As the Atlanta Braves celebrate their 2021 World Series win, the team's first since 1995, John Smoltz was on with Dukes and Bell to talk about an array of all things Braves. From watching his former team throughout the postseason to his feelings on seeing Atlanta win its first championship since the '95 team in which he was a member of.
When asked by Mike Bell about how much pride he shared with the Braves alumni in regard to the past Atlanta season.
“Look, we all know we should have won more,” Smoltz began in his response, adding that the 20-year gap of not winning a championship has been “painful.”
Smoltz also touched on the deaths of former Braves greats Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro, saying that “you only wish that they could have appreciated it.”
Smoltz would go on to say that he felt the Braves organization has finally been “validated” with this championship win. “I tell you guys all the time, we should have won more and no one runs from that,” Smoltz told Dukes and Bell.
“Baseball’s a cruel sport. A game of failures and I think about it every day when I’m broadcasting the World Series about how many I thought we could have won. And at least now, for the whole alumni, I’ve never seen more people be excited for a team that if you were to ask them in August, there’s no chance they were going to win a World Series,” Smoltz said.
Smoltz also compared the 2021 team to the 1991 team in the sense of a “how did you guys do that,” feeling many people had in the instance of both teams.