Although this team wasn't really amongst the very worst clubs of all time, they were pretty awful, and would have been considered the worst that year had they not been overshadowed by Baltimore's awful 0-21 start. Both teams actually wound up with almost identical won- loss records. A few years later, Atlanta had developed some strong teams that went on an amazing run of playoff appearances, but Glavine, Smoltz, Gant, etc were very young in '88; and the team was littered with aged has- beens and boring players at this time, and their only big name was Dale Murphy, who was by now past his prime. The Braves had won a rather anachronistic division title in '82, but had been bad since the mid 70's and after competing in '83, were bad until the early 90's. The only thing worse than being bad was the fact that they were a very boring, colorless type of team. This '88 squad was bad, but far from the worst team ever.