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.

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.

Russert best represented Buffalo

by Tim Wendel

Those of us who root for all things Buffalo lost one of our own with the passing of Tim Russert. I watched ESPN’s tribute to Russert and seeing him hold up Buffalo jersey after Buffalo jersey once again brought a smile to my face. Here was a guy who watched games at the old Rockpile as a kid, who knew the importance of cheering for the hometown teams – no matter what.

Even though Russert lived in Washington, D.C., where I’ve called home for almost 20 years, I didn’t really know him. But since XM Radio got off the ground, I’ve gotten to know his son, Luke. I’ve been a guest on “60/20,” the sports show Luke co-hosts with James Carville, and the son is a chip off the old block. An appreciation for all the Buffalo franchises has been handed down from father to son.

Since my brother, Chris, and I started this blog and word of BUFFALO, HOME OF THE BRAVES got out, we’ve heard from people from all over the country. The thing we all share is this affinity and appreciation for Buffalo sports – the Braves, the Sabres, the Bills.

Just before the Iowa caucuses last year, longtime political columnist Roger Simon was standing in the lobby of the Des Moines Marriott hotel, waiting for a cab that was never going to arrive. As time ticked down, Tim Russert came up, put a hand on Simon’s shoulder and said, “Hey, I’ve got a car. I’ll drive you.”

In a column Simon did for Politico this week, he explained that Russert “was not a creature of Washington. He was a kid from Buffalo, and it showed. People in Buffalo treat each other like neighbors, and that’s the way Tim treated people.”

Despite the economic hardship and tough times of recent decades, Buffalo fans still treat others like neighbors. We may have lost our proudest fan this week, but his passion and zest for life remain as an example for all of us.

Were the Buffalo Braves the canary in the Western New York mine shaft?

by Tim Wendel, author of Buffalo, Home of the Braves

Few thought so 30 years when the team switched franchises with the Boston Celtics before heading westward ho to become the Los Angeles Clippers. (The architect of that bizarre deal was a young lawyer named David Stern. But we’ll leave that twisted tale for another day.)

When the Braves left town, some civic leaders predicted that the NBA would be back in a decade or so. Seriously. They said that at the time. But one of the few guys who realized what this bait-and-switch really meant for the fans and the city was Phil Ranallo, the longtime columnist at The Buffalo Courier-Express.

I had the good fortune to sit next to Phil in the old C-E Sports Department in that paper’s last years of existence. He taught me about writing on deadline, how to get to real story and, most of all, how to have a sense of humor.

Phil nailed it when the Braves left town for good. He predicted that it would be a generation or more before the Niagara Frontier had another shot at a team of such stature. Back then we often debated the state of the sports world in late-night bull sessions at the paper. Several times Ranallo wondered aloud if the heyday of Buffalo had already come and gone. How with the economy suffering (this was the early 1980s) that it would difficult to hang on to remaining major-league franchises (The Bills, The Sabres).

Now some like to deride WNY as being behind the times. Unfortunately, when it comes to the impact of globalization, one could argue that Buffalo was cutting edge. It was one of first Rust Belt cities to be sold out by the politicians and see its jobs base flee overseas.

In Buffalo, Home of the Braves, we’re including several of Phil’s insightful takes on the team and the city. The man was ahead of his time and in some small measure our book is a tribute to him and an effort to bring his columns to a new generation of sports fans.