2025 World Series rekindles 30-year-old memory
October 28, 1995.
It’s the date the Atlanta Braves delivered their fans a World Series title. They beat the Cleveland Indians 1-0 in Game 6.
It was the first championship for the Braves organization since moving to Atlanta in 1966 with the last title in Milwaukee captured during the 1957 season with a series win over the New York Yankees.
A David Justice sixth inning home run provided the Braves with their lone run in the series clinching the win against Cleveland. Tom Glavine was masterful with eight shutout innings allowing one hit. Mark Wohlers tossed a 1-2-3 ninth setting off a Fulton County Stadium eruption filled with 51,875 fans.
Amongst the crowd was Blackshear photographer Steve Jeffords, who captured the iconic photo of Chipper Jones standing on home plate with his hands raised towards the night sky.
Jeffords had driven three Blackshear teens, who were attending Brewton-Parker College for the Fall semester, to Atlanta for the game. Unfortunately, Jeffords did not have a ticket.
“I was going to watch the game at my vehicle in the parking lot,” Jeffords said recalling the events of the night 30 years ago. “I was setting up the TV when a man stopped and asked if I wanted to buy his two tickets. He said he bought the tickets for him and his wife and something came up where she couldn’t make it.”
Jeffords bought both, one for him and the other for his friend Bill Shanks, who was then the sports anchor at the Brunswick TV station.
“The only thing that scared me was thinking they were fake,” he said. “Bill got there and I told him I had two tickets. We made it through the gate and was relieved.”
Jeffords’ tickets were in the upper deck down the third base line. He snapped photos throughout the game game before making his way to the stadium floor through the celebrating fans after the final out.
His first picture was of shortstop Rafael Belliard before he ran out of film. Jeffords asked a photographer standing next to him if he could buy a roll of film “He just gave me the roll,” said Jeffords, “and it was the same brand I was using. I popped it in my camera and then Chipper came out.
“He was going around, shaking people’s hands and stuff. He stood on home plate and held his hands up to heaven. I was just shooting away getting five or six frames.”
Jeffords said when he developed the rolls in his dark room after returning to Blackshear, he noticed one frame was over exposed.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “I printed it darker and darker and darker. Chipper came into exposure and everything else went dark around him. I realized I had caught somebody else’s flash which is almost an impossibility.
“It looked like Chipper was being lit from heaven, pulling his hands up.”
After sharing his photo with Gary Griffin and the Waycross Journal-Herald, Jeffords joined Shanks for a trip to Jacksonville, Fla., and a card show around Thanksgiving where Jones was at.
Following Shanks’ interview, Jeffords presented Jones with the photo in front of his agent.
“He went nuts over it saying ‘this is one of the best photos I’ve had taken,’” said Jeffords. Jones said the photo would go in his trophy room.
The three reached a deal right there where Jeffords would send the photo and Jones would sign.
“However many I would send, is how many I got back with his signature,” said Jeffords. “We traded photos for signatures. I sold just about every one of them at Christmas that year ... it was a good Christmas.”
Jeffords sent one to Chop Talk magazine leading to an opportunity to take pictures at spring training in 1996 and 1997.
The organization displays the photo in the Atlanta Braves Baseball Club: Ivan Allen, Jr. Braves Museum & Hall of Fame.
“God just gave me a little gift and that’s how it happened,” said Jeffords. “I didn’t set out to go to the game to start with. Then I ended up there and taking the picture.”
