Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Greg Maddux remember that championship season and more...

John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine looked like regular suburban buddies in T-shirts, shorts and jeans, enjoying a night at the ballpark.

The three Braves Hall of Fame pitchers sat in the Apple TV booth, discussing their careers and the state of the game with former Marlins fireballer Dontrelle Willis, now a broadcaster.

Rather than middle-aged insurance salesmen or lawyers, Glavine, Smoltz and Maddux had come to suburban Truist Park for a reunion of the Braves’ 1995 World Series championship team.

About 30 members of the team that beat the Cleveland Indians in six games turned out for the 30th anniversary celebration before a game against hated Braves rival the New York Mets.

That was the sole championship for the great 1990s Braves teams that made 14 postseason and four World Series appearances. 

The “worst to first” Braves fell to the Twins in seven games in 1991. Atlanta lost to the Blue Jays in 1992 and the Yankees in 1996.

Glavine was elected the 1995 World Series’ most valuable player, pitching eight shutout innings in the final game, a taut 1-0 victory.  Outfielder David Justice hit the winning home run.

During the Apple broadcast Friday night, grainy videotape showed the three aces as young men, elegant in their Braves uniforms.

Longtime Atlanta fans will always remember where they were at the moment when Carlos Baerga’s fly ball fell into Marquis Grissom’s glove and the Braves won the World Series at last.

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Readers of old-fashioned print publications would seem to favor straight news.

But the Onion’s revived print edition is a hit, offering satirical articles, headlines and spoof ads.

New owner Twilio gambled on print when it acquired the Onion a year ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Onion has more than 53,000 subscribers who pay up to $9 a month, the WSJ reported. Twilio expects about $6 million in revenue this year, with a profit expected in 2026.

Revived food magazine Saveur and rock publication Creem are also finding new success with print, the newspaper said.

Like small mammals that survived the death of the dinosaurs, niche print publications are flourishing.

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Several red state governors will send national guard troops to the nation’s capital in the latest outrageous stunt of the second Trump regime.

Guard soldiers from Louisiana and Mississippi, where New Orleans and Jackson define urban disfunction, will patrol streets and harass citizens in Trump’s manufactured D.C. crime emergency.

The Louisiana and Mississippi units will join an influx of National Guard soldiers, possibly armed, from Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and South Carolina, all with high-crime cities.

Hundreds of mobilized guard members and FBI and ICE agents are already making arrests and threatening Washington residents and visitors.

Regular police officers must inform suspects of their rights and file arrest reports. These constitutional protections are being ignored by Trump’s invading army in Washington, according to The Washington Post.

At the end of the Civil War, Confederate Gen. Jubal Early’s army drew near to Abraham Lincoln’s capital city.

Descendants of Early’s soldiers are invading Washington 160 years later.

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Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred seeks to realign the major leagues into a regional format like the NFL’s and NBA’s.

Manfred’s plan, floated during ESPN’s Sunday night broadcast of the Little League Classic game between the Mets and Mariners, would scrap the National and American Leagues, baseball’s tradition for more than 100 years.

The radical shakeup would come with an expansion to Nashville, Charlotte or possibly Salt Lake City or Portland.

A new Nashville franchise would join the Braves, Miami, Tampa Bay and Charlotte in the Southeast. 

The Mets and Yankees, Cubs and White Sox, and Dodgers and Angels would presumably play in the same regional divisions.

Baseball purists are ripping the plan, which Manfred sees as advancing baseball’s TV attractiveness.

Those opposing expansion say new franchises would further dilute an already shallow talent pool. Baseball doesn’t need more teams like the Rockies, Pirates, White Sox and Athletics.

Manfred’s realignment would bring the final blow to baseball’s traditional structure, following interleague play and playoffs expansion.

While aging boomers protest realignment, younger fans lacking the traditional league loyalty and conditioned to the NFL would welcome the change.

The commissioner also wants to match the NFL and NBA by imposing a salary cap on each team, bitterly opposed by players.

A players’ strike will destroy baseball’s gains in recent years and crash Manfred’s ambitions.

A friend of mine and I were drinking beers in a Baton Rouge bar when we heard about Elvis Presley’s death.

Elvis died on Aug. 16, 1977 at his Graceland mansion in Memphis from a drug overdose and chronic health problems.

Although he’d suffered a long decline and had reached stardom far in the past, Elvis was just 42 when he died.

My friend had a special bond with Elvis, who was idolized by his brother, born with Down’s syndrome.

A few years before, my friend, his brother and I had seen Elvis give a dynamite performance at Houston’s Astrodome.

I’d also loved Elvis since childhood. His first movie, “Love Me Tender,”  was the first I saw in a theater.

Elvis is being rediscovered by a new generation 48 years after his death. Even his movies are receiving critical reassessment.

The award-winning  film of his life in 2022 starring Austin Butler examined Elvis’ tragic life and how he’d changed culture.

His voice was a liberating force for those of us who grew up in the oppressive South of the 1950s and 1960s.