Atlanta Braves fans celebrate the team’s 2021 World Series title during a Game 6 watch party at Truist Park.
Emil Moffatt / WABE News
The Atlanta Braves are World Series champions.
The Braves beat Houston Tuesday night 7-0 to clinch the series, four games to two. It’s the fourth World Series title in franchise history and the second since the team moved to Atlanta.
Tens of thousands of Braves fans packed into Truist Park to watch Game 6 on the giant video board in center field and several hundred more huddled in The Battery. The crowd burst into cheers as the final out was recorded.
Braves’ fan Matt Callaway says he can’t believe it’s been 26 years since the team’s last title.
“I was in the tenth grade and I was in Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and I had my own tenth-grader here this weekend, so it’s just amazing,” said Callaway.
Javon Blackmon was only five years old the last the Braves won it all. He grew up watching the team’s games on TBS.
“I’m just so happy that I get to see the Braves win as a full grown adult, it’s an amazing feeling,” said Blackmon.
Justin Westin was also in elementary school the last time the Braves celebrated a championship.
“The atmosphere is unbridled enthusiasm and it’s ecstatic,” said Westin. “We’ve all waited for this for so long and we’re ready to let it all out.”
A Braves’ fan captures the final out on her smartphone as Atlanta clinched its first World Series title since 1995. (Emil Moffatt/WABE News)
This year’s World Series appearance was the first for the Braves since 1999. They appeared in the fall classic five times in the 1990s, but brought home only one title.
Jay Brown, a Braves’ season ticket holder hopes this year’s title will be the first of many for the Braves as well as the other Atlanta sports teams.
“I guess you know, it will break the stigma of our city as being a city where championships, or the potential championships, go to die,” said Brown.
With Tuesday night’s victory, Atlanta becomes only the second team in major league history to have a losing record at the All-Star break and end up winning the World Series the same year. The 1964 St. Louis Cardinals was the other team to accomplish the feat.
The slow start to the season had Kendall Xides doubting that this would be the team to end the Braves’ title drought.
“Oh my gosh, of course,” said Xides. “We were never getting above .500, and all the injuries, so it’s been a miracle, but well deserved.”
Snitker, Freeman Achieve World Series Glory
Braves manager Brian Snitker says he realized early in the playoffs that his team had a shot at winning the whole thing when they beat a tough Milwaukee team followed by a closely matched series with the Dodgers.
“We were peaking at the right time, you know Eddie [Rosario] got hot, the pitching was really good and I did, I honestly thought, you know what, we can pull this off,” Snitker said.
Atlanta Braves fans celebrate the team’s 2021 World Series title during a Game 6 watch party at Truist Park. (Emil Moffatt/WABE News)
The championship marks the summit of Snitker’s professional baseball career. He first joined the Atlanta franchise as a minor league catcher in the late 1970s. After his playing career was over, the late Hank Aaron hired him to be a part of the team’s front office and minor league staff. There he toiled for four decades before getting a chance to manage the Braves in 2016.
Starting pitcher Max Fried earned the win in Tuesday’s series clincher with six scoreless innings. Freddie Freeman, Dansby Swanson and Jorge Soler hit home runs in the game.
Soler was named the series’ Most Valuable Player; Swanson grew up in Georgia as a Braves’ fan and Freeman has been with the team since 2010.
“We lost 97 games in 2015 and six years later we’re World Champions,” Freeman said. “It’s extremely hard to do. And what this organization and the front office did to do that, it’s special. It’s a special group.”
