It's Tomahawk Chop Time in Atlanta

It won't be the loudest baseball crowd in memory when the National League playoffs move to Atlanta Saturday, but it will add unique twists to playoff lore: the tomahawk chop and the war chant.

"That team fed off of them," baseball announcer Marty Brennaman said of the Braves fans, who drew almost as much attention as the team during Atlanta's stretch drive to the NL West title.

Even when the Braves were on the road, cameras focused on pockets of spectators, chanting and chopping or banging on tom-toms.

Brennaman saw it first hand, perhaps in the key game that helped Atlanta overtake the Los Angeles Dodgers in the final week, a 7-6 victory in which the Braves overcame a 6-0 first-inning deficit to beat the Reds at Cincinnati on a David Justice home run.

"There were Cincinnati fans that were rooting for the Braves to win," said Brennaman, the play-by-play announcer on the Reds' network. "For a city that has gone as long as it has without that type of excitement relative to baseball, I thought it was sensational. I thought it was wonderful. A great majority of people around the country were pulling for the Braves."

Atlanta fans have been noisy this season as the Braves went from worst to first, but Brennaman agreed with several other sportscasters that the level of noise was much more intense inside a domed stadium.

Noisy Astrodome

"I think probably back in the late '70s and early '80s when Houston was contending and they put a lot of people in the Astrodome, that was about as loud as I can remember," Brennaman said. "The sound was magnified."

"When you talk about loudness, it would seem to me because of the construction of an indoor dome it's bound to be louder than outdoors," said Harry Caray, voice of the Chicago Cubs.

"The loudest crowd I've been in is at Minnesota at the Metrodome," said Ernie Harwell, who just ended his career as broadcaster for the Detroit Tigers. "They measure the sound as severe as a jet taking off. I don't know how many decibels that is, but they made a big deal of that."

Gordon Verrell, who covers the Dodgers for the Long Beach Press-Telegram, recalled some loud crowds at usually laid-back Dodger Stadium. They were in 1980 when the Dodgers began a three-game series needing a sweep to tie the Astros and force a one-game playoff.

"It was during that lull between the national anthem and the players taking the field," Verrell said. "It just started, people clapping and roaring and cheering with nobody on the field. To somebody that grew up out here, that was chilling, and it was loud. From a local standpoint, that was the one that blew my mind."

Verrell was impressed with the chop and chant during the Dodgers' September visit to Atlanta.

He said the loudest stadiums he visits are Candlestick Park in San Francisco, when it's full, and Shea Stadium in New York, "where they get a boost from LaGuardia Airport."

The tomahawk chop got his attention during the September trip to Atlanta.

"It was tremendous, the spontaneity of that tomahawk chop," he said.