It’s behind the pay firewall but today Bill James compiled his list of the greatest baseball teams of all time. It’s an impressive effort as he is considered single season performance, multi-year performance, post-season performance and the quality of the team (i.e., was this time comprised of great players or guys just having good years).

My 1995 Atlanta Braves ranked 3rd, slightly ahead of the Big Red Machine.

This will, of course, sound ridiculous to anyone who’s not me or Bill James. After all, the Braves of the 90’s only won one world series. But consider the totality of what they did between 1991 and 2005.

Won 1431 regular season games and lost 931, a winning percentage of .606 — a 98 win pace. They won 100 games six times.

Won 14 division titles and were a wild card when the ’94 strike hit.

Won 12 post-season series and lost 13. Between 1991 and 1999, they went 11-7, taking five pennants and one title.

Had future Hall of Famers Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and Chipper as well as a near-HOFer in Fred McGriff and bona-fide stars in Lemke, Lopez, Galarraga, Justice, Gant and Andruw Jones.

Had a future HOF manager.

I was there for most of it. I watched every night, I frequently went to Atlanta, I attended World Series games. It was like nothing I had ever seen before or ever will again. We just knew they were going to win. There was an aura about the team that was remarkable. Even if they fell behind in the standings — 10.5 games in 1993 — we knew they would close the gap.

The reason the Braves are not generally considered one of the greatest teams of all time is because of who is #1 on Bill James’ list — the 1998 Yankees. The Braves, like the great Brooklyn Dodgers before them, had the misfortune to be contemporaries with one of the greatest teams of all time. And they lost twice to them in the World Series including in 1996 when the Braves were clearly the better team.

People wonder why I hate the Yankees so much as I’m not a big Red Sox guy. 1996 is why. The Braves had blown out the Yankees in two games. And then, with some bad luck and bad ump calls, it fell apart. And it became even worse after since the media swooned over the Yankees, portraying it as a wonderful story that they had won their first title since all the way back in … 1978.

I’m still bitter about it. It still hurts. And one of the reasons it hurts is because it blinds people to the greatness of those Braves teams. Had they won the ’96 World Series, no one would question their greatness. But because they lost, they don’t get mentioned.

If only Tim Welke had gotten out of Jermaine Dye’s way…