Oct 14 2008
Happy Sid and Frankie Day, Braves Nation
By Bud L. Ellis
braves.today.com
ATLANTA – Sixteen years is a long, long time. Just ask any teenager who is about to hit that magic number. Or, ask somebody who is 16 years from retiring. Or somebody celebrating their 16th wedding anniversary.
It’s a big stretch of time, for sure. Things change.
But one thing remains from what happened to the Atlanta Braves 16 years ago tonight: the memories of the greatest play in the long history of the storied franchise.
On this night in 1992, shortly before midnight, a backup catcher came off the bench and hit the shot of the ages, a line-drive single to left field that, in an instant, moved the Braves from NLCS losers to World Series participants. One base hit, off a 2-1 pitch from Stan Belinda, sent Francisco Cabrera into the annuals of great postseason heroes.
It should have never happened, that miracle three-run comeback in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 inside old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The Braves were dead, on the verge of blowing a 3-1 NLCS lead. The Pirates had one foot into the Fall Classic, finally about to make it to the Series after losing in the NLCS the previous two years.
But Terry Pendleton led off with a double. David Justice’s ground ball was bobbled by Jose Lind, giving the Braves a sense that there was something magical underway. Sid Bream drew a walk to load the bases, and Ron Gant slammed a line drive to left that, were it higher, would’ve been a pennant-winning grand slam.
It would’ve landed pretty close to where I was sitting, in the left-field lower-level seats.
From there, the drama intensified until Cabrera came through. With one swing, the Braves went from 2-1 losers to 3-2 winners. Skip Caray’s call resonated throughout the baseball world. We heard the emphatic “Braves Win! Braves Win!” call many times two months ago, as we mourned Skip’s passing. Bream’s 180-foot sprint – OK, so it was more a chug than a sprint – to beat Barry Bonds’ throw to the plate concluded with a slide that delivered the Braves a second-consecutive pennant, and bedlam ensued.
Sixteen years. A long, long time. But that moment remains etched in our minds forever. For myself, and the other 51,000 or so inside Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium that night, it was the ultimate moment. I was there three years later, when the Braves finally won the World Series, but what happened on Oct. 14, 1992, stands side-by-side with the World Series win in 1995 as the most incredible moment ever in Braves’ history.
Happy Sid and Frankie Day.
—30—
Bud, I can remember this game like it was yesterday.