New Locations for Braves' World

We've recently moved our outlets for updates and information to the following web sites:

1. For Buffalo Braves' related news go to: Buffalo, Home of the Braves
2. For newsworthy items on Buffalo and Western New York Sports: Buffalo Nation
3. To order the book Buffalo, Home of the Braves

This site still includes archived articles and photos, but the new sites enable us to broaden our audience and related discussions about Buffalo sports. Please contact us with any questions or comments.

Chris Wendel
SunBear Press

Today’s NBA reflects the speed and athleticism of Randy Smith

By Tim Wendel

Of course, height is often paramount in basketball. As the NBA Finals get ready to tip, much of the discussion has been about the front lines. Andrew Bynum’s knee. Kendrick Perkins’ technical fouls. Phil Jackson calling out Kevin Garnett.

But the series could turn on another crucial element that Buffalo Braves fans know all so well – speed.

Today is the one-year anniversary of Randy Smith’s death. He was the local star who often transformed the game on the fly.

“Randy Smith was the perfect physical specimen,” Van Miller, the team’s legendary play-by-play man, told us during the writing of Buffalo, Home of the Braves. “There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the guy. … Randy was so quick that he could guard anybody.”

Or beat anybody else down the court, even when dribbling the ball.

NBA insiders know how valuable speed can be. Rajon Rondo was only a pup when the Celtics won the championship in 1998. Now he has matured into the team’s court leader due, in large part, to his ability to fly down the floor.

In a few weeks, the NBA draft will be held and Kentucky’s John Wall is expected to be the top choice overall. He’s not a big man, either. But Wall also has the ability to run the floor, too.

Both of them are following in Randy Smith’s footsteps.

A Banner Request for the New Year

by Tim Wendel
It was downright heartening to see the Sabres come back against Pittsburgh the other night. Not only did they take down "Sid the Kid" and those annoying Penguins, but they rolled back the clock, so to speak. The victory reminded me of an era when Buffalo teams were offensive juggernauts. When the Braves were a contender in the mid-1979s, the rap against them was their often-lackluster defense.

In fact, that’s the major lesson coach Jack Ramsay took away from his stint in Western New York.
“Sometimes you have to be able to stop the other team,” he told me decades later when I was putting together Buffalo, Home of the Braves.

To that end, Doctor Jack went looking for a new team with tall timber underneath and he found it in Portland, where he and Bill Walton won a title together.

That’s all well and good, but there’s also something to be said for being able to score. In watching the Bill stumble to the end of another dismal season I grew nostalgic for the old days when they could put up points almost as quickly as the old Braves. One could argue that the Bills of the 1970's played defense about as well as the Braves did, too. Still, they had playmakers on offense and continued to rack up points pretty much until this current crop came along, which barely put up three points against Atlanta.

When I think about the Braves in their heyday, it’s difficult to differentiate them from the Bills and the Sabres because every team in town could score, seeming at will. You could see Bob McAdoo & Co. put up a bushel load one night and come back to witness the French Connection & Co. do pretty much the same thing the next at that grand old barn of a building called the Aud. OK, the Braves, Bill and Sabres didn’t bring home any titles during those epic runs. But, all in all, it sure was a lot more fun to watch.

Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for helping make Buffalo, Home of the Braves a reality. Now let’s get a banner to that team raised at HSBC.

Remembering Randy

by Tim Wendel

Some players only see the world through a prism of their own statistics and accomplishments. Others have no choice but to be a part of team – to be a spokesman for something larger than themselves.

That’s how it was with Randy Smith, who died unexpectedly last night of a heart attack. He was the spokesman for the old Buffalo Braves. He not only realized that but came to embrace that role.

“Sometimes I felt like I was the last of the Mohicans,” Smith told me during the writing of Buffalo, Home of the Braves.

“But I was the guy who was there pretty much from the beginning to the end. I guess you could say I became the institutional memory of that team.”

