The Atlanta Braves team holds a record for the most consecutive playoff visits in any professional sport. Since 1991—with the exception of 1994, when the season was shortened due to a strike—the Braves have appeared in postseason competition every year, taking five pennants and the 1995 World Series.

The Braves have a long history of great teams and championship play. In fact, the team is renowned as not only the longest continuously operating team in Major League baseball, but of any professional sport in the U.S. The team began in 1871, as the Boston Red Stockings. The team started strong, and of the first eight pennants ever won in professional baseball, Boston took six. The team changed names, to Red Caps and then to Beaneaters, but they continued to win, taking two more pennants along the way.

From Beaneaters to Doves, to Rustlers, then to Braves, no matter what the name, the team was popular with fans, who snapped up baseball tickets by the thousands to watch the team even during a decade-long slump. The Braves came roaring back in 1914. That team is still known as the “Miracle Braves” for an outstanding season that ended in a World Series win. Everything went downhill the next year. 1915 was the beginning of an incredible drought, when the club failed to make the playoffs for 32 years. Though the team finally took another pennant in 1948, the fans had had enough. Support dwindled until the franchise left Boston and took up residence in Milwaukee in 1953.

Braves tickets sold like hotcakes with the move to Milwaukee. The team was loved in its new home, and returned the love by taking two pennants and the 1957 World Series. After a few poor seasons, though, the fans lost interest in the team, and in 1966, the beleaguered Braves were welcomed to another new home, Atlanta.

In the 1970s and 1980s, though the team managed two pennants during this time, fans hung on through stretches of losing seasons to see baseball greats such as Hank Aaron and Dale Murphy play. Then the 1990s arrived, and suddenly, the team turned around.

The Braves played at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium until after the 1996 Olympics. When the games were over, the stadium was remodeled into an open-air baseball park, and named for the team owner. Turner Stadium has been the home of the Braves since, selling Braves tickets to huge crowds as fans come out to watch one of the greatest teams in Major League baseball.