Founded in 1871, the Atlanta Braves are the oldest, continually operating, major league franchise.  Technically, the Cubbies are older - they began in 1870, but missed two seasons as a result of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

After the 1870 season, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first openly professional club, disbanded.  Four Cincinnati players, including Hall of Famer brothers George and Harry Wright, accepted an invitation to move to Boston and form the nucleus of a new club in that city as a charter member of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (National Association, or just NA for short).  Despite MLB's persistent refusal to recognize it as such, the NA was truly the first major league by any metric, and the Red Stockings, led by the Wrights and pitcher Al Spalding  dominated play for its entire five-year lifespan.  After the 1875 season, the NA folded when Chicago owner William Hulbert conspired with several others to form a new, more effectively and efficiently managed league - the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs (today's NL).  The NL absorbed  several existing NA clubs, Boston included, cast a few more aside, and founded several others.

For the remainder of the 19th century, the club had some success but more often than not were also-rans, but Hall of Famers like John Clarkson and Kid Nichols offered the fans with some outstanding performances.  Through it all, the team went through several name changes.  In the 19th and early 20th centuries, team names weren't the official, copyrighted things they are today.  They changed, sometimes frequently, based on popular usage, sportswriters with influence, and other circumstances.  From 1871 through about 1882, the club was known consistently as the Red Stockings.  After that they were the Beaneaters until about 1906, after which they generally known as the Doves for a short spell and then the Rustlers before, finally, taking the Braves moniker in 1912.  For a brief period in the late 1930s, they tried out "Bees" (like the modern "A's"), but it didn't last more than a few years.    

While they struggled to find a permanent identity, their performance on the field lagged.  Generally finishing in the second division, they came out of nowhere to win the pennant in 1914 and defeat Connie Mack's vaunted Athletics in a sweep.  They had been in last place as late as July 4th, but the play of Rabbit Maranville, Johnny Evers, and pitchers Bill James and Dick Rudolph led the way.  There followed more than 3 decades of dismal records, before another miraculous rise to the top found them in the World Series again in 1948 behind the pitching of Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain.  They lost to Cleveland, but over the next 5 years rookies Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron gave fans hope. Not Boston fans though - in 1953 ownership moved the club to Milwaukee during spring training.  Aaron, Mathews, Spahn and others led the team to 2 pennants in 1957 and 1958.  In each year they faced the Yankees in the Series, and they managed to win in 1957.   Fortunes shifted in later years, and by the mid-60s they were finishing 5th or 6th regularly.  In 1966, ownership took the club south to Atlanta. 

​

For most of the club's first 25 years in Georgia, despite occasional heroics by Aaron and later Dale Murphy, the team was an afterthought, if not a joke (despite being christened 'America's Team' by Ted Turner's TBS Superstation in the 1980s).   Thanks to a wealth of young talent and top-flight management (on-field and off), the Braves won their division in 1991 and didn't finish out of the top spot again until 2006, by which time they were able to amass 5 pennants.  Despite this historic dominance, they were only able to win a single World Series, in 1995.  After a decade or so of middling finishes, the team again assembled an impressive array of young talent and division titles followed.          

​

The main purpose of this page is to illustrate those players, managers and coaches who have been the most prominent in the franchise's history.  Links below will take you to galleries highlighting each, by position.  Generally, an individual is included if he spent at least 2 full seasons (consecutive or cumulative) as a starter, relief pitcher, closer or manager. For coaches, I've generally used 5 years of service as the bar.  None of this is scientific, though, so there are exceptions.  Where possible and practical, I used pictures of actual baseball cards because that it is the medium through which I, and I suppose many others, first discovered the game. Where necessary, I designed my own images.  Images of actual baseball cards were obtained at the Card Cyber Museum, and for my own designs I used photos found at host of different sites, but none moreso than the wonderful forum at Out of the Park Developments.  

I claim no rights to, or ownership of, any of the photographic images I've used on these pages.   You are welcome to use them yourself.  All I ask is that that if you use any of my personal creations, you give credit to this site.