Nobody loved the Braves and nobody loved Buffalo more than Smith. After starring as a soccer player at Buffalo State, the basketball Braves drafted him in the seventh round of 1971 draft. After working on his jump shot and then thrilling fans with his two-handed slam dunks in the preseason, he surprisingly made the NBA team.

From there he continued to raise his game until he became an All-Star. Randy came off the bench to score 27 points in the 1978 NBA All-Star Game (the Braves’ last year in Buffalo) and took home the MVP award. He played 12 seasons in the NBA – a record 906 games – and never missed a game.

After his playing days were more, Randy eventually became the executive host at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn. Sometimes when I’d call, trying to sort out something for the book, he couldn’t talk right away. “Got some big clients in town,” he’d say. “Try me back.”
But when the high-rollers had gone home, Randy liked nothing more than to talk about the Braves and the old days with Dr. Jack Ramsay, Ernie D. and his good friend Bob McAdoo.

“He was the one who remembered all of our stories,” McAdoo says. “He was the best of the Braves.”

Jerry Sullivan on new Braves book

Buffalo News sportswriter had a great column on the Braves’ anthology: “Buffalo, Home of the Braves” this morning. He spoke with Tim yesterday, and was it was nice to have the column published before next week’s book signing and Jerry’s well deserved Florida vacation.
We heard from a lot of Braves’ fans today, many transplanted to other parts of the country but still with a strong affinity to Western New York and the Buffalo Braves, just like us. At day’s end we’re ending up as the number two sports story, what’s #1? The west wall of the Aud that came crumbling down as its demolition winds down.

Making of the Book, Part Four

There is solace in knowing that the files for the book “Buffalo, Home of the Braves” are now safely in the hands of our printer Village Press here in Michigan. They have given us a 3-4 week timeline before we have the now 216 page coffee table style book in hand, and copies are available to directly ship off to pre-orders.

We’re feeling solid about having an initial book release in May with a ceremony/book signing in Buffalo. There were obvious lessons learned through this process, but we also feel good that we refused to compromise quality and the vision of producing a high-quality once in a lifetime coffee table style book.

The numerous delays and postponed release dates have been a source of frustration. A month or so ago, I emailed those dedicated fans that had preordered the book, some more than a year ago. After explaining how much longer the process was taking, almost everyone responded that they could wait a bit longer.

Painstaking were the endless edits of the manuscripts that had to be shifted through for grammatical and historical corrections. Thanks to Mitch Gerber and Eric Brady for helping us out, pointing out obvious errors that were quickly corrected. I also had an eleventh hour conversation with long-time WKBW TV sports anchor, which provided additional information about the team’s early genesis.
So stay tuned in the few days for frequent updates and more importantly, an actual book.

30 Years Later: Bills Mimic Braves

by Tim Wendel

Beginning of a new era or the beginning of the end? That’s where another Buffalo sports franchise finds itself as the Bills head north for a “home game” against the Miami Dolphins in Toronto this weekend.

Thirty years ago, the Buffalo Braves were in a remarkably similar situation. The team had played an increasing number of “home games” in Toronto. In essence, they planted the seeds for NBA to expand there in 1995 with the Raptors.

The parallels between the old Braves and the current Bills go well beyond traveling north in an effort to balance the books, though. The Braves proved that Toronto, despite being first and foremost a hockey town, could support an NBA franchise. The Bills are doing the same by playing there. This weekend’s contest is part of an agreement in which the Bills will play one regular-season game in Toronto each season over the next five years. Rather conveniently that situation dovetails into the Bills’ lease expiring in 2013.

As my friend Budd Bailey points out, the Bills have become the NFL’s top candidate to move to another city. The NFL franchise would be worth $250 million or more in someplace like Toronto or Los Angeles.

More importantly, though, Bills owner Ralph Wilson has no heir apparent to take over his team. That side of the equation became more blurred with the recent death of Toronto media mogul Ted Rogers, the guy who lured the Bills north of the border.

