We Could've Finished Last Without You: An Irreverent Look at the Atlanta Braves, the Losingest Team in Baseball for the Past 25 Years

The author is not the world-famed comic, but was, rather, the PR director and vice-president of the Atlanta Braves from 1966 to 1979. During his tenure the team record was terrible. In the last quarter-century the Braves have finished last eight times and acquired a percentage of .402, worst in the major leagues. Player attitudes are encapsulated in the anecdote related here about the day the team's bus driver got lost and no Brave volunteered to help him, on the grounds that ``if they can't find us, they can't beat us.'' To keep attendance up, Hope arranged all sorts of bizarre promotions, including an egg hunt and an ostrich race. And then there was Ted Turner, who bought the team in 1976 and was himself great publicity: iconoclastic, volatile, unpredictable. This account of a wacky era is lively indeed. Photos not seen by PW. (July)