Atlanta Overcomes Decades of Frustration to Win World Series

Atlantans have yearned to see plays like that, just as they have longed for another champion for most of the last 26 years, but often found sporting heartbreak instead.

Atlanta lost the World Series in 1991, 1992, 1996 and 1999, and the N.F.L.’s Falcons catastrophically collapsed in the Super Bowl after the 2016 season, when the New England Patriots wiped out a 25-point deficit with a little over 18 minutes to play and won the game in overtime. The city’s Major League Soccer team, Atlanta United, won the M.L.S. Cup in 2018, but had existed for only two years at that point.

The Braves also won championships in Boston in 1914 and in Milwaukee in 1957. In the 19th century, one of the team’s early incarnations in Boston won the World Series of 1892.

The Astros missed their opportunity to win a championship devoid of taint and controversy. Houston won the World Series in 2017 but was later found to have used illicit means to steal and transmit opponents’ signals throughout the season. The scheme came to light before the 2020 season, and ever since the Astros, who led the majors in runs scored this season, have been heckled as “cheaters” by fans of opposing teams.

The Astros fired their manager, A.J. Hinch, in the wake of the scandal, and replaced him with Dusty Baker, the popular skipper who has yet to win a World Series in 24 seasons as a manager — though he is the only manager to take five different teams to the postseason. Baker managed the Giants when they lost to the Angels in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series.

Houston, which fell to the Washington Nationals in 2019, lost the World Series at home for the second time in three years. The Astros’ chances of winning next year could be diminished if their shortstop, Carlos Correa, chooses to leave in free agency. The Astros have lost other key players over the years, including the star pitcher Gerrit Cole, and still managed to find a way back.

For now, they are stuck on one title, just like the Atlanta teams of the 1990s — whose postseason struggles were not inherited by the improbable 2021 team.