The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 53

SPORTS Sunday, Sept. 15, 1996 E9, The Atlanta Journal The Atlanta Constitution GOODBYE ATLANTA-FULTON COUNTY STADIUM DATES rn 0 REMEMBER a 'It was the key that turned the lock that brought major league sports to the South.1 A Compiled by Tim Tucker i 1 --4 i Si (-1 i imifmi 1 V- Tommie Aaron i i ft 1965 FILE PHOTOS Start to finish: Built in 5 1 weeks to attract the Braves and an NFL franchise, the stadium was little more than a foundation in August 1964 (far left). ''A 1 11 April 9: Tommie Aaron not brother Hank hits the first homer at the stadium as the Milwaukee Braves beat the Detroit Tigers 6-3 in an exhibition game. Fo df dreams cra sffyi core 1966 Final homestand vs. Houston f4r -'V? Tickets- Time Day 1 Tuesday 7:40 p.m.

Wednesday 1:10 p.m. vs. Montreal Thursday 7:40 p.m. 7:40 p.m. Friday April 12: The Pirates beat the Braves 3-2 in 13 Innings in the first regular-season game.

Future Hall of Famer Willie Stargell homers in the 1 3th off Braves starter Tony Cloninger, catcher Joe Torre homers twice for Atlanta. April 29: Hank Aaron hits his first home run in Atlanta, career homer No. 405, off Houston pitcher Carroll Sembera. Aug. 9: A sellout crowd watches a duel between -Atlanta's Denny Lemaster and Los Angeles' Sandy Koufax.

Lemaster pitches no-hit ball for seven innings, strikes out 16 and wins 2-1 on Eddie Mathews' ninth-inning homer off Koufax. Saturday 7:10 p.m. singles only Sept. 22 1:10 p.m. singles only.1 Sept.

23 7:40 p.m. I I 1 I JT ii 1 VS r. 1 1968 4 1 sf 1 July 14: Aaron hits his 500th career home run, off San Francisco's Mike McCormick. 1969 Sept 30: A crowd of 46,357 erupts into wild celebration ft. after the Braves clinch the, l.i NLWest 1" ft '1 title by beating the Reds 3-2 behind knuckle- ri cr 1 0 bailers Phil Niekro, who got his 23rd Phil Niekro itmb Jh uJfer i By Jack Wilkinson STAFF WRITER Henry Aaron slept here.

Jim Leyland wept here. The Fab Four played here, both of them. Sid slid. Knucksie fluttered. Fourth of July fireworks exploded at 4 a.m.

July 5. And 11 months ago, Tom Glavine spotted his circle change, David Justice put his wallop where his mouth was and Atlanta, at last, stood atop the sporting world. It all happened on the same patch of land in Summerhill where Ivan Allen, then mayor of Atlanta, stood in 1963 and heard Charlie Finley say, in effect, "If you build it, they will come." Allen built Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium right there and they came, all right. Not Finley's A's. The Braves, who migrated south from Milwaukee in '66, have drawn nearly 45 million customers and won the 1995 World Series.

Now, like its shape and Pascual Perez, the stadium has come full circle. After the Late Unpleasantness of the 1970s and late '80s, Atlanta-Fulton County is abuzz again. Fans have something to cheer besides the Macarena Inning. Not for long, though. On Monday, Sept.

23, the Braves will play Montreal in the last regular-season game scheduled for Atlanta-Fulton County. The last game, period, will come sometime in October during the postseason. Then they'll turn out the lights, the party over after 31 big-league seasons and scheduled to resume next April in the brand-new, reconfigured, $250 million Olympic stadium across the street. Once the Braves are safely ensconced there, the demolition of Atlanta-Fulton County will begin. The stadium that caught fire in '93 will be knocked down.

Eventually, they'll pave what Henry Aaron and many others call paradise and put up a parking lot. "I'm going to feel very sad," said Aaron, who hit 190 of his 755 career homers in the stadium. On April 8, 1974, he lined No. 715 here to surpass Babe Ruth as baseball's all-time home run king and trigger the stadium's loudest roar since the Beatles played it in 1965. No.

715 also ended an ordeal that sometimes found Aaron sleeping at the ballpark to alleviate the pressure and avoid the hate-mongers. "I've got more close ties to it than anybody," said Aaron. "It's going to be a sad moment when that ballpark is torn down." Knucksie understands. "Just putting an Atlanta Braves uniform on in that clubhouse was as special as anything could get," said Phil Niekro, the MARLENE KARAS Staff Top of the mountain: The '95 World Series title has joined a pile of stadium memories. win, andHoyt Wilhelm, who got the save.

