COLUMN: Love letter to a Braves fan

Dear Braves fan:

Have you been wearing that same Freddie Freeman jersey for almost a month now? Don’t you think it’s time to change?

Just kidding. Wear it proudly. Don’t bother washing it. Keep it on your back, at least until it’s time to bring out the tacky Christmas sweaters.

You deserve this.

No need to apologize for the big grin, either. Don’t wipe it off. Keep that glow. Call it “Soler” energy.

Being an Atlanta Braves fan always has come with an emotional price tag. World Series titles tend to skip a generation. It had been 26 years since the championship in 1995, and the last one before that had been 38 years in the past.

There have been plenty of good teams, and more than a few great ones. But fans usually push away from the playoff banquet table still hungry, with more gravy on their shirts than in their mouths.

Yes, the Braves have been poster boys for post-season disappointments. They routinely make the playoffs, then crumple on the canvas like a boxer with a glass jaw.

This year was gloriously different.

How will you remember it? Will it be the pearls of “Joctober” or Soler smashing balls into orbit? Will it be Steady Freddie or Ready Eddie? Will it be Riley, the budding superstar at the hot corner? Or Dansby, the hometown hero? Or the playfulness of the Wizard of Ozzie?

Will you remember how Atlanta lost its best player (Ronald Acuna Jr.) and best pitchers (Mike Soroka and Charlie Morton) to injuries and still won it all? Will your emotions pay tribute to Adam Duvall, who led the league in RBIs with an insulin pump tucked in his back pocket, a survival kit for his Type 1 diabetes?

What about bullpen pitcher Tyler Matzek, who might have written the greatest comeback story of all? Not too long ago, he could hardly throw a ball across home plate. He had the “yips.’’ He suffered from anxiety. Four years ago, he was out of baseball. Three years ago, he was living in an RV and pitching for the Texas Air Hogs of the Independent American Association. Now he is one of the most dominant left-handed relievers in baseball. It’s a movie script.

Will you choose to remember manager Brian Snitker, one of the most deserving guys in the game, and how he paid his dues? He rode the buses in the minors, including three years (1992, ’97 and ’98) as manager of the Macon Braves. And he was born in Macon – Macon, Illinois, that is -- but we claim him, too.

Will you remember how we lost two saints -- Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro – before the season and how No. 44 became a symbol for this year’s magical season? It was Aaron’s number. The Braves won 44 games before the All-Star break and 44 after it, becoming only the second team in history with a losing record at the break to win it all. And they won the World Series during the 44th week of 2021.

Will you remember how baseball commissioner Rob Manfred played politics and pulled the All-Star game out of Atlanta in July? And how Braves fans shoved it back in his face by winning the World Series?

Will you remember how the baseball world returned to normal? No more empty ballparks, where the catchers weren’t the only ones wearing masks. Energy. Excitement. Emotion. Peanuts and Cracker Jack. The seventh inning stretch. The Chop. The Battery. The grandest parade in Atlanta sports history.

Save your stories. Cherish them.

Like many of you, I am old enough to remember when the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966. My father would take me to see Hammerin’ Hank, Knucksie, Rico Carty, Bob Horner and Dale Murphy. I remained loyal, despite all those seasons that seemed to come and go without ever arriving.

As a sport writer, I covered the worst-to-first Braves of 1991, who lost to Minnesota in perhaps the greatest World Series of all-time, with five of the seven games decided by one run.

And I was in the press box when the Braves brought Atlanta its first major sports championship in 1995, beating the Cleveland Indians.

The headline on the front page of The Telegraph the next day read: “On Chop of the World!” I still remember the lead on my column: “How do you write with tears in your eyes?”

On the night they won it all, when Dansby Swanson fielded that last ground ball, and Freddie Freeman squeezed it in his glove for the final out, how many of you were wishing someone you loved, who is no longer with us, was there to share it with you?

At some point in your life – if not already – you will understand the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is fleeting. It is not written in ink. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Joy fills you up. It stays in your heart. It gives you sustenance.

This was joy.

None of us wanted this magical season to end. So, remember what hall of famer Rogers Hornsby said when people asked him what he did in winter, when there was no baseball.

“I’ll tell you what I do,’’ he said. “I stare out the window and wait for spring.’’

Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.