The last four weeks have been incredibly busy at work and at church, getting ready for Christmas and the end of the year, leaving me with no time to create a thoughtful post for this blog, although lots of ideas have come to mind, inspired by the events of the last few weeks— the execution of Tookie Williams and my conflicted thoughts and feelings about capital punishment, the elections in Iraq, the brouhaha over Christmas vs. "Holiday", the passing of Richard Pryor, the emerging NSA wiretap "scandal" in Washington. But this past week an event of global importance rocked the news and bolted me out of my hiatus... the Atlanta Braves are for sale.
How can I be silent?
I have to admit to being an admirer of the accomplishments of Ted Turner. For someone so inarticulate, the guy is nothing short of a genius. When I was a teenager, Channel 17 in Atlanta was the laughingstock of local broadcasting. To begin with, it was a lowly UHF station in a day when real TV stations were low-number VHFs and a network affiliate, like Channels 2, 5 and sort of 11 (it was the ABC affiliate, and in those days ABC was the ugly stepchild to CBS (#1) and NBC (a distant #2). There were only two people in broadcasting who saw the future value of UHF stations as the cable buildout took off and local companies were compelled by the FCC's "Must Carry" rule to put all stations on their cable lineup. One was Ted Turner. (The other one was Pat Robertson, but that's a story for another post.)
Turner, who had saved his family's outdoor advertising empire from becoming a victim of his father's excesses, parlayed an almost defunct, puny little UHF station into the world's first "Superstation" by offering "free" advertising in the form of Per Inquiry ads (like the Ginsu knife and the Pocket Fisherman) and the offer of "free" programming to content-starved cable systems. To get more content for his station, he bought the Atlanta Braves almost as an afterthought (he also bought the Atlanta Hawks, a move which didn't work out nearly as well!)
A funny thing happened after Ted bought the Braves. He discovered he really liked being a baseball owner. He fit into the good old boys club of baseball owners like about like Larry the Cable Guy at a Etiquette Seminar, but the role of common man among blue blooded snobs is one he had relished his entire life. His eccentricities resulted in him being dubbed "Captain Outrageous" in the press, but the fans loved him. He even managed the team for a brief period when the Braves were by far the worse team in baseball saying he couldn't possibly do any worse than the previous guy he fired. When pompous Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended Turner, we were all in an uproar. A billboard outside of Atlanta Stadium said "PHOOEY ON BOWIE, WE WANT TED!" Turner even took up competitive yachting and won the America's Cup.
Folks outside of Atlanta know Ted best for another stroke of genius called CNN. Turner started a news organization within TBS that was little more than a glorified local news crew. So when he announced that he was starting the world's first 24-7 cable news organization, the good old boys at CBS, NBC and ABC busted a gut laughing. When they went on the air CNN was fraught with missteps, technical glitches and malaprops, and the laughter continued. They didn't laugh too much longer, though. Turner is also known for marrying Jane Fonda, which is retrospect is probably somewhere below buying the Hawks on his personal Whoops-O-Meter.
Ted Turner was always sticking his foot in his mouth big time. Once he referred to Christianity as a "religion for losers" but then realized how hurtful his comment was to sincere people of faith. Turner was man enough to stand in the pulpit of First Baptist Woodstock and apologize for his statement. When Turner Field opened in 1997, Ted was seen drinking water. When asked why, the billionaire replied, "Because I'm not going to pay $5 for a Coke!" Shortly after that comment hit the papers, prices on soft drinks went down and fans were allowed to bring their own food and drinks in coolers to the ballpark.
Ted stuck with the Braves during the abysmal 1980s, even participating in stunts like Ostrich Races (he and Skip Caray were the jockeys) to draw a crowd. In 1990, they finished dead last. Again. But then everything clicked in 1991. Bobby Cox. John Sherholtz. And Ted Turner. The Braves went from worst to first and started a remarkable string of 14 consecutive division titles and became the winningest team in baseball in the 1990s.
A few years back, ownership of the Braves passed from Ted's Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner, when they took over control of the CNN empire. Then came AOL with the ill-fated AOL/Time Warner merger. Thankfully, AOL Time Warner has been content to leave us alone and let John Sherholtz run things, even though the Braves were not a money maker for the corporation. Now they want to sell the Braves to improve the bottom line. They're throwing in Turner South as a bonus. For a mere 300 mil you can have them both.
OK, here's the deal: Ted, we want you back! Scape together the 300 million and become the sole owner of the Braves again. You must be bored by now with Buffalo Farming in Montana. Sell a million acres or so of your Montana land and let's do it again for old times sake. If that happens, you will hear a collective roar of approval from Atlanta. We want you to be our owner again. I think we could deal with the loss of Leo Mazzone and Rafael Furcal if we got Ted back, sitting in his box beside the Braves dugout doing the chop with the rest of us.
If for some reason Ted chooses not to come out and play, here's my plan B... Arthur Blank. Arthur has done wonders for the Falcons, and he is known to me much more of a baseball fan than a football fan.
Whoever buys the Braves, he (or she) must have ties to Atlanta. They must have a love for the game. And they must realize they are buying much more than a business or a franchise. They are buying so much more than just a team. They are buying the embodiment of the hearts and the hopes of all of us who can't wait for Opening Day and who each fall say, "I can't wait till next year."
And, by the way, let's get a move on. Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in just nine weeks.
George Steinbrenner (or anyone remotely like him) need not apply.