Oct 4: In the first postseason game in Atlanta, the Mets and Tom Seaver beat the Braves 9-5 to take a 1-0 lead In the first-ever National League Championship Series. (The Miracle Mets go on to sweep the series 3-0.) Braves through the years 197! xts2 promotional lunacy that accompanied Ted Turner's purchase of the ballclub in 1976. During one game, a clubhouse attendant advised the Braves contestants for a postgame wet Tr shirt contest were changing in a room off the stadium tunnel. Several players, one head atop the other, spent the eighth inning peeking through a crack in the, door at the eventual winner, a preacher's daughter. After the contest, the players went back inside for a second look.

At least until Cito Gaston tripped over a barbell, prompting a round of shrieking not heard in the stadium until 1982. That season, under new manager Torre, the Braves won their first 13 games and second NL West crown but were swept again, this time by St. Louis. By 1985, though, Atlanta was abysmal again and remained so through 1990. There was little to cheer save the sustained excellence of Dale Murphy, the NL MVP in 1982-83, and pitcher Rick Camp's surreal, two-out, 18th-inning homer on July 4, 1985.

I That sent the game already twice halted by rain delays of more than two hours into the 19th before the Mets finally won 16-13 at 3:55 a.m. on the 5th. When the fireworks began at 4:05 a.m., one startled Summerhill resident awoke and thought the city was under attack. -1 As recently as 1990, Atlanta- Fulton County wasn't the place to-be. At Fan Appreciation Day that year, a Dodger beat writer sitting in the press box spied the small crowd.

Figuring he could win one of the club's giveaways, he went downstairs and bought a ticket. He won a dozen roses. Tom Glavine still recalls the night the light went thump in 'l Georgia. "All you hear is a big crash," said the pitcher, a mainstay of the Fab Four starting rotation. "One of the lights down in right field had fallen down into, the stands.

Of course, no one wasa1 here so no one got hurt." Last October, Glavine stood in1 his clubhouse, clutching his World Series MVP trophy. So much had transpired since 1991, when the miraculous worst-to-' first Braves won Atlanta's first NL pennant. Since '92, when Francisco Cabrera's dramatic pinch single scored Sid Bream, delivered another pennant and reduced Pittsburgh manager Jinvi Leyland to tears. 'J That's how some now view the final days of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Through tears, j.

Murphy prefers a more clear- eyed memory. Speaking for he said, "It was a fun place to play. The ball carried great. Good light, could always see the ball. 'r It's always been a great place to hit." It was that, and so much more." "It was the key that turned the lock that brought major league sports to the South," said Ivan Allen.

"And Atlanta was the spot 1 that was ready for it." Year Record Finish Manager Attendance 1966 85-77 5th Bobby Bragan (52-59) 1.539,801 Billy Hitchcock (33-18) 1967 77-85 7th Billy Hitchcock (77-82) 1.389.222 Ken Silvestri (0-3) 1968 81-81 5th Luman Harris 1,126,540 1969 93-69 1st Luman Harris 1,458,320 1970 76-86 5th Luman Harris 1,078,848 1971 82-80 3th Luman Harris 1,006,320 1972 70-84 4th Luman Harris (47-57) 752.973 Eddie Matthews (23-27) 1973 76-85 5th Eddie Matthews 800,655 1974 88-74 3rd Eddie Matthews (50-49) 981,085 Clyde King (38-25) 1975 67-94 5th Clyde King (58-76) 534,672 Connie Ryan (9-18) 1976 70-92 6th Dave Bristol 818,179 T977 61-101 6th Dave Bristol (61-100) 872,464 Ted Turner (0-1) 1978 69-93 6th Bobby Cox 904,494 1979 66-94 6th Bobby Cox 769,465 1980 81-80 4th Bobby Cox 1,048,411 1981 50-56 4th Bobby Cox 535,418 1982 89-73 1st Joe Torre 1,801,985 1983 88-74 2nd Joe Torre 2,119,935 1984 80-82 2nd Joe Torre 1,724,892 1985 66-96 5th Eddie Haas (50-71) 1,350,137 Bobby Wine (1 6-25) 1986 72-89 6th Chuck Tanner 1,387,181 1987 69-92 Sth Chuck Tanner 1,217,402 1988 54-106 6th Chuck Tanner (12-27) 848.089 Russ Nixon (42-79) 1989 63-97 6th Russ Nixon 984,930 1990 65-97 6th Russ Nixon (25-40) 980,129 Bobby Cox (40-57) 1991 94-68 1st Bobby Cox 2,140,217 1992 98-64 1st Bobby Cox 3,077,400 1993 104-58 1st Bobby Cox 3,884,720 1994 68-46 2nd Bobby Cox 2,539,240 1995 90-54 1st Bobby Cox 2,561,831 Hank Aaron April 27: Aaron hits his 600th homer, off the Giants' Gaylord Perry. Sept 10: Rookie catcher Earl Williams homers into the upper deck, the fourth (and last) player to do so. (The others: Cubs' Willie Smith and Giants' Willie McCovey in 1 969; Aaron in 1970.) at that afternoon's welcoming parade. The Opening Night pitcher? Tony Cloninger, who had won 24 games in 1965 in Milwaukee. The first pitch thrown in Atlanta? A ball.

