World Series 2021: Atlanta Braves win first title since '95 with new energy, childlike enthusiasm

By Pedro Moura
FOX Sports MLB Writer

HOUSTON — Eventually, the Atlanta Braves got hot. 

And all the teams once ahead of them, the Mets and the Phillies and the Brewers and the Dodgers and the Astros, all they saw of them in the end were their "asses and their elbows."

They witnessed plenty else, too: a massive, momentum-shifting Jorge Soler home run in Game 6 of this World Series, a strikeout despite a broken leg by Charlie Morton in Game 1, obscenely hot hitting from Eddie Rosario in the NLCS. But they primarily saw their "asses and elbows."

"That’s our saying," first-base coach Eric Young Sr. said. "We believed in it."

There’s even a dance. Third-base coach Ron Washington created it sometime in July, back when the Braves were under .500, when they were considered potential sellers, when Brian Snitker’s seat was warm for the last time it will be in years. 

On Tuesday at Minute Maid Park, the Braves did the dance together in the visiting clubhouse. Celebrating one of the most unlikely championships this century, they jogged in place and cocked their elbows. Then they FaceTimed Morton, who was stuck at home in Atlanta because of his injury. Dozens of Atlanta Braves told him they loved him, and he told them he loved them, too. They will celebrate with him at their parade on Friday.

"Everyone here is a child, and we show up to play baseball every day like it’s high school," reliever Luke Jackson said. "Charlie is our dad. Everyone else is a loose cannon."

Like high schoolers, vulgarity pervades their patois. In the previous two rounds alone, at least five Braves remarked on the size of another player’s testicles, some on several occasions. "Asses and elbows" is their rallying cry. But their methods indubitably work.

"I've always said the team that has that little boy in them that comes out," Snitker said last week, "are the teams that do good in the postseason."

What the Braves accomplished makes sense only if you accept that sums can amount to more than their parts. Strictly speaking, the Braves’ talent was inferior to that of every titan they surmounted this postseason: the Brewers, the Dodgers, the Astros. 

At the halfway point of their season, the Braves possessed the same record as the Angels, who limped to the finish line. A week after that, they lost the leading NL MVP candidate, Ronald Acuña Jr., for the year. But general manager Alex Anthopoulos decisively acted to add outfield bulwark early and often: Joc Pederson, then Rosario, Soler and Adam Duvall.

"We felt like we had a second wind," said Max Fried, the Game 6 hero who threw six sterling innings in the Braves’ 7-0 victory. "We were reinvigorated."

Because none of them had started the season well, Anthopoulos paid little for four previously competent players. In so doing, he acted in direct opposition to several peers, who prioritized adding top-end talent over back-end depth. 

The Dodgers added only Trea Turner and Max Scherzer at the deadline, and their depth suffered. The Mets and Phillies, Atlanta's division competition, ceded significant prospects to bring in players they dreamed could make the sort of impact the Braves’ additions actually did. 

"I’m bringing you and Joc in to change the energy in the clubhouse," Anthopoulos told catcher Stephen Vogt, who arrived July 17, one day after Pederson. "I need a new energy."

Pederson had a car in town by the time Vogt landed. He offered him a ride back to their hotel. On the way, they agreed that the team lacked "mojo." Vogt suggested they take drastic action. "I'm too old to put up with this," he told Pederson. 

They decided to start talking — out loud, a lot. They started the next day, when rain conveniently delayed and then postponed that night’s home game, and they had plenty of time to talk.

"You've got to kind of find out, each individual, how they tick and what motivates them or what inspires them or builds confidence in them," Pederson said. 

Once he found those triggers, Pederson said, he kept pressing them. Day after day, he expressed his appreciation and admiration. More specifically, in his verbiage, he told teammates they were bad motherf---ers. 

"That's the sport," he said.

Reliever Jesse Chavez, a 38-year-old veteran of nine teams, said the team had been "hovering" for months before that acquisition. The solution, he concluded, could come only from new personalities.

