Sid Slides Again This Weekend In Atlanta

Lace up your cleats because you never know when you might have to try and score from second on a line drive single. Surely that's what was going through Sid Bream's head when he was standing on second base with two outs in the ninth inning of game seven of the 1992 National League Championship Series, with the Atlanta Braves down by one to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

If Frank Cabrera ever did anything else in his big league career, no one knows about it, because one well placed single was all he needed to enter baseball lore. When Cabrera got that game winning hit off of Stan Belinda, he also put Sid Bream into the lexicon of improbably baseball outcomes.

This weekend is Braves alumni weekend at Turner Field. To celebrate, the team has arranged some great events and giveaways. But the baseball Gods have also arranged some fitting coincidences. That seventh game of the '92 NLCS was started by John Smoltz and Doug Drabek, and it was Drabek who took the loss that game, having started off the ninth inning by allowing three base runners on a double to Terry Pendleton, an error allowing David Justice to reach, and a walk to Sid Bream.

Tonight the Braves will retire Smoltz's number-29 in a pregame ceremony. (You can watch it on Fox Sports South at 7pm if you're not at the park.) And when the game starts, as if Someone is pulling a cosmic gag on all of us, there will be a Drabek on the mound. Doug Drabek's son, Kyle Drabek, will start the game for the Toronto Blue Jays.

It's sure to be an amazing night, and not lost on anyone will be the oddities of Drabek pitching, and of playing the Jays, whom the Braves later lost to in the '92 World Series.

Saturday will be equally amazing as members o that '92 team square off in an alumni softball game, starting at 2:30pm. And of course, if you're there for that, then you'll probably have been one of the first 20,000 fans through the gate, and received your Sid Slides Bobble Head.

It's going to be a great weekend, with tons of memories.