Back in the 1970s, Braves owner Paul Snyder was desperate for an heir apparent, too. So desperate that he eventually turned to ex-Kentucky Colonels owner John Y. Brown. At first, Brown was brought in to help balance the books. But he soon took over the club, trading away such stars as Bob McAdoo and Moses Malone, and eventually swapping the entire franchise for the Boston Celtics. In the aftermath, Western New York was left without a team and a whole bunch of rich guys got even richer.

Pinch me, please, because I see the same nightmare beginning to unfold again with the Bills.

Making of the Book, Part 3

By Chris Wendel
January ’08: The narrative is written and we have some decent material to work with. Tim has interviewed key players, Dr. Jack Ramsay, and Paul Snyder all of which have no problem with going back and talking about the Braves. In fact we have the sense that the players and Ramsay are excited to talk about the Braves brief success in the mid 70’s.

Even with a great narrative and memorabilia, the book is lacking the visual detail it deserves. Several devout Buffalo fans I have competed with on eBay want to know if they could let me use items from their Braves collection. Another tells me the whereabouts of Robert L. Smith the former official photographer of the Bills and Braves.

After several emails and phone calls, I make the trek from Michigan to Orchard Park and sit down with Smith. We talk over morning coffee; we develop trust and a good comfort level. Two hours later we have an agreement to use photos I’ve yet to actually see.

I get to tour his basement which is the best photographic shrine to Buffalo sports I’ll ever see. There are a few Braves pictures and predictably the Bills are the focus (Smith was the Bills photographer from their 1960 inception to 2004). I’m enamored with the shots from the AFL title teams that included Jack Kemp, Butch Byrd, and Billy Shaw. The best parts are Bob’s background stories on each photo he shows me

My 2-3 hours with Smith leave me appreciating his tremendous talent and longevity. Bob (as I now feel I can call him) will take the next few days and see what he has to offer up from his Braves archives and send them to me in a few days to Michigan.

February ’08: I’m now home in Michigan. After negotiating an equitable fee, the wide selection of photos arrives. They are better than advertised and the process of putting out a high quality book is now assured. It’s a painstaking and time consuming process but we’ve now turned a major corner.

Old School Weekend Warrior

By Tim Wendel

Autumn means colorful foliage to some, the start of the football season to others. But what I wax nostalgic about during this time of year is what we used to call our “Buffalo Sports Weekends.”

From 1974 to 1978, I was an undergraduate at Syracuse University. The football team was about as good as it is now. In other words, lousy. But that didn’t stop us from religiously cheering on the Orange Saturday afternoons. This was before the Carrier Dome went up, so we hunkered down in Archbold Stadium, which bore a striking resemblance to the old Rockpile.

Several times each fall, we’d go right from the SU game and drive to Buffalo in time to catch the Braves at the Aud. Of course, it was early in a new NBA season and, at least in 1974-75-76, the sky seemed the limit for a squad with Bob McAdoo (pictured above), Randy Smith, Ernie DiGregorio on the floor and Jack Ramsay calling the shots.

I’ll admit that early on the Braves were a way to flesh out Buffalo Sports Weekends. Usually we’d go to the Bills game Sunday afternoon and finish things off with the Sabres, back at the Aud, Sunday nights. Then we’d race back down the Thruway in time for class Monday morning. I didn’t take the best of notes those days, but I was there. I made it to class.

But during those years, the Braves won me over. I loved watching them play and was crestfallen when they left town.

When I tell people about those days, hitting the Braves, Bills and Sabres in 24-plus hours, they think I’m crazy. “How’d you pull that off?” they ask. Indeed, it seems hard to believe now. But sometimes that’s how the best of times roll out. You don’t realize how special things were until decades later.

