America Puts On Brave Face Supporting Atlanta

The realization struck Tuesday about the same time as puny Marcus Giles.

Or was it Mark Lemke?

Maybe Jeff Blauser?

After 10 years, they all look alike, they all sound the same, and enough is enough.

I modestly believe I speak for the entirety of this great country when I say, I’m sick of the Atlanta Braves.

America’s team has become America’s scream.

“Oh no! Not them again!”

The masses wept again Wednesday when the Braves pounded the Arizona Diamondbacks, 8-1, equaling the National League championship series at one game apiece.

Brian Jordan said his team, “Woke up.”

So did we, in a sweat, from a recurring bad dream.

Is this the same team that has won 10 consecutive division championships?

Participated in nine of the last 10 league championship series?

Yet won only one world title in that time?

Underachievement dressed up like perseverance?

The Buffalo Bills in stirrups?

And there’s now officially a chance they could return to the World Series again?

The mere idea is as frightening as watching pitching coach Leo Mazzone rocking in the dugout.

You know the dude. For a decade, we’ve seen him rock, back and forth, back and forth, ticking like an antique wall clock in an antebellum tourist trap.

I want to put a seat belt on Mazzone. I want to put an expression on Bobby Cox. I want to paint a mustache on Tom Glavine.

Frankly, I just want them to get lost and let somebody else play.

“We know, we know,” said Brave reliever Rudy Seanez with a grin. “Everywhere we go, we hear the same old stuff. People tired of watching us, want to see somebody else.”

I refrained from saying that until the first batter Wednesday at a finally packed Bank One Ballpark.

The Braves had lost the first game of the series, and were looking old and tired.

The 49,334 fans, despite the ill-advised shaking of football pompons, were fresh.

If the Diamondbacks won this game, they could climb on Curt Schilling Friday and ride him to a series sweep.

Then a stocky middle infielder belted Miguel Batista’s first pitch for a homer.

It was Giles, who is Lemke without the big glasses and Blauser without the big hair.

The Braves recalled the kid from triple-A in July to replace struggling veteran Quilvio Veras. He has since become another nondescript, irreplaceable cog.

Every year they do that.

Success as simple as a Richmond area code.

Every new player looking and acting like every other player.

The Stepford Infielders.

“That’s why some people don’t like to watch us,” said Seanez, who has spent parts of the last four years with the Braves. “There are no fist pumps. No jumping in the air. No arguing with the umpire. We just ... do the job.”

The Diamondbacks tied the game on a Matt Williams single in the sixth inning, bless them, and Batista was pitching a one-hitter and everything seemed cozy.

Then Batista inexplicably walked Andruw Jones on four pitches with two out in the seventh inning.

On the next pitch, America’s nightmare continued, as another powerful catcher hit another two-run homer to give the Braves another lead they did not lose.

It was Javy Lopez, the prototypical Atlantan, who began the series with a career .329 average in the playoffs ... and .184 average in the World Series.

When asked to rate this homer with his four other LCS homers, Lopez smiled.

“Well, I’m not living in the past,” he said.

It certainly looks like it.

The starting and winning pitcher Thursday was Tom Glavine, whose change-up just celebrated its 50th birthday.

The closing pitcher was John Smoltz, who has pitched more NLCS innings than any player alive, splendid innings that have nonethless placed him in the middle of more fall frustration than Denny Green.

Certainly, the Braves were fun once.

In 1991, against the Minnesota Twins, they played and lost one of the most exciting World Series in history.

The next year, they lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in the 11th inning of the sixth game.

In 1995, they won Atlanta’s only world championship in another dramatic sixth game, with David Justice’s homer beating the Cleveland Indians.

But since then, well, they have lost in two World Series, two championship series, and one division series.

This spring, everyone speculated that that dynasty would finally die of boredom.

But no. Silly John Schuerholz, the team’s world-class general manager, replaced three-fourths of the infield during this season and has brought them back to the brink.

Of another Fall flop.

And we have to watch.

“I never hear anybody saying they are tired of the Braves,” Schuerholz said. “But then, I live in Atlanta.”

Yet, like a child grows weary of a once-shiny toy, it seems even some of his neighbors have grown sick of their Braves.

Watching the Braves finish their division series sweep of the Houston Astros in front of empty Turner Field seats last week was like watching a lazy spring training game.

Even the famed tomahawk chop is now executed with the weariness of someone waving idly to the neighbors.

“There’s not an organization on the planet that wouldn’t change places with us,” said Schuerholz. “Well, maybe one.”

Oh yeah, the Yankees.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.