Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta— and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports by Clayton Trutor

Reviewed by: Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta— and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports by Clayton Trutor Thomas Wolf Clayton Trutor. Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta— and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. 458 pp. Cloth, $34.95. In Loserville: How Professional Sports Remade Atlanta—and How Atlanta Remade Professional Sports Clayton Trutor offers a thorough and compelling study of Atlanta’s execution of a strategy to bring major league sports teams to the city in the mid-to- late 1960s. While Trutor’s comprehensive investigation and analysis tell the story of four different teams— the MLB Braves, the NFL Falcons, the NBA Hawks, and the NHL Flames—this review focuses primarily on the issues regarding the relocation of the Braves from Milwaukee to Atlanta. The Braves, of course, had already moved once—from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953, the first move by an MLB team from one city to another in fifty years. Especially in the early years, the Braves thrived in Milwaukee, and fans flocked to the ballpark. The Braves won the National League pennant in 1957 and 1958, powered by the hitting of Hank Aaron. The team led the league in [End Page 128] attendance six years in a row. In the early sixties, however, the team slumped, and attendance at games dropped by more than half. Braves owner Lou Perini decided to sell a majority interest in the team to a group of young investors in Chicago. Meanwhile in Atlanta, an alliance of politicians and business leaders— both white and Black— joined forces to bring a major league sports team to the city, either through expansion or relocation. The leader of that coalition was Ivan Allen, the recently elected mayor of Atlanta who had defeated segregationist Lester Maddox in Atlanta’s mayoral race in 1961. One of the goals of Allen and his cohorts was to promote Atlanta as a model city of the new South. Their slogan was “The City Too Busy to Hate.” They aimed to portray Atlanta as a haven of racial tolerance and economic prosperity. To attract a franchise, though, the city had to provide a venue for the new team, and building a suitable stadium was the next step in the plan. Trutor notes, “The primary benefits of cities investing in professional sports facilities come from the cultural prestige and source of common identity they lend to a metropolitan area” (51). Trutor details the issues involved in obtaining the funding for the stadium and deciding on a location. Ground was broken to construct Atlanta- Fulton County Stadium on April 15, 1964, while the city was still in the process of finding a team to occupy it. A year later a deal was struck to move the Milwaukee franchise to Atlanta. The city of Milwaukee was stunned that the team was being relocated, though the years of declining attendance and financial losses suffered by Perini might have been an indicator that a move was imminent, especially considering that the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants had pursued a similar strategy less than a decade earlier. Some players on the Braves— notably, Hank Aaron— had serious misgivings about being forced to relocate to Atlanta. Aaron expressed concern about his children being moved to a new school system. But Aaron’s concerns, not surprisingly, also reflected his trepidation about living and playing baseball in the South. “I lived in the South, and I don’t want to live there again,” Aaron told a reporter (84). Trutor describes the efforts made by civic leaders to convince Aaron and other skeptical players that Atlanta—the Atlanta of the mid- 1960s— was a hospitable place for African Americans. The Braves moved and played their first season in Atlanta in 1966. Public enthusiasm for the team was underwhelming. Fewer than three thousand season tickets were sold in anticipation of that first season (109), and although the roster was studded with stars like Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Rico Carty, Felipe Alou, and Joe Torre, the team finished a disappointing fifth in the National [End Page 129] League standings. Until the Braves won the NL West Division title in 1969, fan interest and attendance...

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