ATLANTA -- The narrative shape of the 2021 Atlanta Braves, the newly crowned champions of baseball, was not an arc, as fantastical tales tend to be. It was more like a wave chart, with ebbs and flows leading to one final tidal wave that began gathering momentum in early August and crashed ashore on Tuesday night.
Over the last three incredible months, the Braves went from a team that had not spent a day over .500 to World Series champions.
That, in itself, is a good story. But the story didn't begin in August, or at a July trade deadline that Atlanta turned into a season-defining event, or on the day its biggest star, Ronald Acuña Jr.