World Series Game Six: Party Like it's 1995

Here's what I remember about 1995. I was only ten years old. Seinfeld's popularity increased in its time on NBC's Thursday night lineup. Saturday Night Live was celebrating 20 years. The Simpsons' seventh season began with the surprising revelation that baby Maggie Simpson shot Mr. Burns. In the sports world, the Houston Rockets won their second straight NBA championship, the New Jersey Devils won their first of their three Stanley Cups, and Major League Soccer and the WNBA didn't exist yet. Regarding the Atlanta Braves, they won the World Series with a shutout victory in Game Six. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It was a quiet start to Game Six; nothing after the first two innings. Then Jorge Soler happened. A towering shot to left with two on put the Braves up 3-0 in the third inning. Dansby Swanson hit a shot of his own in the fifth inning, making it 5-0. After a sixth run was driven in, Freddie Freeman, undoubtedly the heart and soul of this Braves team, delivered a solo shot in the seventh. Max Fried, whose postseason performance had been in question, was dealing. 74 pitches in six innings, with nothing but zeroes across the board. Will Smith entered in the ninth, gave up a single, but shut the door the rest of the way. Yuli Gurriel delivered the 27th and final out, and it was celebration time for the Atlanta Braves.

The Braves' regular season wasn't ideal. They were under .500 at the break, becoming the second team to win the World Series in spite of that fact (the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals were the first). They lost Ronald Acuña, Jr. to injury. They lost Marcell Ozuna, Mike Soroka, and during the Series, they lost Charlie Morton. Yet the team persevered. They survived. They thrived. Most importantly, they won. Jorge Soler, who hit three homers in this Series, was named MVP. He went from being on a dead Kansas City Royals team to being traded to the Braves on the deadline and helping them win it all. He is the 2nd Cuban-born World Series MVP in baseball history; joining only Liván Hernández (1997) on that short list. The team also hit 23 home runs in the 16 postseason games they played this year.

It's fitting; five years to the day after one emotional Series win (the Chicago Cubs winning their first World Series in 108 years), we see another one with the Braves. This year's championship did so much for the Braves. It proved that anything was possible; missing key players and winning only 88 games this season, yet going on a winning tear when it counted. Their 1995 championship was, sadly, the one bright note during a 14-year stretch of dominance for the Braves. For more on that, click here, though this championship also solidified that they are more than just a team of the 1990s. And this championship also brings needed joy to the city of Atlanta, who had the suffer the indignity of "28-3" and the choking label that came with it.

For many of the Braves players, such as Freddie Freeman, Jorge Soler, Dansby Swanson, and Travis d'Arnaud (among others), this is their first ring. For Joc Pederson, however, it's back-to-back, as he was part of the Dodgers' 2020 championship run. And here's a fun fact: it's also back-to-back rings for players named Will Smith as well (the Dodgers' catcher in 2020, and the Braves' closer in 2021). As for the Houston Astros, well, I can't really come up with the words to express how this season went for them, so I'll just let this video tell it for me.

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