HOUSTON NOV 3 (US): For most of the season, it looked like this wasn’t their year.
They dropped the first four games, and injuries quickly piled up. They lost their most dynamic player before the All-Star break. They were stuck below 0.500 in August.
But out of nowhere, all of a sudden, these brave people in Atlanta turned themselves on and got off, the Associated Press reports.
Jorge Soler, Freddy Freeman and the Braves won their first World Championship since 1995, defeating the Houston Astros 7-0 Tuesday night in Game 6.
“We’ve had every problem, every bump it can hit this year,” Freeman said. “Injuries, all sorts of things that can happen, can go wrong, and we overcame every one of those things.”
How proud The Hammer himself would have been!
Max Fried delivered six dominant strokes in the series’ signature shooter performance. Soler, who was acquired in July, who tested positive for COVID-19 in the playoffs, backed him up early with a three-stroke monster strike for Homer III against the Astros.
Freeman hit the RBI double and then the fun punctuated with a home solo run in the seventh making it 7-0.
By then, it was a complete team effort. Ailing star Ronald Acuna Jr., the future dynamo of Atlanta, has been blasting out of the bunker to join the celebration of Freeman, the old face of the franchise.
Just an afterthought in the summer heat between the Land of the Giants, the White Sox and the Dodgers, but great for the Fall Classic.
Soler pressed his heart twice before starting his home run after hitting a rookie Luis Garcia in the third inning, sending the ball right out of Minute Maid Park and earning the Series Player of the Year award.
Dansby Swanson too, and by the final match, nothing could stop them. Not a broken leg sustained by starter Charlie Morton in the opening world championships. Not much progress in game 5.
Thanks to his 66-year-old manager Brian Snicker, a four-decade organizing man, the underdog Braves won the franchise’s fourth title.
“They have never given up on themselves,” he said on the post-match triumph podium. “We lost a lot of pieces over the course of the summer and he was just the next guy.”
Consider it a tribute to the greatest brave player of all time, Mr. Hank Aaron. The Hall of Fame player passed away on January 22 at the age of 86, still rooting for his old team, and his legacy is stamped throughout the series.
We note that the Braves outperformed the team with the highest scores in the major tournaments by 11-2.
For Houston’s 72-year-old manager, Dusty Baker, it’s a disappointment. But for the many fans still rooting for the Astros in the wake of the 2017 tag-stealing scandal, it’s a relief.
“Yeah, it’s tough, but do you know something? You have to keep trucking, and that gives you more incentives next year,” Becker said.
“It’s hard to bear now, but that too will pass. I mean, it really hurts, but it’s over.”
Much credit to the Braves team also goes to General Manager Alex Anthopoulos. Brave by Akuna’s knee injury, he made a series of deals in July that brought the Fab Four onto the court – NLM VB champion Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, Jock Pederson and Soler.
But even in an age of analytics, under the guidance of a General Motors intimately familiar with the ways of the new age, the path taken by these brave ones will not be added to any computer. Especially with how things looked in the middle of the season.
Third baseman Austin Riley said before Game Six, “At the time, we were looking. I think there’s no doubt about that.”
Minus Acuña, Atlanta 0.500 for a day didn’t expire until the first week of August. The Braves finished 88-73 for the 12th best tournament record and lowest wins among playoff teams. Their total win was the lowest for a world champion since 83 in St. Louis in 2006.
Plus, some agonizing history in Atlanta, a city where no team has won a title in the Big Four professional sports besides 1995.
The Braves were unable to turn the series’ 3-1 advantage over the Dodgers in last year’s NLCS. The Hawks failed in the Eastern Conference Finals last season. And then there was the big one, the Falcons outperformed the Patriots 28-3 in the Super Bowl.
But those brave ones, not this time.
A favorite in spring training to win their fourth consecutive NL East title, Braves lost Acuña to a knee tear in July. Earlier, Triple Crown contender Marcel Ozuna was injured in 2020 and was later placed on leave while Major League Baseball pursued him under a domestic violence policy. Expected star Mike Soroka has yet to return from an Achilles tendon injury.
Going into the playoffs, the bulls were a crazy mixture.
They had a guy who debuted in the league in October, a left-handed guy who was presenting in 2019 for Texas AirHogs in a now-defunct independent league, and a right-hand man who was stacking boxes in a hardware warehouse a decade ago. Take a look at a rookie who was off the list a week ago while watching the first game at a hotel in an Atlanta suburb.
Sure, plenty of fans across the country were rooting hard against Jose Altov and the Houston crew. Many continue to be harassed as “Cheatin’ Astros” over an illegal cue-stealing scheme en route to the 2017 title, and those sentiments may last forever.
Surely a lot of people were cheering for Baker. A world championship winner as a player and a highly respected figure on and off the field, he was unable to check the last square on his resume as a championship leader.
The crowns of the brave have been around for more than a century.
The 1995 Atlanta Champions featured five future Hall of Famers – rookie Chipper Jones, aces Tom Glavin, Greg Maddow and John Smoltz, and manager Bobby Cox. Those episodes were the only pieces of hardware that resulted in the 14 straight section titles.
The 1957 Milwaukee Braves were led by Aaron in his only Premier League season. His 44 were drawn in droves on the outdoor lawn in Truist Park, and Baker and Snicker often mentioned how much he meant to them.
There was also the 1914 Boston Braves, who were called the Miraculous Braves back in the day. Finishing last on the Fourth of July, they went up to win the pennant, then upset the fiercely favorite team—Philadelphia A—to earn their title.
looks familiar?
The Braves’ former nickname came at Atlanta-Fulton County, their first home after they moved from Milwaukee to the Deep South in 1966. Then there was Turner Field before the team uprooted downtown and decided to expand into the suburbs.
Truist Park was crowded and the outdoor plazas crowded over the weekend, and Minute Maid Park was filled with vibrant crowds.
Quite a change from last October. Only limited capacity was allowed for this World Championships as the Dodgers beat Tampa Bay at a neutral location stadium in Arlington, Texas – which followed a total fans shutdown during a regular season that was cut short due to the coronavirus.
Now, all baseball players are waiting to see if spring training is on board in just over three months. A quarrel between owners and players soon threatens to shut down the sport.
In the meantime, the sport can enjoy a year in which things are, slowly, beginning to return to normal.
the following
The Brave: Victory Party and Probably a Review.
Astros: The spring training schedule is set to begin on February 26th against St. Louis.