They were the Braves’ odd couple, or as Deion Sanders liked to say, “We are the team’s Ebony and Ivory.’’
Indeed they were.
During the 1990s, when even light-hearted Braves news made the front page of the sports section, Sanders and Steve Avery became not only the best of friends, but the biggest pranksters on the team. There was the time when Sanders distracted the beat writer for the team (yes, the author of this article) and Avery climbed under the locker and lit the scribe’s shoelaces on fire. Needless to say, the walk back to the press box at old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium with one shoe falling off was not an easy one.
Or there was the time they put shaving cream in the hat of third baseman Terry Pendleton. This didn’t sit well with the captain, and Avery and Sanders were called in for a little chat with the manager (although Bobby Cox couldn’t stop laughing while Pendleton fumed out of his office). But perhaps the best was their constant jabbing at journeyman catcher Jerry Willard, who once told me, “I am tired of looking under my car before turning the engine on. If these two couldn’t play baseball, I would be worried if I was their parents.’’
Avery and Sanders forged a true friendship, as shown in the adjacent photo taken right after the Braves clinched the National League West in 1991. Avery lives in Dearborn, Mich., with his wife and three children. Since retiring in 2003 after 11 seasons, he came to Braves spring training this year for the first time as a special instructor. But he spends his days as a full-time father and likely will see Sanders this summer in Cooperstown, when Cox and teammates Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“They were great teammates, great friends, and I’m taking my boys up there,’’ said Avery back in the spring. “I’ve actually never been to Cooperstown, which will be cool to experience that. I know the Braves are putting something together, so I’m really looking forward to watching them go in.’’
