PARTY LIKE IT’S 1995!
HOUSTON — This year’s World Series once seemed destined to be a titanic clash, one woven with narratives of revenge and vindication in an emotionally charged rematch.
The Dodgers and Houston Astros, after all, were on the verge of reprising their 2017 Fall Classic meeting, squaring off again for the title after the Astros cheating scandal became public, settling a much-anticipated final score.
Since that Series they’ve been baseball’s premier powerhouses, almost annually the two biggest juggernauts in the sport.
Their paths, however, never ended up crossing. This time, they were nothing more than footnotes in someone else’s fairy tale.
For the first time since 1995, it is the Atlanta Braves who are champions of baseball, claiming the franchise’s fourth World Series title with a 7-0 rout of the Astros in Game 6 on Tuesday behind a scoreless six-inning gem from lefthander Max Fried and home runs from Jorge Soler, Dansby Swanson and Freddie Freeman.
It was the team that was under .500 for the first four months, that finished the regular season with just 88 wins, and that was an underdog in each of its three playoff series — as well as Tuesday’s clincher — that proved to be this postseason’s unstoppable force.
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