1992 National League Championship Series - Aftermath

Aftermath

Andy Van Slyke sat motionless in centerfield for several minutes after the game ended, while the Braves celebrated at home plate.

In the celebration at home plate after Sid Bream's pennant-winning slide, Braves pitcher Kent Mercker was hurt and unable to pitch in the World Series.

The Braves lost the 1992 World Series to the Toronto Blue Jays in six games. 1992 was the second of five pennants for the Braves from 1991 to 1999, but only one of those pennants was followed by a World Series victory, in 1995. Francisco Cabrera went 0–1 in the 1992 Series. He played only one more season in the big leagues, accruing 91 plate appearances for the 1993 Braves. He later managed the St. Louis Cardinals' Dominican League affiliate.

To date, Cabrera is the only player in MLB history to win a series with a hit during an at bat in which he could have lost the series with an out (all other series walk-off hits occurred either with the score tied (as with Bill Mazeroski's 1960 World Series winning home run) or in non-decisive games).

"The Slide" also proved to be the end of the Pirates' mini-dynasty. The Pirates never recovered from their loss to the Braves. Bonds and Drabek left via free agency, signing with the Giants and Astros, respectively. Bonds went on to set the all-time MLB home run record with 762. The 1993 Pirates went 75–87. The Pirates have not had a winning season (much less a postseason appearance) since, and currently have a streak of 20 consecutive losing season as of 2012, an all-time record for major North American professional sports.

Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS marked the first time in MLB history that a team which was one out away from losing in a winner-take-all game of a playoff series instead won on the last pitch. The March 1993 issue of Baseball Digest pronounced it the greatest baseball comeback ever, as did John Smoltz immediately after the game. A 2006 study by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette pronounced Cabrera's game-winning single the eighth-"clutchest" hit in MLB history. ESPN called the Pirates' defeat the eighth most painful in baseball history.

Until 2008, the Braves were the last team in Major League Baseball to win a seventh game after blowing a 3–1 lead. That year, the Tampa Bay Rays won Game 7 of the ALCS after blowing a 3–1 lead to the Boston Red Sox.

As expected, Bonds left Pittsburgh in the offseason to sign with the San Francisco Giants. The Pirates have not had a winning season since he left, a drought now spanning 20 years, the longest in professional sports history.