Ted Turner wandered around the field with the trophy on his head.
Steve Avery took a victory lap around the bases and slid into home plate.Fans lingered long after the last out.
That's how winners act.
Chokers no more, the Atlanta Braves have the look of World Series champions at last.
Five years of frustration ended Saturday night when Tom Glavine pitched one-hit ball for eight innings and David Justice homered, bringing the city of Atlanta its first major sports title with a 1-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians in Game 6 of the World Series.
"This has been a long time coming. This organization and this group of guys has worked so hard to get here and we've come up short," said Glavine, whose two wins made him the Series MVP.
"That bitterness of losing the World Series games is real fresh in everyone's mouth," he said.
But, it's gone now, drowned out by champagne - sprayed and guzzled all over the locker room.
"We worked hard and we deserved it and we're going to enjoy it," said team owner Turner, walking around the locker room repeating, "At last, at last."
Series losers in 1991 and 1992, NL playoff losers in 1993 and denied a chance in 1994 by the players' strike, the Braves had won more games than any team in the majors over the last five years, but were still compared to the Buffalo Bills, who lost four straight Super Bowls. No team in baseball history had gone to the postseason four times in a row without winning the championship, and the Braves made sure it didn't happen to them.
Justice, who had criticized Braves fans for being too quiet, gave them reason to cheer when he homered leading off the sixth against reliever Jim Poole. After the game, he blew kisses to the crowd.
"I was really a nervous wreck coming in today because I'd been in this situation before, where you're up 3-2," Justice said. "I really had a good feeling that it was our time. We had suffered enough. It was time for our club and time for our city to get one."
Glavine and Mark Wohlers combined on the fifth one-hitter in Series history and first since Jim Lonborg for Boston in 1967, allowing only a soft single by Tony Pena starting the sixth inning. Glavine reprised his win in Game 2 by again using his changeups and breaking balls to fool the Indians.
More than anything, that was the theme this October - great pitching stopping great hitting.
Cleveland, which led the majors in batting, scoring and home runs, was held to a .179 average by Atlanta's aces, four points off the lowest average ever in a six-game Series which was set by the New York Giants against Philadelphia in 1911. The Indians were shut out just twice in the regular season, but managed to put only one runner past first base against Glavine and Wohlers.
"Their starting pitching is deeper than we've seen, we didn't see their bullpen much," Indians manager Mike Hargrove said.
Fittingly, it was Glavine who ended the elusive quest. He'd been with the Braves longer than any player on their postseason roster, beginning his career in 1987 at the start of a four-year span in which Atlanta was the worst team in baseball, averaging 98 losses per season.
Glavine struck out eight and walked three, then told Cox he was done after eight innings. Wohlers, filling the closer role that had been the Braves' biggest bug-a-boo in postseasons past, finished it out, retiring the side in order for his second save.
The crowd was on its feet for the ninth inning, a lot with their tomahawks chopping. As soon as Marquis Grissom caught Carlos Baerga's fly ball to left-center, a few fans took to the field but theywere quickly escorted by police as the rest of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium stood and cheered to the song "We are the Champions" by the group Queen.
Properly, perhaps, the Braves won by a 1-0 score. In 1991, in their first try at clinching the title, they blew a three games to two lead over Minnesota, dropping Game 7 by a 1-0 score to Jack Morris in 10 innings at the Metrodome. That was the last 1-0 game in a World Series.
Five of the games were decided by one run, a record for a six-game Series.
Atlanta won its first title since moving from Milwaukee to open the 1966 season. The Braves also became the first franchise to win the World Series in three cities, having done it as the so-called Miracle Braves in Boston in 1914 and in Milwaukee in 1957.
"We've been close before, but we finally got it," manager Bobby Cox said. "Our players, from day one, wanted to win this thing."
The Indians remained without a World Series title since 1948, when they beat the Boston Braves. Cleveland's last Series appearance was 1954, when it got swept by the New York Giants.
"I told them they played well and they're champions," Hargrove said. "We played hard and they should feel good about that."
Justice, without an extra-base hit in 42 at-bats during the expanded playoffs this season, doubled off Dennis Martinez in the fourth.
Poole bailed out the Indians in the fifth, but Justice tagged him for a deep drive on a 1-1 pitch to start the sixth, his first homer since Sept. 22 and his fourth in World Series play.
The Braves, who won 90 games this year, had other chances, but instead left 11 on base.
While Glavine became the first pitcher to take a no-hitter into the sixth inning in the World Series since Kansas City's Charlie Leibrandt in 1985, Indians starter Dennis Martinez was working in and out of trouble.
The surest sign that Martinez was struggling came in the bullpen. Rookie Chad Ogea, who had not pitched in the Series, began warming up three batters into the game, Ken Hill and Poole began throwing in the second, Eric Plunk got up in the fourth and Alan Embree was tossing in the sixth.
With two on and one out in the second, Rafael Belliard hit a bouncer that two-time Gold Glove shortstop Omar Vizquel fielded behind the bag and flipped, with his glove, to second baseman Baerga, who barehanded the toss and completed the double play.
Belliard, who went 0-for-16 in the Series, flied out with the bases loaded to end the fourth. The left-handed Poole relieved with two on in the fifth and struck out the left-handed McGriff on three pitches to end the inning.
Notes: The Braves broke their postseason jinx in Game 6s. They were 1-7 overall in such situations, including losses in the 1991 and 1992 World Series. ... Grissom set a record with 25 hits in the postseason, one more than Boston's Marty Barrett had in 1986. Grissom hit safely in all 14 of the Braves' postseason games. He has the longest postseason hitting streak in NL history, and is three away from Hank Bauer's record of 17 for the Yankees in the 1956-58 World Series. ... Kenny Lofton went 0-for-4 and went hitless in his last 13 at-bats. He reached base in all six of his plate appearances in Game 3.