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The Franchise: Atlanta Braves
In The Atlanta Braves , take a more profound and unique journey into the history of an iconic team.
This thoughtful and engaging collection of essays captures the astute fans’ history of the franchise, going beyond well-worn narratives of yesteryear to uncover the less-discussed moments, decisions, people, and settings that fostered the Braves' one-of-a-kind identity.
Through wheeling and dealing, mythmaking and community building, explore where the organization has been, how it got to prominence in the modern major league landscape, and how it’ll continue to evolve and stay in contention for generations to come.
Braves fans in the know will enjoy this personal, local, in-depth look at baseball history.
This thoughtful and engaging collection of essays captures the astute fans’ history of the franchise, going beyond well-worn narratives of yesteryear to uncover the less-discussed moments, decisions, people, and settings that fostered the Braves' one-of-a-kind identity.
Through wheeling and dealing, mythmaking and community building, explore where the organization has been, how it got to prominence in the modern major league landscape, and how it’ll continue to evolve and stay in contention for generations to come.
Braves fans in the know will enjoy this personal, local, in-depth look at baseball history.
305 pages, Hardcover
First published June 4, 2024
21 people are currently reading
1873 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 6, 2024
This is filled with interesting information about the Braves but the awkward organization forces you to read much of it 4-5 times.
December 15, 2024
Incredible read. One of the best books I’ve ever divulged into. Would recommend for anyone to read, especially all y’all Freddie Freeman lovers. Go Braves!
June 16, 2024
You can also see this review, along with others I have written, at my new blog, Mr. Book's Book Reviews.
Mr. Book just finished The Franchise: Atlanta Braves, by Mark Bowman.
This is the fourth book in The Franchise series that I have read in the last two years. I’ve found the quality of the series has been inconsistent. Mr. Book gave the Yankees’ version in C, followed by an A for the Red Sox version (despite his life-long love of the Yankees and lack thereof for the Red Sox), while the Cubs got a B+.
The book contains 42 chapters, each about a player, a front office executive or manager, a team or an event.
There was a clear error found early in the book. When talking about the John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander, the author claimed that Smoltz was moved up a level since, under the rules of the day, if a minor leaguer was traded for a major leaguer, the minor leaguer had to be promoted a level for the remainder of the season. I was unaware of the existence of that rule. As it turns out the reason for me not knowing about it was it did not exist. For example, less than two weeks before the Smoltz trade, the Indians traded Steve Carlton to the Twins for minor leaguer Jeff Perry. Perry was in Double-A at the time of the trade, stayed in Double-A for the Indians and never again reached Triple-A before his professional career ended the next season. The day before that, the White Sox traded minor leaguer Bryce Hulstrom to the Cardinals for major league pitcher Dave LaPoint. Hulstrom went from the White Sox A-ball team to the Cardinals’ A-ball team and never pitched a game in his life above that level.
But, despite that major error, that was the only one that I found in the book. The book passed every single random fact check that I threw at it, thus leading to the conclusion that it was just an isolated incident.
Among the top chapters in the book were those on Dale Murphy, Greg Maddux, Eddie Mathews and Alex Anthopoulos.
There are some good tidbits throughout the book, such as John Schuerholz had originally declined the Braves offer to become their GM, before he called back saying he had made a mistake. The team was ready to fire Brian Snitker after the 2017 season ended, but his job was saved by GM John Coppolella’s ban for international signing infractions.
This was a very enjoyable book, which is why I give it a B+. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B+ equates to 4 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.
Mr. Book originally finished reading this on June 16, 2024.
Mr. Book just finished The Franchise: Atlanta Braves, by Mark Bowman.
This is the fourth book in The Franchise series that I have read in the last two years. I’ve found the quality of the series has been inconsistent. Mr. Book gave the Yankees’ version in C, followed by an A for the Red Sox version (despite his life-long love of the Yankees and lack thereof for the Red Sox), while the Cubs got a B+.
The book contains 42 chapters, each about a player, a front office executive or manager, a team or an event.
There was a clear error found early in the book. When talking about the John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander, the author claimed that Smoltz was moved up a level since, under the rules of the day, if a minor leaguer was traded for a major leaguer, the minor leaguer had to be promoted a level for the remainder of the season. I was unaware of the existence of that rule. As it turns out the reason for me not knowing about it was it did not exist. For example, less than two weeks before the Smoltz trade, the Indians traded Steve Carlton to the Twins for minor leaguer Jeff Perry. Perry was in Double-A at the time of the trade, stayed in Double-A for the Indians and never again reached Triple-A before his professional career ended the next season. The day before that, the White Sox traded minor leaguer Bryce Hulstrom to the Cardinals for major league pitcher Dave LaPoint. Hulstrom went from the White Sox A-ball team to the Cardinals’ A-ball team and never pitched a game in his life above that level.
