Column: A most improbable team brings Atlanta a title

During three decades of nearly uninterrupted excellence, there were so many Atlanta Braves teams that seemed more championship worthy than this one.

The 1993 squad chased down the San Francisco Giants to win one of baseball’s last great division races. The ’96 group wiped out the New York pinstripers in the first two games of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. The ’97, ‘98 and ‘99 teams all won more that 100 games.

Yet it was these Braves -- who didn’t climb above .500 until early August, who endured a devastating rash of injuries and other setbacks, who had to wheel and deal ahead of the trade deadline to assemble a whole new outfield — who finally brought the tortured A-T-L another title.

No one could've seen it coming.

Well, except for those players dancing in the center of Minute Maid Park early Wednesday morning.

“These guys never gave up on themselves,” manager Brian Snitker said. “We used a lot of guys, we lost a lot of pieces over the course of the summer. It was just the next man up. These guys never stopped believing in themselves."

If they were the least bit familiar with their team’s history, they had to know how fickle the baseball gods can be.

The Braves won 14 straight division titles from 1991-2005, a staggering streak that may never be eclipsed. They got back to the postseason as a wild card in 2010, Bobby Cox’s final season as manager. They claimed another wild card in 2012, followed by a return to the top of the NL East in 2013. A painful rebuilding job came next, but it paid off with another streak of division titles that has grown to four.

When you add it all up, that’s 21 postseason appearances in the last 30 completed seasons — a run that meets nearly every requirement to be called a dynasty except the only one that really matters.

.

..

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Column-A-most-improbable-team-brings-Atlanta-a-16587502.php