The sub-title is A Lifetime of Braves Baseball, and it is written by Pete Van Wieren, with Jack Wilkinson.

True Braves baseball fans will recognize Van Wieren’s name. He was a Braves’ announcer on radio and television from 1976 to 2008.

First off, that’s a lot of Braves’ games. A lot of wins, 14 straight division championships, and some heartbreaking losses.

The book is about Van Wieren, his life, his biography, but most of his life was connected with the Braves, and that’s when he’s at his best, talking about big games and, even better, about what went on behind the scenes that you saw on TV. More than strikes and balls, the book takes a few key moments in Brave history and tells us more.

That is why this book is a good read.

Part Of The Job

One of the most interesting anecdotes of the entire book was one of the first ones given by Van Wieren.

In 1977, Dave Bristol managed the Braves, but after an OK start Atlanta lost 16 straight games. Bristol wasn’t fired because of it, but he was given a leave of absence. So Bristol asked Van Wieren to be a “look-out” for him, for he wanted to leave the team hotel unseen by any other Braves’ employees.

That didn’t seem to be a problem, until Van Wieren noticed second baseman Rod Gilbreath almost directly in Bristol’s planned path. Van Wieren had to stop Bristol in his tracks until Gilbreath moved on.

To most, this isn’t an incident that will be forever remembered. But because Gilbreath is a native of Laurel, it hooked local old-timers like me to read more.

He Knew 'Em All

Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Greg Maddux, Bobby Cox, Leo Mazzone, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Ernie Johnson, Mark Lemke, Skip Carey, John Rocker – turn to any page in the book and there will be a story involving some of these Braves, or Braves’ announcers.

There are baseball stories, radio stories and TV stories. There are Ted Turner stories, and there are business stories, all relating to the Braves.

Van Wieren admits that when he and Caray were taken off TV games, he didn’t like it. But when the uproar from Braves’ fans caused TBS to put them back on television, it became a season of triumph.

Sometimes I wanted to skip over some of the play-by-play to get to stories I had never heard, but understand that the game action served as background to anecdotes I didn’t know.

Of Mikes and Men is not a long book. All totaled, it takes only a few hours to read.

If you don’t like the Braves, if you don’t like baseball, don’t buy it.

But for people who couldn’t get enough of the Braves over the years, it’s an interesting read.