Despite Braves' woeful season, loyal fans from all over continue to follow them in droves

BRISTOL, Tenn.

Its on pace to be the lousiest Atlanta Braves season since 2016, and might end up the worst since the late 1980s, considering their 9-22 record in the past 31 games before Saturday and the depleted state of their pitching staff.

Yet, tens of thousands of Braves fans turned out for the Speedway Classic game Saturday night in Bristol.

Advertisement And thousands were at Cincinnati Thursday and Friday and made it sound like a Braves home game when Atlanta scored eight in the top of the eighth inning of the series opener.

(Before giving up eight in the bottom of the inning, but thats another story.) Obviously, this year hadnt gone anywhere close to what weve wanted, but weve still got fans that are pulling for us on a nightly basis, Braves third baseman Austin Riley said.

Everywhere we go theres a huge group typically behind our dugout.

Theres a lot of loyal fans.

People like Kevin and Stephanie Lanke, a couple from Terre Haute, Indiana.

They bought tickets soon after this Speedway Classic game was announced.

The Braves woeful season was never going to deter them from coming, nor was a calf strain that landed Braves superstar Ronald Acuna Jr.

on the 10-day injured list last week.

We were coming either way, said Kevin Lanke, athletic director at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana.

This event is bigger than how the individual year is going.

Obviously, we were disappointed Acuna got hurt on Tuesday, but it is what it is, and were just excited to be here and represent Braves Nation.

As they spoke, Braves fans filed out of the Paramount Bristol, a restored downtown theater that was the teams fan headquarters the past few days.

The Braves game at Cincinnati Friday had just aired live on the big screen there.

It was for Braves fans from anywhere, but especially those whod arrived early in Bristol for the series finale, a one-off game Saturday that was expected to draw an MLB-record crowd of more than 85,000 to Bristol Motor Speedway and was played on a field built just for the occasion in the middle of the famous tracks infield.

Dude, this is awesome, said Dillon Long, a Braves fans from Toccoa, Georgia, as he glanced around the massive speedway Saturday.

He was sitting with his wife, Kaitlan, and their two kids, ages 8 and 9, ready to order dinner from a concession stand on the speedway infield.

Advertisement The first pitch was delayed nearly 2 1/2 hours by rain, and originally scheduled Braves starter Spencer Strider was scratched, replaced by Austin Cox.

It only began raining hard just before the scheduled first pitch, bringing out the tarps.

The Longs had been in Bristol a few days, staying in their RV at the speedway campground.

They were at the watch party Friday at the Paramount, a block away from the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

Theres plenty to do in Bristol, a charming town that straddles the Tennessee-Virginia border.

But the Longs were here to see their beloved Braves, regardless of the teams 46-63 record before Saturday and unaccustomed position near the bottom of the standings in both the division and wild-card races.

Their run of seven consecutive postseason appearances, including six NL East titles before last years wild-card berth, is almost certainly about to end.

Nevertheless, it was a very good past seven years to be a Braves fan, they said.

You know, (a bad season was) always due, Long said.

You got too many people that think they know everything and how to solve the problems.

Im not that guy.

We just love baseball as a family.

He noted that they are about 2,500 th on the waiting list for the Braves A-List membership, which includes access to special events, discounts on merchandise and other perks.

So well get our shot, he said, laughing.

But we got these! They bought Speedway Classic tickets as soon as they went on sale to the general public in December.

Long can remember when a season like this wasnt unusual for the Braves, and thats without going back to the 1980s.

Atlanta was third or fourth in the NL East in four consecutive seasons during 2006-2009, finishing 18 games back in the first season of that stretch and going 72-90 to finish in fourth place, 20 games back, in 2008.

Advertisement Oh, yeah, in the early 2000s it was tough, Long said.

But we love the organization from top to bottom.

Weve gone (to minor league games) from Columbus to Rome to Augusta, Gwinnett, all of them.

Braves mascot Blooper was also at the Paramount on Friday along with the Braves Heavy Hitters drumline, and some former Braves who greeted fans and signed autographs.

The fans watched their team lose 3-2 in Cincinnati on the Paramount screen, falling to a confounding 14-27 in one-run games.

I mean, its been tough obviously its been tough, said Kelly Thorndyke, 50, a Braves fan from Greenville, N.C., as he left the Paramount Friday.

He was here for the Speedway Classic and drove over from Greenville with his wife, Lori, and their friend Bobby Williams, 51, a high school basketball coach and assistant baseball coach at D.H.

Conley in Greenville.

All went to the watch party and the game on Saturday.

The three love their alma mater, East Carolina University in Greenville, and they love the Braves.

Im a Dale Murphy guy all my life, Williams said.

