End of an era

Part of me felt old Sunday.

That part was the part that still remembers watching Atlanta Braves baseball on WTBS, now simply TBS. And I don't mean in the years of 14 straight division titles either.

I mean the years where Dale Murphy was the only good thing the Braves had going. The days when a young Tom Glavine was unknown and John Smoltz and Greg Maddux had yet to arrive at Fulton County Stadium.

That era ended today when the Houston Astros defeated Atlanta in the last Braves game with TBS as a major media outlet for the Braves.

After this season, TBS' baseball coverage goes national. No more 6:35 p.m. local time games. No more watching Otis Nixon morph into Andruw Jones or Dale Murphy become David Justice then change into Jeff Francoeur.

No longer will the Braves be America's Team on television. The groundbreaking deal between the Braves and Ted Turner's then-fledgling "superstation" is now a part of media and sports past.

And that deserves a bit of self-reflection for any child -- boy or girl -- who grew up watching the Braves and hearing Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren and Ernie Johnson describe the action.