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October is a beautiful month. The cool crisp days, the changing colors of the leaves, and for sports enthusiasts,...playoff baseball. When it comes to the playoffs, you could usually count on two things, the Yankees and the Braves. Although neither team tends to stick around very long once the games begin, you could always count on both of these teams being there come playoff time. This year however there is a changing of the guard. When the games begin, the Atlanta Braves will be watching on the sidelines like the rest of us. No Ted Turner, no Tomahawk Chops to annoy you, and no early exit for the Braves in the first round of the playoffs. This is really a good thing. For almost two decades now, Brave fans have watched their team tear through the regular season, running away with the divison, and winning about 12 titles in a row. This is quite a record and would no doubt stand up there with great sport achievements if it weren't for the fact that except for one year, the Braves have bombed out in the playoffs. Year in, year out, Brave baseball fans have watched their team lose in the early rounds of the playoffs, and have lived with the title of the 'Best Regular Season Team in Baseball'. Sadly, like the Vikings and Bills of the NFL, who each went to the Super Bown four times without a championship, the greatness of the achievements will be lost amidst the fact that when it came to the big dance, they couldn't get it done. It's really hard for one to fathom how a team like the Braves with great talent year in and year out could not manage to win more than one championship during a long, long run. Even allowing for the unexpected 'hot team' to knock you out every once in a while, you would figure that you would have to win a few along the way. But one? It's one of those rare freak sports things like the National League beating the American Leauge in the All Star game 17 out of 18 games or something like that. The difference in talent between the leagues isn't that great to explain how something like that can occur. No, there's something going on here that defies explanation. For many years, Red Sox fans lived with the 'Curse of the Bambino' in which they believed they would never win a championship because they traded away Babe Ruth to the dreaded Yankees. This 'curse' seemed all too real for Red Sox fans until finally in 2004 they came back from 3 games down to the Yankees and beat them 4 straight and went on to win the World Series. This turn of events put an end to 'the curse' forever. Cubs fans also feel cursed and for them it lives on. It again reared it's ugly head in the 2004 Playoff's when a fan in left field reached out and snatched a foul ball and possibly a trip to the series away from the Cubs. Wooh to that fan! Whether there are some supernatural events going on here, or just bad.bad luck, it will be strange not seeing the Braves in the playoffs this year. But Brave fans need to look at it on the brightside; no agonizing this year about which upstart team will knock them out. No wondering whether they'll get through the first round. No, this year they'll be none of that. Now they can sit back with the rest of us and watch the best team money can buy make an early exit. Here's hoping. Bill Thomas lives and works in Seattle, Wa. He is actively engaged in E-Commerce and Internet Marketing. His current websites are--Create Lifetime Residual Income and Financial Freedom on $10 a Month
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