Let's go, Buffalo! Making of the Book Part 2,

by Chris Wendel

As I recollect the chronology of this book it dawns on me how long the process has taken and how many pilgrimages I have made to Buffalo. Recently someone asked me why I have dedicated so much time and effort into a book about the Braves.

You see I was a Sabres fan first growing up. Playing hockey from age eight to eighteen in Lockport (when it had a rink) put hockey at the forefront. Still I had good recollections of the Braves. I believe I first heard the cheer “Let’s go, Buffalo!” at a Braves game televised in 1970. Now my five year old says the same cheer in the same old cadence, when we drive past a field of bison on our regular trips to town. The years may pass but it has stayed with me.

July ’05: The Courier Express files have a limited number of Braves pictures; this is going to be a problem. What kind of coffee table book will it be without a large number of action photos? I start to search ebay for photos and memorabilia. Plenty of miscellaneous Topps cards, pennants, and Elton Brand throw back jerseys. One day I end up with a great video collection of Braves highlight films narrated by Van Miller.

Why not put the video into a CD that could be added to the book? I check with my contact with the NBA legal department who warns me to quell any video aspirations. The league is apparently quite protective of any of their video and the Braves intellectual property still belongs to the NBA, not the LA Clippers.

January ’06: Through my “real” job I run into a graphic design person here in Michigan who might be right for putting the book together. He has a strong affinity for sports and quickly shows an interest in what we are trying to do. He starts to appreciate the Braves despite the fact that he grew up in Saginaw and knows much more about hockey and the Tour de France then basketball.

March ’06: Another trip to Buffalo to file through Ranallo columns and past Courier articles. There are plenty of banner headlines highlighting a big Braves win, the amazing scoring exploits of Bob McAdoo, or a 17,000 night of attendance at the Aud.

I get some solid leads on former team photographers through two Braves fans who wonder why I’m always bidding against them for items. One asks; “What are you doing writing a book or something?”

The odyssey leading to the photographers is next.

The Making of the Book (Part 1 )

By Chris Wendel
Summer 2004: My brother Tim and I wax poetic about Phil Ranallo, the late, great columnist for the now defunct Buffalo Courier Express newspaper. Ranallo’s column “What’s New Harry” was a breakfast staple during our adolescent days growing up near Buffalo in Lockport, New York. I recall making the mad dash to the paper box on cold mornings, just to read the column while eating my morning cereal. Tim was fortunate to work with Phil at the Courier after college in the early 80’s. We wonder where the old columns are if they still exist at all.

November ’04: Tim informs me that old issues of the Courier exist in the archive section of a Buffalo library. I decide to take my first of what turns out to be many trips back to Buffalo to view old articles and microfilm of the Courier Express. I live in Michigan and use the trips to visit my parents in Lockport and look at the columns. Revisiting the Ranallo columns 25 years later is somewhat surreal. To my relief his writing stands up well over time and I still can’t stop reading them.

January ’05: I’m back in Buffalo collecting columns with the help of the library’s helpful staff. Looking at microfilm for a few hours causes serious eye strain but fortunately there are also plenty of old columns that someone literally cut out of the old paper and mounted on typing paper. After reading 50 or so columns and several conversations with Tim it is apparent that Phil has a soft spot in his heart for the Braves. We decide that the Braves have been placed on a shelf long enough and their story that needs to be retold.

April ’05: Another trip to Buffalo and more research. Tim is an accomplished writer and I enjoy the grunt work of finding pictures and assembling the Ranallo columns. The format is unclear until I talk with Mike Romstadt of Village Press here in Michigan. The debate between us will continue for months. Mike thinks that this has the makings of a high quality coffee table style book that should be printed in a limited quantity and sold for a premium price. I run this scenario past several people I know and trust. Two camps quickly develop; the first includes those who think that there likely is a market out there (that already pays hundreds for decent game tickets) for a high quality book about the Braves. The second consists of folks who know little or Buffalo or sports and think that I’m nuts.

What we’re lacking is pictures. Finding the photos is a story we will save for the next installment.