"It was a very beautiful ballpark," said Cloninger, a native of Kings Mountain, N.C., and now a coach with the New York Yankees. "And me being from North Carolina and having the opportunity to pitch the first game in the South, I was very excited about it." He was not thrilled about pitching 13 innings, not after having held out during spring training to get a $10,000 raise. "I hoped to go nine innings," said Cloninger, who had pitched only six innings in spring training. "I went 13, got beat. The home run Stargell hit off me, I cracked his bat." In the top of the 13th, Willie Stargell struck a two-run homer.

In the bottom half, Joe Torre, Atlanta's catcher and Cloninger's roommate, hit his second of the night. Atlanta lost 3-2. "That was kind of the beginning of the end for me, right after the next start," said Cloninger. "My shoulder was so sore from pitching 13 innings I had to muscle up. I didn't have my fastball, got out of whack and into bad habits.

Got my mechanics screwed up." Just 14-11 in '66, Cloninger missed nearly all of '67 with histoplasmosis. He was traded in 1968. At least he was spared the 70s here. Atlanta won the inaugural NL West title in 1969 but was swept in the NLCS by the New York Mets. From 1972-81, the Braves entered the Dark Ages.

They had just one winning season and the stadium, by then renamed Atlanta-Fulton County, had few shining moments: Aaron's 715th, Niekro's no-hittcr in '73, the end of Pete Rose's NL-record 44-game hitting 8treakin'78. Fans were scarce, despite the 1972 July 25: Stadium plays host to the All-Star Game for the only time, and the NL beats the AL4-3in 10 innings. Aaron homers. Sept 20: The Braves have their biggest inning since 1900: 13 runs in the second against Houston, (They haven't had such an inning since.) 1 1973 knuckleballer who won 318 games from 1964-87, 266 as an Atlanta Brave. "I'm probably still a sentimentalist like a lot of people are.

The stadium should still be there, to be used for something. But it's going to go." "Sure I'll miss it," said Allen, 85. "But look what we've replaced it with. You simply can't have two stadiums sitting out there. And you're sure not going to tear down a $250 million stadium for an $18 million job.

And the new one is magnificent." And the old one has served its civic purpose admirably. "There's no better way in the world to get in the newspapers and on television, to be a major league town, than a major league baseball and July 21: Aaron hits his 700th homer, off the Phillies' Ken Brett. Aug. Niekro pitches I no-hitter In a 9-0 win over San Diego, the first no-hitter by an Atlanta Brave. Sept 29: Sealing the stadium's reputation as "the Launching Pad," the Braves become the first team to have three players with 40 or more homers! Divey Johnson.

football team," said Allen. "That was our ambition. We had to build a coliseum to do it." Finished in just 51 weeks to entice the Braves and an NFL expansion franchise, what was initially called Atlanta Stadium was one of the first of the multipurpose, circular stadiums of the '60s and 70a. When legal problems prevented the Braves from leaving Milwaukee in 1965, the minor league Atlanta Crackers christened the stadium. The Braves finally came in '66.

An awful infield got even worse in September, when the Falcons arrived. On Tuesday evening, April 1 2, 1966, 50,671 fans watched the Braves play Pittsburgh. Many were among the crowd of 150,000 thl-.