It was 26 years ago, the Braves were playing game 6 of the 1995 World Series and I was a senior in high school. I never saw the Braves win the World Series, only in the highlights. I had asked this girl I liked out on a date and I didn’t realize the game was that night. Needless to say that relationship lasted only that one date. Now spring forward 26 years, I’m 45, married, with three little girls, mortgage, and a lot more responsibility. But for one night, I felt like a little kid wishing his grandfather was sitting next to him watching their favorite team win it all.
Is this happening….it is?
Ben Ingram, Braves Radio Network
It has been a lot of tough years these past 26 years trying to get back to the promise land, getting swept in many different playoffs and then coming so, so close in so many of those other years, or not even making it to baseball’s second season. But not this year. To be the best, you have to beat the best, and the Braves did that this year in taking down the 2020 World Series Champions Los Angeles Dodgers four games to two in the National League Championship Series. And now this 2021 Braves team can call themselves elite and the best. The Braves ended the regular season with 88 wins, which was the least amount of wins for all the postseason teams from both leagues. But that didn’t stop this team from accomplishing what they set out to accomplish last March. The Braves ran through the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS who had 95 wins, the LA Dodgers in the NLCS with 106 wins, and the Houston Astros in the World Series with 95 wins as well. At the time of the postseason, the Braves were the hottest team, and that carried them to the World Series Title.
Looking back at this season it was just fate that the Braves were going to win it all. Hank Aaron, Don Sutton, and Phil Niekro all looking down on this team. When Ronald Acuna, Jr went down with a torn ACL, and Marcell Ozuna did what he did, it was fitting that Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler, the players that were picked up to replace Acuna and Ozuna, were the MVP’s of the NLCS (Rosario) and World Series (Soler). I think the real MVP of the season is General Manager Alex Anthopolous for picking up Rosario, Soler, Joc Perterson, and Adam Duvall when Acuna and Ozuna went out.
As my three young daughters nestled all tight, asleep in their beds, I watched the team that I love win it all with the love of my life. She saw how much it meant to me to see the Braves with the tomahawk spread across the jersey win this sacred prize that not all teams in the major leagues have. I am not a cryer, and I’m not a yeller jumping up and down in excitement. I just stood there quietly staring at the TV with the sigh of relief smile saying, “They did it, they really did it.”
Header photo courtesy of Wall Street Journal
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