"Being able to come in and solidify the issue of what we lost in right field," Chavez said of Pederson, "his presence in the lineup and in the clubhouse made up for that."

It’s not that Pederson is as good as Acuña. It’s that he appears to have convinced himself that he is. And he started reminding his teammates that they were great, too. Soon, they added more talent to the roster, and soon enough they were great.

"The belief came when we got better," said Young, also the outfield coach. "Once we got those guys, our lineup changed drastically."

To evaluate the Braves strictly as an 88-win team entering October was to misunderstand those midseason changes. As franchise cornerstone Freddie Freeman asked Tuesday: "Who cares what our record was now?"

"We were the hottest team and the best team since July 30," he said.

The Braves remained a flawed team. Among other deficiencies, they lacked even one right-handed reliever with a track record of success. But Snitker repeatedly found ways to conceal their weaknesses.

In Game 5, his fireman of choice was Chavez, the journeyman who began this season unemployed. On April 3 at Angel Stadium, Chavez attended a major-league game as a fan for the first time since an early date with his future wife, Crystal, nearly 20 years ago. They sat a lot closer to the field than they had as teenagers.

Days later, Chavez heard from Anthopoulos, whom he knew from Toronto. The Braves had a Triple-A opening. Having seen the joy in his eyes in the stands, Crystal persuaded him to take the job. He was back in the majors by June and the clubhouse’s No. 1 music source by July. Snitker knew he could handle the situation.

"I keep it even-keeled," Chavez said. "But I still let them know that no matter how old you get, you still gotta be young at heart."

He, Vogt, Josh Tomlin and Jeff Mathis are the fun uncles, four 37- and 38-year-olds who were around all postseason. Chavez, the oldest man in the 2021 World Series, was the only one to make a playoff roster.

All the other Braves are boys. Fittingly, the biggest controversy in the clubhouse in recent months has been another imbalanced trade — in fantasy football. Two clubhouse managers are said to have swindled a star from some athletic trainers. 

Litigation awaits them this offseason. It probably won’t be too contentious.

When they won the pennant, closer Will Smith’s mom hugged him on the field at Truist Park. "This has been your dream since you were a little kid," she said.

He has retained childlike enthusiasm. Smith and Jackson are catch partners. They have thrown with each other more than 200 times this year and insulted each other on exponentially more occasions. On many of those occasions, they have drummed up imaginary scenarios for each other. 

Game 7 of the World Series, they’ll say, like children might. 3-2 count. Strike required.

But the Braves didn’t need seven games to topple the World Series favorites. They fended them off in six. To end it, Smith fired a fastball to Yuli Gurriel, who pounded a grounder to shortstop. Dansby Swanson considered flipping to second for a force-out, then thought better of it. His throw to Freeman beat Gurriel by three steps. 

Freeman raised his arms in triumph. Catcher Travis d’Arnaud jumped into Smith’s arms. Everybody hugged, each other and then the trophy. And then they retreated indoors to spray copious Champagne and beer — and do a little dancing.

Twenty-six years had passed since the last Braves title, a fact not lost on anyone around the organization. The franchise inaugurated and retired a stadium in that span. The code the new stadium’s security guards use to unlock their credential-scanning smartphones is "1995." 

Fried was a toddler then. Acuña wasn’t born. Snitker, of course, was already an organizational lifer. But they all celebrated together, asses and elbows, asses and elbows.

"I just saw a bunch of grown-ass men inside that clubhouse act like little kids all over again," Smith said.

It got them a championship. Why stop then?

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He most recently covered the Dodgers for three seasons for The Athletic. Previously, he spent five years covering the Angels and Dodgers for the Orange County Register and L.A. Times. More previously, he covered his alma mater, USC, for ESPNLosAngeles.com. The son of Brazilian immigrants, he grew up in the Southern California suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @pedromoura.