But, despite that major error, that was the only one that I found in the book. The book passed every single random fact check that I threw at it, thus leading to the conclusion that it was just an isolated incident.
Among the top chapters in the book were those on Dale Murphy, Greg Maddux, Eddie Mathews and Alex Anthopoulos.
There are some good tidbits throughout the book, such as John Schuerholz had originally declined the Braves offer to become their GM, before he called back saying he had made a mistake. The team was ready to fire Brian Snitker after the 2017 season ended, but his job was saved by GM John Coppolella’s ban for international signing infractions.
This was a very enjoyable book, which is why I give it a B+. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B+ equates to 4 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.
Mr. Book originally finished reading this on June 16, 2024.
July 20, 2024
This is a decent book for fans of the Atlanta Braves, especially those who started following them in the early '90s. I am a lifelong Braves fan, dating back to when they moved to Atlanta in 1966 when I was seven years old, so there wasn't a lot of new material here for me. Mark Bowman is a good writer, and he has been covering the Braves for MLB.com since 2001. Naturally, his book focuses heavily on what was going on--the teams, and players--from his time on this beat. Also, the general style of the writing is that of someone who writes for digital media, so I found that a bit disappointing. For instance, Bowman doesn't use the Oxford comma, which really isn't ideal in a nonfiction (or fiction) book. The style guide for the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) calls for the Oxford comma.
The book is really repetitive, with lots of the same information appearing in several different chapters. Early in the book, Bowman actually uses the same quotes multiple times, with only a few pages of separation. I think the reason for the repetitiveness is that the book is more like a collection of columns than it is a "curated history."
Bowman also could have benefited from a more thorough editor. I think that would have helped with the repeated quotes, but it also would have eliminated some of the awkward typos. There are a few instances where Bowman obviously edited sentences, but left in some extra words from the previous version.
There is at least one glaring historical error in the book that actually contradicts something Bowman mentions in an earlier chapter. He says that when Freddie Freeman hit a home run off Josh Hader in the eighth inning of Game 4 of the 2021 NLDS, "He became the first Braves player to ever hit a go-ahead homer in the eighth inning or later of a postseason game." This is an obvious error because, as Bowman mentions in an earlier chapter, Ed Mathews hit a walk-off three-run homer in the 10th inning of Game 4 of the 1957 World Series. Maybe Bowman meant that Freeman was the first Atlanta Brave to do this, but when you are writing a book called "The Franchise," there really should be no distinction among the three cities the Braves played in when noting historical accomplishments. But if that were Bowman's intent, he certainly should have noted the difference.
I give the book four stars because it is entertaining and will bring back lots of memories for Atlanta Braves fans. I tried to ignore the stylistic issues that really are likely due to me being an old-school reader and writer.
The book is really repetitive, with lots of the same information appearing in several different chapters. Early in the book, Bowman actually uses the same quotes multiple times, with only a few pages of separation. I think the reason for the repetitiveness is that the book is more like a collection of columns than it is a "curated history."
Bowman also could have benefited from a more thorough editor. I think that would have helped with the repeated quotes, but it also would have eliminated some of the awkward typos. There are a few instances where Bowman obviously edited sentences, but left in some extra words from the previous version.
There is at least one glaring historical error in the book that actually contradicts something Bowman mentions in an earlier chapter. He says that when Freddie Freeman hit a home run off Josh Hader in the eighth inning of Game 4 of the 2021 NLDS, "He became the first Braves player to ever hit a go-ahead homer in the eighth inning or later of a postseason game." This is an obvious error because, as Bowman mentions in an earlier chapter, Ed Mathews hit a walk-off three-run homer in the 10th inning of Game 4 of the 1957 World Series. Maybe Bowman meant that Freeman was the first Atlanta Brave to do this, but when you are writing a book called "The Franchise," there really should be no distinction among the three cities the Braves played in when noting historical accomplishments. But if that were Bowman's intent, he certainly should have noted the difference.
I give the book four stars because it is entertaining and will bring back lots of memories for Atlanta Braves fans. I tried to ignore the stylistic issues that really are likely due to me being an old-school reader and writer.
January 26, 2025
So much of baseball fandom is the “Naming some guys” trend, and this is a phenomenal “naming some guys” book. Fun stories, great memories, great bits of history from the oldest continuous franchise in baseball.
At times, though, it really seems like Bow wrote each chapter as a stand-alone article. I know it’s fundamental to the story of the Atlanta Braves, but the 14 straight division titles of the 90s was presented like brand new information each time it was referenced. Every mention of Greg Maddux includes a line about his 3 straight Cy Youngs after signing with the Braves. At one point, though, an anecdote is referenced as a callback (“Remember when [this happened]?”), except that anecdote wasn’t told until the following chapter. There’s little rhyme or reason to how the information is presented, or the flow of the chapters.
