The Braves never gave up on their manager, players or season
7-0 victory over the Astros in Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday night, nailing down their first championship since 1995, that’s something for which many baseball fans can be grateful.
None moreso than their millions of supporters in greater Atlanta, who have waited not so patiently for a winner – any winner – since Tom Glavine and David Justice teamed up to beat Cleveland 1-0 in the 1995 Series, two stadiums and a different millennium ago.
Hard to believe, but Brian Snitker was both a Brave and in the house at Fulton-County Stadium that night. He spent ’95 as a roving minor league instructor, 13 years after he first filled out a lineup card for the 1982 Anderson (South Carolina) Braves, in low A-ball.
Soler, seized the World Series MVP trophy in Game 6, clubbing a baseball 466 feet and over the Minute Maid Park train tracks – his third go-ahead home run of the Series. Another, Adam Duvall, slugged a Game 5 grand slam. Joc Pederson carried them past Milwaukee in the NL Division Series.Atlanta takes first World Series title since 1995
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“It is knowing the people in your organization understand what it is we want to accomplish, what the prize is, what the purpose is – and that is to build a championship team, with players who have championship hearts,” says Hall of Fame GM John Schuerholz, architect of the Braves’ dynasty of the 1990s and their last championship club.
“Alex did that and now we find ourselves World Series champions.”
Yet to give credit to yet another rock-star GM would be to miss the point of these Braves. Certainly, they have star power, from Freeman to Acuña to emerging slugger Austin Riley. Yet after Morton went down, the group was carried by a pitching staff that tasted failure far too recently.
Matzek remains one of the game’s great reclamation stories. Yet in this World Series, with the staff terribly compromised, it was A.J. Minter and Luke Jackson, Kyle Wright and Chris Martin all consuming crucial outs and holding the group together.
All shared another trait: Veteran pitchers forced to swallow their pride and spend time at Class AAA Gwinnett this season.
It was a true test of a pitcher’s resolve and also the organization’s brain power. Minter, for one, says he would not be here without Class AAA pitching coach Mike Maroth keeping his head right.