Duvall and Soler combined to knock in 12 of Atlanta’s 25 runs in this World Series. Rosario, who was the most valuable player of the National League Championship Series, scored five of them. Soler was named the most valuable player of the World Series. Never before have two midseason acquisitions cornered both postseason M.V.P. awards for a team.
“He’s here, he really is,” McGuirk said of Anthopoulos while celebrating on the field. “We’ve lived dog years through this year. We were left for dead multiple times in the first half.”
Back home in Georgia, Anthopoulos’s family was back in bed. Alex watched the game with his wife, Cristina, and, partly, with his daughter, Julia, 11, and son, John, 9. The kids went to bed at 8:30 p.m., but Alex woke Julia when Soler smashed a three-run homer in the third inning. Then he woke John in the ninth inning “so he could watch the end.”
“I wouldn’t trade Alex Anthopoulos for any executive in baseball,” McGuirk said. “I fell in love with him the first time I met him, and he’s more than rewarded the faith we had in him. I just FaceTimed him a few minutes ago and he’s as ecstatic as all of us.”