My childhood home still is nothing but Dale Murphy posters that my mom and dad wont take down out of my childhood room.

Hes probably not going to say, Kelby Thorndyke said of Williams, but this dude has pictures on Dale Murphys front porch.

Williams smiled and said he didnt mind if that went public.

He loves him some Murph.

Super human being, said Williams, who added that his aunt and uncle have Braves season tickets, which also helped stoke his long fandom.

When I started, the early years, the Murphy years, around 82, 83, they struggled, Williams said.

And then we hit a great stretch.

Now this year has been obviously ups and downs.

If something bad can happen this year, its happened.

When the Lankes finished work Thursday Stephanie works for Thomson Reuters and trains CPAs around the country they got in the car in Terre Haute and drove to Bristol, arriving around 1:30 a.m.

Friday.

Advertisement Lenke said of this 2025 season: If this is the penalty for (Atlanta winning) the 2021 World Series, its okay.

He smiled when he said that.

Age allows him some perspective that some young Braves fans do not have.

He doesnt see this season as a disaster that signals the end of a winning era and beginning of some dark period in team history.

This is part of what happens, with franchises, he said.

Theres ups and downs.

I wish theyd have done more at the trade deadline, but its okay.

You know theyve got a plan in place.

Obviously Alex (Anthopoulos) knows what hes doing.

The team knows what theyre doing.

They wouldnt have won a World Series in 21 if they didnt.

The Thorndykes said they wished that Anthopoulos, the Braves general manager and president of baseball operations, had made at least one or two significant moves at Thursdays trade deadline, which they said would show that the team is preparing for the future.

They had read and heard so much talk of the Braves being likely to trade one or both of high-profile pending free agents Marcell Ozuna and Raisel Iglesias.

Ozuna from the Braves, Lori said, smiling at the reference to an infamous incident when Ozuna told a cop whod pulled him over for suspicion of drunk driving, at which point Ozuna said Im Ozuna from the Braves.

I felt bad Ozuna, Raisel, Kelby said, naming the players hed heard were most likely to be traded.

But then I also understand that maybe theyre not getting the value (they sought in trades).

And like (Thursday), do we win that game without Iglesias, if theres someone else in there? (Iglesias pitched a scoreless 10 th inning for the save at Cincinnati.) The Thorndykes never considered changing their plans for the Speedway Classic, even as the Braves losses and injuries mounted.

Advertisement Roller coaster is not the right word, Thorndyke said, then paused but couldnt come up with a better one.

I would say, you hope every game...its like a new year.

You hope every night is going to be like this; this is what theyre going to do from here out.

He pointed to recent improvement by long-slumping Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies as an example.

Finally, he said.

So now Im like, okay, here they go.

Now is everyone else going to come along? Lori interjected, And then Acuna gets hurt.

I mean, its like theres always something going on.

Still, they watch.

And watch.

Almost every game on TV, and some at Truist Park when they can get to Atlanta.

At the end of the night, Kelby Thorndyke said, I look at her and I say, why the hell did we watch this? He smiled.

Its been tough.

But they also know that fans of almost every other MLB team would swap places with them and have a team that has been to the postseason the past seven years, won the World Series in 2021, not to mention one that was the so-called Team of the 90s with multiple Hall of Famers, 14 consecutive division titles and a 1995 World Series win.

We have been spoiled, for sure, Lori said.

Lanke said hes one of the many Braves fans whose initial attraction to the team was because of the Braves daily presence for six months a year on TBS in the 1970s and 1980s, when Braves and TBS owner Ted Turners SuperStation beamed Braves games across North America.

Oh, for me, they were just so bad when I was growing up, Lanke said of the Braves, who finished below .500 usually well below thirteen times in a 16-year span from 1975 through 1990, before the worst-to-first season in 1991 when they went to the World Series.

Ninety-one was a miracle, Lanke said, and (fans) can get spoiled if they get used to them being that good in the 90s, if you dont know how it was before.

Im just glad they got another one in my lifetime.

In 95, when they won, I was in college.

But 21 was just icing on the cake.

Advertisement I was a fan in the bad days in the 80s to the good days in the 90s, and then from (2018) its just been great.

Until this season.

The season obviously hasnt been what we had hoped, for a lot of reasons, Braves manager Brian Snitker said before Saturdays game.

But its amazing, the fans that Ive talked to, how supportive they still are.

Theyre appreciative of everything weve accomplished over the years, and I think they understand, you know, that these things happen.

Like Ive said, its a special group of people.

Ive seen a lot of Brave jerseys driving in here (to the Speedway Classic), and so I think its going to be really special for a lot of people, including us.

(Top photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.