Braves Grieve: The popular Iconic Atlanta Braves mascot has died, leaving behind a unique Legacy.

“he loved baseball.”ATLANTA (Atlanta News First) – Atlanta is in grief over the death of a beloved baseball legend.

Levi Walker, Jr., well known as Atlanta Braves mascot Chief Noc-A-Homa, died Friday afternoon, surrounded by family. Walker was the Braves’ mascot from 1966 until 1985, and he became well-known for performing a dance on the pitcher’s mound before games and mingling with fans and players.

After his health began to deteriorate, the 80-year-old chief was transported to the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in July 2022.

“He loved baseball,” Gwyn Walker Newman, Walker’s daughter, said.

Walker, a full-blooded Native American, had a straightforward goal: he wanted to represent Native Americans on a large stage.

In the late 1960s, he noted a lack of representation with Atlanta Braves mascot Chief Noc-A-Homa, who was then represented by white men.

His former wife, Mary Mularz, recounted how Walker convinced the Braves to let him take over the role.

“He goes in with his full Indian outfit on and says that he wants to speak to the general manager, and the secretary says into the phone, ‘There’s an Indian out here who wants to talk with you,’” she said.

Perhaps surprisingly, Braves management agreed, and a legend was born.

For the next 17 years, the Chief became a fixture of Atlanta baseball at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

One reporter even wrote that kids might not know who Jeff Burroughs or Andy Messersmith were, but they sure as heck knew Chief Noc-A-Homa.

“People I went to high school with, friends, other adults tell me, ‘We didn’t go to see the Braves. We went to see your dad,’” Walker Newman said. “They went to see my dad!”

On-field feats that included pre-game rain dances and perfect form running. He was there when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run and when Rick Camp hit his only home run.

The Chief was a celebrity who would draw a crowd in public. Noc-A-Homa rubbed elbows with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and rock stars like Jerry Reed, but he always had time for his biggest fans: the kids, visiting them at stadiums and hospitals.

“He was probably 6-8, something like that, and he was dying,” Walker Newman recalled of a journey to meet a youngster with leukemia with her father. “My dad made him happy.”

In fact, it’s difficult to find images or videos of the Chief in which people aren’t smiling.

Even after Chief Noc-A-H retired before the 1986 season, the character lingered on in the hearts of a new generation of followers.

“People would flock around him because they loved him,” recalled Newman Walker. “He had this charisma.”

This magnetism was critical in creating an environment that could bridge ethnic divides and let Atlanta fall in love with baseball.

“I’m going to miss him,” said Walker Newman.