Brian Snitker on return to Houston: ‘The last time I was here, it was a pretty good time’
One day in the middle of April, Braves manager Brian Snitker walked from the clubhouse, up the steps and into the visiting dugout at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Snitker was ready for his pregame chat with reporters ahead of a three-game series with the Astros. The scene was much, much different from when he last stood in that dugout two and a half years before. So were the stakes. On that night, Snitker nervously watched from that same dugout as his team, with a 7-0 lead, tried to record the final outs of the World Series against the Astros. The Braves had that seven-run lead, and eventually reality set in for Snitker, the man who had worked so hard for so long to achieve something like this.
“I remember sitting in that chair in the ninth inning and there’s two outs and then thinking to myself, ‘My God, this is really gonna happen,'” Snitker recalled in Houston in April. “Yeah, that’s unbelievable memories. There’s nothing like it, I’ll tell you that. In the industry, that’s what you strive for all the time, and to be able to experience it, I was very blessed to be able to do that.”
Any World Series is special, but the 2021 Braves have a special place in history. They truly were the underdogs. They lost Ronald Acuña Jr. to a torn ACL over the summer. They didn’t even get above .500 until August. Somehow, they rallied and fought hard enough to win the division and give themselves a chance to do something special. They made the most of it. Their postseason path was as difficult as the road they took to get there.
They defeated the Brewers. Then they took down the mighty Dodgers, who had all the talent in the world. In six games, they beat the Astros, who have made deep postseason runs look like they’re nothing. And at the end, Snitker raised the World Series trophy, the culmination of all he did to get there. “I remember at the All-Star break, we weren’t treading water – I said, we were right below the surface, really,” Snitker said. “And the thing you take, too, is just how hard it is to pull that off, how hard it is to win a world championship. It’s never easy. These seasons are hard in themselves. And to go through a playoff run and have things go your way is really hard.” On the day of this year’s series opener in Houston, Snitker thought about that World Series on the bus ride to the ballpark. The Braves stayed in the same hotel as they did for that Fall Classic. They had good memories at Minute Maid Park. The Braves swept the Astros over the three weekday games. They were big wins for the team, which continued its hot start to the season. But they could never compare to what the Braves experienced Nov. 2, 2021. After these April wins, there was no champagne, there were no cigars. There was no party. But on their first trip to Houston since standing alone on the season’s final day, the memories came flowing back for the Braves. “The last time I was here, it was a pretty good time,” Snitker said.