That said, you didn’t pick up this book for that. If you, like me, want to spend the evenings Naming Some Guys and Remembering That Time When, while also learning some history I guarantee you weren’t there for, it’s a perfect baseball book.
At times, though, it really seems like Bow wrote each chapter as a stand-alone article. I know it’s fundamental to the story of the Atlanta Braves, but the 14 straight division titles of the 90s was presented like brand new information each time it was referenced. Every mention of Greg Maddux includes a line about his 3 straight Cy Youngs after signing with the Braves. At one point, though, an anecdote is referenced as a callback (“Remember when [this happened]?”), except that anecdote wasn’t told until the following chapter. There’s little rhyme or reason to how the information is presented, or the flow of the chapters.
That said, you didn’t pick up this book for that. If you, like me, want to spend the evenings Naming Some Guys and Remembering That Time When, while also learning some history I guarantee you weren’t there for, it’s a perfect baseball book.
August 26, 2024
This was a very enjoyable book. As a lifetime Braves fan, the book brought back many happy memories and a few sad ones. The story of the Braves is not told chronologically. There are chapters about the greatest of the Braves like Aaron, Niekro, Murphy, Chipper, Maddux, Bobby Cox and others. There are also chapters dedicated to the years in Boston and Milwaukee. One of the drawbacks to this style is many of the stories intersect, so a lot of stories are told several times. Not sure how many times it is mentioned that the Braves their upgraded defense in 1991 of Pendleton, Belliard, Bream and Otis Nixon, but it is a lot. Overall, this is a good book that I would recommend for every Braves fan.
March 16, 2025
It’s a very good review of Braves baseball history. Mark Bowman has been the MLB beat writer for years, so he knows the current players and the office. I like how he has included franchise history in Boston and Milwaukee. He tends to bounce from topic to topic without a smooth transition but I am fine with that because of my familiarity with the Braves, and I do not get lost. I wanted to read this during spring training to build up excitement for the coming season. I’m ready for baseball.
January 27, 2025
The book could have been organized better to avoid redundancies, and it definitely could've used another round of copy editing. However, it was a very enjoyable read. The history of the Braves is interwoven with my personal history, so it was interesting to learn a lot of things I didn't know, especially from before my time, and to relive some of my favorite Braves memories, and also to reflect those who are no longer with us who contributed to my love of the Braves, mainly my dad.
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June 20, 2025I have read Mark Bowman's articles for years and wanted to support him by purchasing his book. It had some good stories and anecdotes that I had never heard before. It was a quick and easy read.
Note: The editing left much to be desired. There were some glaring typos and some repeated phrasings, facts, and stories throughout.
Note: The editing left much to be desired. There were some glaring typos and some repeated phrasings, facts, and stories throughout.
June 29, 2024
This book contains spelling errors early and often, and much of it is repetitive, but I still enjoyed every bit of it. Mark Bowman is always a great source of Braves knowledge on social media platforms, so it was great to read so much of his content in one place.
February 9, 2025
If you’re a Braves fan or a fan of baseball history, you’ll love this book. Some reviews have complained about repeated stories but I disagree. So many of these stories overlap so it’s cool to see how one story spilled over into so many others. Worth the read!
July 11, 2024
For a Braves fan, very few revelations. The book could’ve been written by ChatGPT. Disappointing.
February 12, 2025
It is a true love letter to my favorite team in all of sports. That being said, it could have used another round of edits. A fun read for fans of the storied club.
May 16, 2025
If you are a die hard Braves fan. You need to read this book.
May 29, 2025
Apparently, a "curated history" is a non-chronological one. Rather, the book is organized by subject ("The Decisions", "The Legends," etc.)
Although I did learn some things, the writing is pretty pedestrian. Mark Bowen is no Roger Angell. It is also repetitive; the same facts (e.g. 14 division titles) are cited in chapter after chapter, maybe as a consequence of the book's organization.
On top of this, the editing is shoddy - omitted words, words repeated consecutively, and in one case, the same paragraph-long quote used twice in the same chapter.
Also, the chapter on Warren Spahn made no mention of the epic game he pitched against Juan Marichal while in his 40's, a puzzling omission.
For Braves fans (of which I am one) only.
Although I did learn some things, the writing is pretty pedestrian. Mark Bowen is no Roger Angell. It is also repetitive; the same facts (e.g. 14 division titles) are cited in chapter after chapter, maybe as a consequence of the book's organization.
On top of this, the editing is shoddy - omitted words, words repeated consecutively, and in one case, the same paragraph-long quote used twice in the same chapter.
Also, the chapter on Warren Spahn made no mention of the epic game he pitched against Juan Marichal while in his 40's, a puzzling omission.
For Braves fans (of which I am one) only.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews