The Charlotte Knights announced today that former Atlanta Braves fan favorite Sid Bream will be their guest on Friday, July 26 as part of their season long “Flashback Fridays” promotion. He will meet and greet fans, throw out a ceremonial first pitch, and sign autographs at Knights Stadium.
That evening the Knights will host the Gwinnett Braves, Atlanta’s top minor league club, in game one of a four-game series.
“We’re very excited to welcome Sid to Knights Stadium later this year,” said Knights General Manager of Baseball Operations Scott Brown in a release. “With the success of former Braves great Dale Murphy last year, we felt that we really wanted to bring in another Braves player to Knights Stadium. Bream was a fan-favorite during his time with the Braves and is the perfect fit for us this season.”
Bream, now 52, had a relatively undistinguished big league career with four different big league clubs, never hitting 20 homers or driving in 100 runs in any of them. He was a slow footed first baseman that hit .300 just once, in his final season with just 61 at-bats, but on one magical night at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1992 he became a household name.
Last October 14 marked the 20th anniversary of what has become known as “The Slide” where Bream slipped past a diving Pirates’ catcher Mike LaValliere in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series to score the winning run and put Atlanta into the World Series for the second straight season.
The Braves had reached the postseason just twice in the team’s previous 32 years.
A Carlisle, Pennsylvania native, Bream was a second round draft pick by the Dodgers in 1981 and broke in with Los Angeles in 1983. He would go on to play for the Pirates, Braves and Astros where he ended his career in 1994.
In 1990 he won the Hutch Award which is given annually to an active Major League Baseball player who best exemplifies the fighting spirit and competitive desire of Fred Hutchinson. Since the first Hutch in 1965 eleven future Hall of Famers have been honored as well other notables like Joe Torre, Tony Conigliaro and Curt Schilling.
Earlier this week, National Baseball Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry was announced as the first “Flashback Fridays” guest. Perry, a five-time All-Star, will appear at Knights Stadium on Friday, July 14. The entire list of “Flashback Fridays” giveaways and appearances will be released at a later date.
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