The Atlanta Braves are a Major League Baseball (MLB) team in Atlanta, Georgia, playing in the Eastern Division of the National League. The Braves have played home games at Turner Field since 1997 and play spring training games in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In 2017, the team is to move to SunTrust Park, a new stadium complex in the Cumberland district of Cobb County just north of the I-285 bypass.
The "Braves" name, which was first used in 1912, originates from a term for a Native American warrior. They are nicknamed "the Bravos", and often referred to as "America's Team" in reference to the team's games being broadcast on the nationally available TBS from the 1970s until 2007, giving the team a wide fan base.
From 1991 to 2005 the Braves were one of the most successful franchises in baseball, winning division titles an unprecedented 14 consecutive times in that period (omitting the strike-shortened 1994 season in which there were no official division champions). The Braves won the NL West 1991–93 and the NL East 1995–2005, and they returned to the playoffs as the National League Wild Card in 2010. The Braves advanced to the World Series five times in the 1990s, winning the title in 1995. Since their debut in the National League in 1876, the franchise has won 16 divisional titles, 17 National League pennants, and three World Series championships—in 1914 as the Boston Braves, in 1957 as the Milwaukee Braves, and in 1995 in Atlanta. The Braves are the only Major League Baseball franchise to have won the World Series in three different home cities.
Turner Field is a baseball park located in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 1997, it has served as the home ballpark to the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball (MLB). Originally built as Centennial Olympic Stadium in 1996 to serve as the centerpiece of the 1996 Summer Olympics, the stadium was converted into a baseball park to serve as the new home of the franchise. The Braves moved less than one block from Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, their home ballpark from 1966 to 1996.
Opening during the Braves' "division dominance" years, Turner Field has hosted the National League Division Series a total of eleven times (1997–2005, 2010, 2013); it has also hosted the National League Championship Series four times (1997–1999, 2001), as well as one World Series (1999), one NL Wild Card Game (2012, the first in baseball history), and the 2000 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
On November 11, 2013, the Braves announced that they would abandon Turner Field for SunTrust Park. The new ballpark is located in Cobb County, in the northwest suburbs outside of Atlanta. This was prompted by the expiration of the lease (in 2016) allowing the Braves to play in Turner Field. The new stadium is being constructed in a public/private partnership. Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed announced that the Turner Field site would be redeveloped once the Braves vacate the stadium.