If you’re a New York Mets fan, the one team you don’t want to see in the World Series is the Atlanta Braves. This is as intense a rival as there is in this franchise. Chipper Jones calling Mets fans closet Yankees fans. John Rocker insulting the city. There was 1998, 1999, and most recently 2021. Under no circumstance should a Mets fan even contemplate rooting for the Braves.

For some, the Houston Astros are the exception. After all, they were caught cheating in what has been claimed to be the biggest cheating scandal since the Black Sox. Some Mets fans make that claim despite the adoration of J.D. Davis, but I digress.

When you look at the Astros, what they did was absolutely wrong, and one of the biggest issues was MLB never punished the players. They did penalize the organization but not the players. Taking a look at the Astros organization, there is nothing to like there. They’ve gotten where they were by cheating and some horrendous behavior even if many of those people are now gone from the organization.

Understandably, many people could not bring themselves to root for that. Here’s the thing – the Braves organization is far worse.

At the time the Astros were ramping up and creating their own organization and cheating, the Braves were cheating in international free agency. The organization was circumventing bonus pool rules, and they were under reporting the monies paid to signees permitting them to sign more for more money.

During that time period, the Braves organization signed players like Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies. There were others, and you see the current core of this Braves pennant winning team was built at least in part by this cheating. For some reason, this is something not actively covered. For that matter, neither is the team’s perhaps questionable tactics getting these two players to sign way under market extensions.

On the matter of international free agency, the Braves were also subject to an FBI human trafficking investigation. Obviously, the Braves then GM, who was banned from baseball, has been replaced, and he was replaced by Alex Anthopoulos.

For his part, Anthopolous was caught on tape making statements akin to collusion. This came at a time when many quality free agents were struggling to receive offers commensurate with their value, or really, offers period.

Once we get through the questionable practices of how these teams were built, we then arrive at the chop. The assuredly racist chop is actively promoted by the Braves. This has been an issue dating back to at least 1991, but the Braves pretend it isn’t blaring the chant through the ballpark encouraging fans to do it.

Overall, it absolutely does not get worse than the Braves organization. While it may be difficult to stomach rooting for the Astros (even if Dusty Baker and Zack Greinke deserve a ring), it is far worse to root for the Braves. If after all of this, you still can’t root for the Astros, it’s understandable . . . just don’t root for anyone because rooting for an organization like the Braves isn’t an option for decent and respectable people.