Mr. Book just finished The Franchise: Atlanta Braves, by Mark Bowman.

This is the fourth book in The Franchise series that I have read in the last two years. I’ve found the quality of the series has  been inconsistent. Mr. Book gave the Yankees’ version in C, followed by an A for the Red Sox version (despite his life-long love of the Yankees and lack thereof for the Red Sox), while the Cubs got a B+.

The book contains 42 chapters, each about a player, a front office executive or manager, a team or an event.

There was a clear error found early in the book. When talking about the John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander, the author claimed that Smoltz was moved up a level since, under the rules of the day, if a minor leaguer was traded for a major leaguer, the minor leaguer had to be promoted a level for the remainder of the season. I was unaware of the existence of that rule. As it turns out the reason for me not knowing about it was it did not exist. For example, less than two weeks before the Smoltz trade, the Indians traded Steve Carlton to the Twins for minor leaguer Jeff Perry. Perry was in Double-A at the time of the trade, stayed in Double-A for the Indians and never again reached Triple-A before his professional career ended the next season. The day before that, the White Sox traded minor leaguer Bryce Hulstrom to the Cardinals for major league pitcher Dave LaPoint. Hulstrom went from the White Sox A-ball team to the Cardinals’ A-ball team and never pitched a game in his life above that level.

But, despite that major error, that was the only one that I found in the book. The book passed every single random fact check that I threw at it, thus leading to the conclusion that it was just an isolated incident.

Among the top chapters in the book were those on Dale Murphy, Greg Maddux, Eddie Mathews and Alex Anthopoulos.

There are some good tidbits throughout the book, such as John Schuerholz had originally declined the Braves offer to become their GM, before he called back saying he had made a mistake. The team was ready to fire Brian Snitker after the 2017 season ended, but his job was saved by GM John Coppolella’s ban for international signing infractions.

This was a very enjoyable book, which is why I give it a B+. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a B+ equates to 4 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.

Mr. Book originally finished reading this on June 16, 2024.