ATLANTA — In a sense, it was always part of the team spirit infused in these 2021 World Series champion Atlanta Braves - the sense that they were also trying to do it for Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro, team legends who died earlier this year.
Well, they did do it.
After winning Game 6 on Tuesday night in Houston, team chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk gave a nod to Hammerin' Hank and Niekro in his victory remarks.
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"I would like to thank two angels, Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro, who helped us win this tonight," McGuirk said.
Braves fans everywhere celebrating tonight also will be thinking of the immeasurable legacy of those two titans in team history.
The game was a glorious coronation of a game for the champion Atlanta Braves.
Jorge Soler hit an early three-run home run, Dansby Swanson added two more with another homer two innings later, and Freddie Freeman later put the icing on the cake with an RBI-double and solo home run to account for the final two runs.
Max Fried, who had struggled mightily in his last two postseason starts, fired off six scoreless innings and showed why he is the Braves' ace.
The 2021 postseason was not supposed to happen like this - not for these Braves, who only won 88 games and were without arguably their best player, Ronald Acuña after his injury earlier in the summer.
But these Braves, despite their less-than-sterling resume, had something else that made them special beyond just wins and stats - they had a team spirit and a gritty resolve that showed up time and time again.
They beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS, a quality opponent, and then overcame the heavily-favored defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.
And then, in the World Series, they beat the vaunted Houston Astros in six games.
Both for Braves fans who remember all the near-misses of the 90s and subsequent (and, of course, the one title), and to younger fans who don't even know what it was like to root for the Braves when they were "America's Team," - tonight is a special, special night.