Before Krzyzewski; Duke (and Braves) were better known for Jack Marin

Still musing about globalization and sports regionalization as the Summer Games begin in China. The U.S. men’s basketball team arrived in Beijing to crowds chanting for Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony.

“The Chinese people love basketball,” head coach Mike Krzyzewski said, “and we’re excited we’re playing the first game against China.”

My prediction? This year’s Team USA brings the gold back to America, probably in convincing fashion.

One of the assistant coaches Krzyzewski has along for the Olympic carpet ride is Syracuse University coach Jim Boeheim.

Boeheim was named the Orange’s coach my sophomore year at SU. A few years later, when I was the sports columnist for the local morning paper, I always appreciated Boeheim’s class. Sure, he could be sarcastic and didn’t suffer fools gladly. But he always returned my phone calls and made time to answer the media.

Since such meager beginnings, he’s gone on to a 771-278 record and was selected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005. But way back when, when Boeheim first took over in the Salt City, the SU program was only slightly better than Niagara, Canisius and St. Bonaventure in terms of national notoriety. The difference? Boeheim and Syracuse became charter members in the Big East conference, which ESPN soon made into a household word.

Also, consider how much things have improved for the NBA since the mid-1970s when Boeheim took over at his alma mater. In several cities besides Buffalo, the league was hanging on by its fingernails. Ironically, the Braves were one of the first teams to hype individuals instead of team. Guys like Bob McAdoo, Randy Smith and Dr. Jack Ramsay started to become known nationally while the team was going down the tubes locally.

Sometimes life comes down to the company you keep. Wrong choices can haunt a team, a city, for a long, long time.

Snyder predated Sports' Regional Trend

Braves owner Paul Snyder was many things to many people -- team founder, consummate businessman, a guy who had little patience with players or coaches, a major reason why the team eventually left town. But he was certainly a visionary when it came to the regionalization of sports.

Early in his tenure, he wanted his Braves empire to extend from Toronto around the west end of Lake Ontario to Syracuse. Today, many sports teams are regional phenomenon. The Atlanta Braves are the team of the Southeast. The Dallas Cowboys are America's team, with a devout audience in Texas and Oklahoma. And when it comes to pro sports in Buffalo, things have come full circle.

Efforts are under way for the Toronto Raptors to play an exhibition game or two in Buffalo. Of course, the Bills are already slated to play games in Toronto and many predict that the NFL team will head north of the border for good when owner Ralph Wilson dies.

It's too bad that the Braves couldn't have hung on a few more seasons, or at least protected their territorial rights better. It wasn't that long ago that Snyder contended that Toronto fell under the shadow of his Braves empire. Such posturing fell apart when the Braves left town after the 1978 season and Buffalo city fathers didn't contest the move in court.

The irony of ironies is that the guys who grew up to own the Raptors attended Braves games back in the mid-1970s at the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Reportedly, that's where they first got the idea for an NBA team in Toronto.

Complaints about refs go way back

How much can a referee influence the course of events? Of course, that’s a big question being debated these days. Any Braves fan knows that how a game is called can have a lasting impact.

In Buffalo Home of the Braves, we detail the deciding Game 6 of the 1974 playoff series between the Braves and the Boston Celtics. With time running out, the score tied, Braves star Bob McAdoo was called for fouling Boston guard Jo Jo White.

To this day, McAdoo believes that it was a cheap call. So does former team owner Paul Snyder. So does Van Miller, the Braves’ play-by-play man. (In fact, hours after that game, Miller told Bill Mazur, his friend and fellow WNY announcing legend, as much.) But what Braves coach Jack Ramsay will always remember about the way officials Darrell Garretson, Mendy Rudolph and Manny Sokol conducted themselves that evening at the Aud was that they should have put a second or two back on the game clock. Of course, this was well before the days of checking the courtside monitor.

