2024 Program_Proof

HOME OF THE BRAVES

Like the remarkable brilliance of a World Series ring, championships have a way of coming full-circle. Brian Snitker’s long-awaited coronation as a World Series champion on November 2, 2021 was not his first title as a member of the Atlanta Braves organization. Nor was it his first championship in professional baseball. More than four decades before he hoisted the Commissioner’s Trophy in Houston, Tx. as a manager, Snitker captured an Appalachian League championship as a catcher for the 1977 Kingsport Braves. Snitker’s improbable path to the 2021 World Series title has been celebrated as a spellbinding underdog success story. He is an enigma; his entire professional baseball career has been spent with just one organization. Initially as a player, and for more than 40 years in various coaching assignments throughout the Braves system, Snitker has labored loyally for the organization that signed him as a free agent out of the University of New Orleans in 1977. Of the 2021 world champions whose professional baseball roots can be traced to the Appalachian League, Snitker’s ties are the strongest. His last stint in the league came back in 1996 as the manager of the Danville Braves. Perhaps the most prominent Appalachian League alumnus on the 2021 team is Braves superstar Ronald Acuna Jr., who played in 18 games for the 2015 Danville club. Other standout 2021 Braves with tenures in the Appalachian League include second baseman Ozzie Albies (Danville, 2014), third baseman Austin Riley (Danville, 2015), and pitchers Charlie Morton (Danville, 2003) and Ian Anderson (Danville, 2016). Indeed, Danville was a launching pad for many of the household names on the 2021 World Series squad. Flash back twenty-six years to Atlanta’s first and only other World Series crown, and several notable names on that legendary Braves roster were Appalachian League alumni from another location: Pulaski. Throughout the 1990’s the Atlanta Braves were the baseball juggernaut of the South. The Braves made five World Series appearances in the 90’s. Their lone World Series title came in 1995 against the Cleveland Indians, which concluded in six games on October 28, 1995. The decisive game featured a commanding performance on the mound by Tom Glavine, who gave up just one hit through eight innings. But the game will forever be remembered by the one run scored that fateful evening- a home run off the bat of Pulaski alumnus David Justice. The Atlanta Braves’ newly-minted World Series title conjures up memories of the faded glory of its 1995 triumph, and the Pulaski players that helped make history. Who were they? Let’s dig in.

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