinals sport a 26-29 record against teams over .500, and the Braves are 27-30. Atlanta is 7-9 against the Mets which in itself should be punishable by lethal injection, which Georgia does by the way. The Braves rapped off a ridiculous 14 game winning streak in June, but those victories came against: The Diamondbacks, Rockies, Pirates, and Nationals. The Cards had a winning streak of 8 games this past month against similar opponents.
Some other points being brought up is that the Braves will take out the Cards in the playoffs. That could very well be true for either franchise. However, I would really like to remind the Braves and their fanbase that their September and Octoboer shortcomings in 2000, 2011, 2012, and 2019 against the Cardinals is the reason why we have Devil Magic. In 1996, Tony La Russa’s first season, the Cards held a 3-1 NLCS lead over the Atlanta Braves, who proceeded to come back and win the series. And not just win, I mean they stomped a mudhole in the ‘Birds, a beating so bad the Cards didn’t taste the postseason again until the GLORIOUS PAT HENGTEN YEAR of 2000. Since 96’ the Braves haven’t won a playoff series against the Cardinals in 3 tries. They were swept in 2000 despite Rick Ankiel playing catch with the backstop, they lost the 2012 Wild Card play-in game and blamed the umps, and let’s not forget 2019 which may have caused a spike in local PBR purchases and domestic abuse for weeks after.
I don’t know, SportsTalkATL and angry Braves fans. Maybe our teams ain’t that much different.
Anyway fuck the Braves and fuck Georgia. Ryan Helsley owns you and is 3-0 against your dumbass team. You don’t deserve statehood–or plumbing–after letting Marjorie Taylor Greene become a representative.
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