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The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball franchise based in Atlanta, Georgia. The team is a member of the East division of the National League (NL) in Major League Baseball (MLB). The Braves have played home games at Turner Field since 1997, and play spring training games in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In 2017, the team is to move to SunTrust Park, a new stadium complex in the Cumberland district of Cobb County just north of the I-285 bypass.
The "Braves" name, which was first used in 1912, originates from a term for a Native American warrior. They are nicknamed "the Bravos", and often referred to as "America's Team" in reference to the team's games being broadcast on the nationally available TBS from the 1970s until 2007, giving the team a nationwide fan base.
From 1991 to 2005 the Braves were one of the most successful franchises in baseball, winning division titles an unprecedented 14 consecutive times in that period (omitting the strike-shortened 1994 season in which there were no official division champions). The Braves won the NL West 1991–93 and the NL East 1995–2005, and they returned to the playoffs as the National League Wild Card in 2010. The Braves advanced to the World Series five times in the 1990s, winning the title in 1995. Since their debut in the National League in 1876, the franchise has won 16 divisional titles, 17 National League pennants, and three World Series championships—in 1914 as the Boston Braves, in 1957 as the Milwaukee Braves, and in 1995 in Atlanta. The Braves are the only Major League Baseball franchise to have won the World Series in three different home cities.
The club is one of the National League's two remaining charter franchises (the other being the Chicago Cubs) and was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings (not to be confused with the American League's Boston Red Sox). They are considered "the oldest continuously playing team in major North American sports." There is an argument as to which team is actually older, because, although the Cubs are a full season "older" (formed as the Chicago White Stockings in 1870), Chicago did not sponsor a White Stockings team for two seasons due to the Great Chicago Fire; therefore, the Braves have played more consecutive seasons.
After various name changes, the team eventually began operating as the Boston Braves, which lasted for most of the first half of the 20th century. Then, in 1953, the team moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and became the Milwaukee Braves, followed by the final move to Atlanta in 1966.
- Atlanta Braves (1966–present)
- Milwaukee Braves (1953–1965)
- Boston Braves (1941–1952)
- Boston Bees (1936–1940)
- Boston Braves (1912–1935)
- Boston Rustlers (1911)
- Boston Doves (1907–1910)
- Boston Beaneaters (1883–1906) (NL and MLB)
- Boston Red Caps (1876–1882) (NL)
- Boston Red Stockings (1871–1875) (NAPBBP)