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LAMP - Got my 'Buffalo, Home of the Braves' book


stevewin

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"To Steve with best wishes. The Aud was a great place to play and to watch, wasn't it? - Jack Marin"

 

:unsure:

 

Was talking sports a few weeks ago with a guy I know who is a laywer - got to talking about Buffalo and guy asks me if I followed the Braves ("Are you kidding me - I LOOOOOVED the Braves!") - turns out Jack Marin is a lawyer at his firm. So I gave him my book to have "The Mad Bomber" sign.

 

BTW - probably should have plugged this BEFORE Father's Day, but the book is absolutely awesome - got it last year for my birthday - it is a must-have for those who grew up and lived (then had a little piece of them die) with the Braves

 

Buffalo Home of the Braves

 

BTW - the autograph is particularly appropriate - not only did I watch many games at the Aud - but I also did play there once - with my grade school at halftime of a Braves game - and both were great :flirt:

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"To Steve with best wishes. The Aud was a great place to play and to watch, wasn't it? - Jack Marin"

 

:censored:

 

Was talking sports a few weeks ago with a guy I know who is a laywer - got to talking about Buffalo and guy asks me if I followed the Braves ("Are you kidding me - I LOOOOOVED the Braves!") - turns out Jack Marin is a lawyer at his firm. So I gave him my book to have "The Mad Bomber" sign.

 

BTW - probably should have plugged this BEFORE Father's Day, but the book is absolutely awesome - got it last year for my birthday - it is a must-have for those who grew up and lived (then had a little piece of them die) with the Braves

 

Buffalo Home of the Braves

 

BTW - the autograph is particularly appropriate - not only did I watch many games at the Aud - but I also did play there once - with my grade school at halftime of a Braves game - and both were great :wallbash:

 

Nice story - I was there, too. I have a Braves souvenir - an ashtray with the orange Braves logo given to me by a godchild. Do you remember that idiot Domino sugar promo, with some low-paid sap dressed in a light brown bear suit tossing sugar cubes into the crowd - and the crowd pelting them back? Or Neaverth announcing in the Aud and saying that that's two for McGianalli after Snyder/Brown sold off the of Bob McAdoo and other players? :thumbsup:

 

Snyder - then John Y. Brown. Grrr. I feel that cosmic justice was served when Brown married Phyllis George. :wallbash:

 

 

Danny Neaverth, for the younger crowd here: He was a big Bflo. noise, when AM radio was king:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Neaverth

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Snyder - then John Y. Brown. Grrr. I feel that cosmic justice was served when Brown married Phyllis George. :thumbsup:

My friends and I used to hang around where the players came out before the games. One game in Snyder's last year, he was just standing there and me and my friend went up to talk to him - the future of the team in Buffalo was very unsure at that point and we asked him about it - he assured us the Braves were in Buffalo "to stay".... :censored:

 

The Epilogue of the book is actually a column Ranallo wrote on 7/11/78 - just days after the team left. It is striking (and heartbreaking) to read it now (and eerily perhaps a cautionary tale..) - some excerpts:

 

Four days have passed the day of infamy - since the NBA club-owners stripped Buffalo of its franchise and rewarded John Y. Brown for his ruinous ownership of the Braves by giving him the votes to move the team and, in effect, the right to thumb his nose at Buffalo.

Four days have passed since the NBA owners, by a 21-1 vote, deemed Buffalo unworthy of a major-league basketball team after eight years of membership in the NBA.

Yet, in buffalo, from my vantage point, not too many folks seem to care.

There has been little weepng at the death of the Braves - almost no gnashing of teeth.

...

[The City's Leaders] have decided not to go to court - and get this- because they felt that such an action would discourage any future investor from considering Buffalo as the site of a new franchise.

In my view, Buffalo's refusal to put up its dukes and fight Brown and the NBA will have the opposite effect on future NBA investors when they're shopping for cities.

I mean, forget buffalo aas a future NBA town - at least in this century.

After all, would you pick for your new NBA club a city that once had a team, but failed to show enough interest to keep it?

The city leaders aso decided not to fight, it has been reported, because of the about-face the local investors did when head-counting time came.

During the three month period in which John y. brown hedgehopped the nation, in search of a new city for the Braves, the city leaders reported time and again that there were several local investors ready to come forward and make a pitch to buy the Braves - if brown was in a selling mood.

...

But when show-time came - when the zero-hour arrived and it became time for the local investors to stand up and be counted - all the investors remained seated

 

And the Coda

John brown's game plan was a perfect one. For three months he drove everybody batty, with his courting of city after city - to the point where everybody had him and the Braves up to here.

then he pulled off his stupendous deal.

And nobody as much as hollered "Foul"

Nobody cared where he went as long as he went and they got him out of their hair.

Yes, sir, Brown's game plan worked to perfection.

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