Atlanta Braves win World Series for the first time since 1995

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By Steve Almasy, CNN

The Atlanta Braves have won their first World Series title since 1995 after defeating the Houston Astros 7-0 in Game 6 on Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park.

The Braves took the Series four games to two behind strong pitching and three big home runs. And although Atlanta couldn’t close out the Astros at home in Game 5, thousands of fans flocked to the Braves’ stadium, Truist Park, on Tuesday to watch the game on a nippy but starry night.

The Braves once again homered their way to an early lead. In the top of the third, Braves Jorge Soler hammered the eighth pitch from Astros starter Luis Garcia for a three-run home run after Ozzie Albies singled and Eddie Rosario walked around two flyouts. Soler’s third homer of the Series traveled an estimated 446 feet, and it was the last pitch Garcia, starting on short rest, threw.

Soler, who was born in Cuba, was named Series MVP.

The Braves’ lead grew to 5-0 in the top of the fifth when Atlanta-area native Dansby Swanson crushed a two-run homer off Astros reliever Cristian Javier. Albies, who had walked to lead off the inning, scored ahead of Swanson. One out and two batters later, Freddie Freeman doubled home Soler, who had walked, making the score 6-0.

Freeman, who could potentially be a free agent after the season, blasted a solo home run in the top of the seventh off Houston’s Ryne Stanek to make it 7-0.

Atlanta starting pitcher Max Fried was spectacular, striking out six in six innings and giving up just four singles. Two of those baserunners were erased on double plays, with Fried starting one of them.

Relievers Tyler Matzek and Will Smith pitched the final three innings. The three Braves hurlers combined to strike out 10, throwing 121 pitches, two-thirds of them for strikes.

The Astros had only six hits, all singles, and had just three at-bats with runners in scoring position.

Twenty-six years ago when the Braves won their last World Series, Atlanta and Houston were both National League teams. Maverick media mogul Ted Turner owned the Braves, which played in the functional but ugly Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. But that team also had strong pitching with three future Hall of Famers — Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz — in the starting rotation.

The Braves’ success this season has not insulated them from controversy. Native American groups and advocates have demanded the organization eliminate the “Tomahawk Chop” symbol and gesture from its branding and game day traditions, saying the team is perpetuating racist stereotypes.

Leaders from the Native community have said it’s past time for the Braves to join other professional sports teams such as the Cleveland Guardians and Washington Football Team in removing offensive imagery and mascots which they say reduce Native people down to caricatures.

Cleveland, formerly the Indians, and Washington, formerly the Redskins, announced last year when the United States faced a reckoning on racism they were changing their mascots.

Last summer, the Braves said they were reviewing the chop amid calls from the Native community.

The conversations about the chop were renewed recently when Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred defended the Braves’ name and symbol saying the Native American community in the Atlanta region is “wholly supportive of the Braves program, including the chop. For me, that’s the end of the story.”

The World Series title is also the first since the Braves moved from an in-town neighborhood near the state Capitol to Truist Park in an adjacent suburb. The move was condemned by many who lived within the city and wanted the team to stay at Turner Field. Many fans inside the city saw the relocation as the organization abandoning its core Black fans while others hated the team moving into the suburbs.

The Braves said they had asked for city funds to improve the then-17-year old Turner Field but the city wouldn’t help and after the team offered other concessions they moved to a plot of land in Cobb County, where many of their ticket holders lived and where the county helped with a large portion of the new stadium’s building costs.

After announcing the move in 2013 the Braves disappointed fans as they reworked their roster and went from 96 victories in that season to 79 in 2014, followed by campaigns with 67 and 68 wins.

The new stadium opened in 2017 (as SunTrust Park) and attendance grew from 22nd in the majors to 13th. This season the Braves were second in total number of fans and drew almost 30,000 fans to each game at the 41,000-seat stadium.

The team won just 72 games in 2017 but began a four-year run of making the postseason with 90 wins in 2018.

The franchise, which moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta before the 1966 season, has also been known for a lot of late-season disappointments. The Braves hold the MLB record with 14 consecutive division titles (1991 to 2005) but only won the one World Series title in that time. Last year the Braves held a 3-1 lead in the National League Championship Series but lost when the Los Angeles Dodgers won the final three contests and then the World Series.

The title gives the city its first major professional sports league championship since Atlanta United won MLS Cup in 2018.

The-CNN-Wire