Our rivalry week round tables continue with a simple question. Who do you consider to be the Braves’ biggest rival?
Who do you consider to be the Braves’ biggest rival?
Scott: This is tough, and I really think it comes down to your age. I’ll go with the Phillies by a nose. The Nationals haven’t been around long enough for a deep hatred to form (for me, anyway) and the Mets are enough of a circus act that it’s hard for me to truly despise them. The only good thing about Philadelphia are the cheesesteaks.
Daniel H-K: With the way baseball scheduling works it has to be within the NL East. The Mets are too much of a joke to hate, the Marlins are just sort of there, and the Nationals have some likeable players like Scherzer, Soto, and Robles, as well as old friends in Kurt Suzuki and Anibal Sanchez. The Phillies on the other hand have a fanbase that isn’t exactly endearing, have a player that Atlanta fans despise in Bryce Harper, and has been good enough on the field to make tensions high in head to head matchups.
Ivan: It’s definitely the Phillies. It’d be interesting for someone who has the time to see which team was within five games of the Braves while that team and/or the Braves were within five games of first place, and tabulate it up across the course of the season. I’d guess that in the divisional era, the Phillies would be tops. (Seriously, someone do this.)
Doc: My first thought was the Phillies, but I realized my loath for them comes from my personal distaste for Philadelphia sports in general - so I hate the Phillies, but that’s my own rivalry. In the eyes of the team itself, however, I am convinced the only answer is the New York Metropolitans. Whenever I see them on the calendar, no matter how good either squad is, my blood pressure spikes a bit. There’s more at stake here than for regular games - what fan doesn’t want to crush the team whose fans obnoxiously chanted “Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy” at our best player for two decades? The Nationals have only been around for 15 years, and they were mired in irrelevance for the first half of that - and even when they were the Expos, they were that happy-go-lucky division rival who never seemed to ruffle the fanbase’s feathers, no matter how good they were. Meanwhile, the Marlins will always have Little Brother Syndrome. The Mets, though. Ugh. Gross.
AB: I know it’s not a team, but financial flexibility is the Braves’ main nemesis. The Phillies, Mets, Nationals, or the Dodgers aren’t an obstacle in the same way money is. Their window is wide open right now, but money might hold them back. This is a different reality from the Ted Turner days.
Kris: For me it will always be the Phillies. In fact, I was a bit of a Bryce Harper fan up until the minute he decided to sign with Philadelphia.
Dillon: Despite their handful of likeable players, I have always disliked the Nationals way more than the Phillies. Between the Walgreens logo, Baby Shark, Stephen Strasburg, and Dave Martinez, I can dig up enough distaste to override the respect I have for Max Scherzer and Juan Soto. The Nationals have become the class of the NL East over the past decade despite the Braves winning back-to-back division titles, and I hate them for it.
Brent: There are a handful of logical directions this could go. First off, the hateability factor for the Phillies is always high, bolstered by the signing of Bryce Harper. The Marlins and Nats have collected 3 World Series championships, all in years where the Braves won the NL East - that does not sit well with me. The Dodgers have been divisional and playoff adversaries, and the Giants and Braves, since 1966, are separated by a skinny 25 runs across 683 games. And yet, as I thought about this from all these different angles, I kept circling back to a single answer - the Mets. The Braves have faced the Mets twice in the NLCS, with the 2000 series being dramatically memorable, with John Rocker making headlines and everything ending on a walk-off walk. During Atlanta’s run of divisional titles, the Mets finished 2nd most frequently. Since ‘66, the Braves have outscored the Mets by less than 100 runs. In perhaps the greatest rivalry troll in sports history, Chipper Jones named his son Shea. We love to laugh about all the misfortune that befalls the Mets, but that’s because they’re our biggest rival. The Mets went to the World Series only five years ago, while the Phillies’ most recent winning season featured Raul Ibanez and Roy Halladay. We dismiss the Mets because we need to, because it’s important to kick your biggest rival when they’re down, lest they get back up again. This is a rivalry that transcends who’s good and where the hated players are right now. It’s cultural, historical, and it started before we were even in the same division, when the Miracle Mets, led by a Hall of Famer drafted by the Braves whose contract was voided due to an obscure rule, denied the ‘69 Braves from giving this city its first World Series berth.
Eric: I do feel like it is the Phillies but I do think that the Braves and their fans have a strong dislike of all of the teams in the division for various reasons...hat tip to Don Mattingly/Jose Urena for giving Braves fans a reasons to care about the Marlins at all given how bad they are. However, rivalry implies a certain amount of success which eliminates the Marlins and Mets for me even though it is fun to hate the Mets. The Nationals are pretty clearly the better team, but the history between the Braves and Phillies is much deeper. Plus, the Phillies signed Bryce Harper who is the National that Braves’ fans hated the most so Philly gets the nod from me.
Gaurav: Depends on the decade but if I had to choose - it would have to be the Phillies. With an all-time record of 1175-1286 (Go Braves!) this series has been extremely tight throughout the decades. Each had their own periods of absolute dominance - the Braves with the 90s and there’s no denying the talent on the Phillies between 2003 and 2012. It’s a highly competitive series with each team having long, sustained periods of great play.
Demetrius: I honestly can’t say who it could be. The Braves fanbase doesn’t seem to have another team’s fanbase to zero in on. Usually, it comes down to which team is directly in the way of Atlanta winning the division and/or whoever is the best team in the division at the time. Recently that’s been the Nationals, though there’s no real history behind that particular rivalry since the Nationals were a bit of mess in their first few years after moving from Canada. That leaves the Phillies and Mets. Like Eric says, the Phillies have Bryce Harper and Bryce Harper is seen as the boogeyman to a lot of Braves fans. Meanwhile, the Braves have a solid amount of competitive history with the Mets — I can’t be the only one who vividly remembers the 1999 NLCS and that brief period in the 2000s when the Mets became a very good team. Personally, I still can’t stand the Mets to this day but I don’t think the majority of Braves fans would agree with me there. So it’s honestly a mystery to me, and it’s probably the greatest mystery of all when it comes to the Braves.
Shawn: Absolutely the Phillies. They have the most unlikeable fanbase, have been right there with Braves for most of their playoff runs over the past 15 years, and seem to always have an ego that is not validated. Here recently, it always seems the Phillies want to be treated as one of the best teams when they simply are not. I always take pride in beating them the most, and here recently, burying their hopes.
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