Even with one second left, the Braves could have taken the ball at mid-court and tried for a desperation play at the buzzer. “That’s what I wanted,” Ramsay told me years later.

“Just one chance. With the way, Mac was shooting the ball.”

The Celtics went on to win the NBA championship that season. The Braves would never really get close again.

Confusion still abounds with Celtics swap

by Tim Wendel, author of Buffalo Home of the Braves

Welcome back the 1980s, as the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics return to the NBA Finals. But Braves fans know that the “wayback machine” can lead to the 1970s. As much as we rooted against the Celtics in those classic playoff matches at the old Aud, the final injustice for the Braves was seeing the team swapped with the Celtics after the team’s final season in 1978. One reincarnation headed west to become the San Diego Clippers, while the new Celtics, headed by former Braves owner John Y. Brown, stayed in Boston and went on to greatness, thanks in large part to landing the draft rights for Larry Bird.

As I watched the Celtics oust the Detroit Pistons last night, I remembered an interview I did with Randy Smith for Buffalo, Home of the Braves. Smith was the guy caught in the middle of the most confusing team swap in sports history. Here’s how he remembers that bizarre period:

“Once John Young Brown got his hands on the team, Buffalo was the last place he wanted to have it play. He and I used to talk a lot. He’d tell me about the possibility of the team going to Dallas, San Diego, Kentucky -- it was inevitable that the team was going to leave the Buffalo area. Then I woke up one morning to hear that he had made a swap of entire teams.

“I was home in Buffalo. Somebody called me from the Braves’ office to tell me the news. … I started to get checks from the Boston Celtics for deferred payments, even though I was going west to play for this new team, the Clippers. I didn’t know where to expect my checks to come from, but, you know, you don’t care as long as they don’t bounce.”

Here's your chance; What made the Braves special?

After uncovering more classic Braves photos, the release of the book "Buffalo Home of the Braves" has been delayed until early this fall. Putting out a publication centering on professional basketball as summer approaches would be tough and there's still work to do. We made the decision to delay the release and do things right rather than sacrifice the quality of what is shaping up to be a true testimony to Buffalo's basketball history.

The respite gives us the quick opportunity to ask for your specific recollections of what it was like to attend a Braves game. Or you can weigh in to assess what role you believe the Braves played in the history of Buffalo history.

Did NBA basketball get a fair shake in Buffalo? Would the Braves have survived in the difficult economy of the 1980's ? What specific event made or broke the Braves fortune in Buffalo? What game stands out in your mind? Answer or comment on these topics or one of your own

Some accounts will be woven into the coffee table book that already includes great vintage photos, newspaper columns and Braves memorabilia. We'll open things up to you the fan until June 1st, 2008.

Just place your input in the comment section below or email: info@sunbearpress.com

USA Today, All-Time Clippers Team

The polls are now open to vote for the Los Angeles Clippers' all-time five. At first glance it seems a bit crazy but USA Today has the online poll going until April 10th.

Predictably Bob McAdoo and Randy Smith are the only Buffalo Braves included. Their Clipper competition for the starting five includes Ron Harper, Danny Manning, Elton Brand, World B. Free, Benoit Benjamin, Terry Cummings, Norm Nixon, and Loy Vaught.

At the time of this entry McAdoo is leading the field and rightfully so. Since the franchise moved out of western New York after its ten year run, the Braves abbreviated accomplishments surpass the Clippers' 30 years of mediocrity.

Smith (shown in a 1974 photo) is only fifth in the poll voting although he is the all-time franchise leader in six statistical categories. At this point he trails Clipper players Manning, Harper, and Brand.

I'm amazed how many tried and true NBA hoop fans still don't realize that Smith's record of 906 consecutive games, a streak which concluded on March 13, 1983 is second only to the all-time NBA "ironman" A.C. Green.

Maybe it's his generic sounding name or the era and town he played in but it's time to show the love and vote Randy to the top along side his friend and teammate McAdoo.