Atlanta Braves Top-Ten Franchise Managers– #3 Frank Selee
By Fred Owens
Atlanta Braves 1991 – Boston 1897
In 1991, the Atlanta Braves were in second place, one game back with four games left. Glavine, Avery, and Smoltz won the next three games putting the Braves up by two, and they went on to break Pittsburgh’s heart in the LCS.
After three years out of first place, Selee’s Bostons entered 1897, retooled and ready. Boston was a half up when Baltimore came to town to open a three game set.
Nichols won game one, but Ted Lewis lost game two. Game three was a slugfest, but when the dust settled, Boston was on top 19-10. They made quick work of Brooklyn in the next two games and brought the pennant back to Boston.
All Good Things
Selee shuffled the deck again before the 1898 season and led Boston to a 102-47-3 record and his fifth league championship. The team got older, and injuries piled up, but they still finished second with a 95-57-1 season in 1899.
Having learned nothing from their previous failures, players once again tried to create a league of their own. But by this time, the game had grown too big and costly for their league to have a chance. A year later, it was gone.
Selee managed Boston for two more seasons, but the owners were no longer open to spending the money need to keep restocking the team, and no formal minor league system existed as a pipeline to feed the club. The Bostons finished fourth in 1900, and fifth in 1901, and Selee was fired.
Atlanta Braves #4 Much Like Their #3
Summing up my post on Atlanta Braves skipper Brian Snitker, I quoted Snit saying his secret was being honest with his players. Selee’s SABR biography shows he felt much the same way.
"“I want them to be temperate and live properly. I do not believe that men who are engaged in such exhilarating exercise should be kept in strait jackets . . . but I expect them to be in condition to play. I do not want a man who cannot appreciate such treatment . . “ (Harold Kaese, The Boston Braves (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1948), 55-56.)"
In a Baseball Magazine article for 1911 quoted in his SABR biography, Selee said it’s all about having good people as well as good players.
"“It was my good fortune to be surrounded by a lot of good, clean fellows who got along finely together. To tell the truth, I would not have anyone on a team who was not congenial.”"
I think Brian Snitker and Frank Selee would get along well.