Jonathan Mahler, Columnist

Braves Leave Atlanta -- and Fans -- Behind

Leave it to the Atlanta Braves, which gave America John Rocker and the âTomahawk Chop,â to become the first baseball team in years to abandon its city.

November 14, 2013 at 6:07 PM UTC

By Jonathan Mahler

Jonathan Mahler is a sports columnist for Bloomberg View. He is the author of the best-selling "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning," the basis for the eight-part ESPN mini-series. He also wrote "The Challenge," the winner of the 2009 Scribes Book Award, and "Death Comes to Happy Valley." A longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine and the Times Book Review, Mahler has written for numerous other publications including the Washington Post, Slate, the New Republic and New York magazine. He lives in New York.

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Leave it to the Atlanta Braves, which gave America John Rocker and the "Tomahawk Chop," to become the first baseball team in years to abandon its city.

The announcement earlier this week caught just about everyone by surprise. It's not uncommon for professional sports franchises to relocate. But they don't usually do so until they've spent years threatening to move if they don't get X, Y and Z.