FISH ON!

It is the nature of Milwaukee sports fans to prepare for disappointment. Consider the professional basketball championships of 2019, where the Bucks took two games from Toronto's Raptors in Milwaukee, and the interviews Milwaukee radio picked up with Toronto fans before the third game started suggested the only people in Toronto who thought the Raptors had a chance were wearing Raptor uniforms. The Raptors won four straight games and then won the league championship.

In baseball, the 1982 Brewers, then in the American League were in a position to win the World Series with one win in St. Louis.  The Cardinals won both.

During the current century, the Cold Spring Shops transition from Festive Season to February more often than not chronicles the latest way the Packers fail to live up to the standard, which remains five titles in six attempts in eight seasons.

Thus, I held off on celebrating the outcome of the World Series until the last defensive out was recorded by a Brewer.

Not the Dodgers, the Brewers.  Never mind the Babylon Bee trying to be funny.  "Fans are reportedly more excited than ever for the 2026 World Series, eager to sit down and watch a compelling matchup between Not the Dodgers and Not the Yankees."

It's not that Dodgers and Yankees weren't mentioned during the Series.  "Move over Sandy Koufax, Brewers' Jacob Misiorowski just made MLB history."

When Misiorowski took the hill in Game 1 of the 2026 season, it was known that he had electric stuff, but no one could've predicted the season he would go on to have. Misiorowski is going to win the 2026 National League Cy Young Award, barring some sort of stunner. More importantly, he earned the win in the clincher in Milwaukee's very first World Series title on Wednesday night in Game 5 against the Tampa Bay Rays. In the process, he became the first pitcher since Los Angeles Dodgers legend Sandy Koufax in 1963 to rack up at least 250 strikeouts, log a sub-2.00 ERA and win a World Series clincher, per OptaSTATS.

The Miz, as Wisconsin sports broadcasters refer to him, was also the second Brewer pitcher of the Series to have his name mentioned in the same sentence as Sandy Koufax.  Who's on named first?  Lefthander Robert Gasser, who is third in the rotation behind Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson, became the first left-handed pitcher since Sandy Koufax to face the minimum through six innings, as the one hitter to reach was caught stealing and the batter hitting behind the one hitter he walked hit into a double play.  Those six innings and the most Brewer inning of the World Series, which we will detain in another post, gave the leverage relief pitchers a rest with Antonio Senzatela accounting for six outs, and Brandon Woodruff, who is the last pitcher not named Shohei Ohtani to hit a home run in a playoff game recorded the final three outs of that game.

Leadoff left fielder Jackson Bryant Chourio's name came up in the same sentence as Babe Ruth.  "His 10th hit came in extra innings in Game 4, and it tied Babe Ruth's World Series record for most hits through four games in a World Series."  Rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt became the first rookie ever to hit safely in six straight at-bats.  The final game went the way many Brewer games, both in the regular season and the playoffs, turned out.

The decisive game looked like plenty of other Brewers wins. A shutout start by presumptive NL Cy Young Award winner Jacob Misiorowski, who exited only due to cramps. A calm night for an elite bullpen. Production from up and down a pesky and patient lineup.

The result ultimately felt inevitable, with every Milwaukee player once again executing their specific job until second baseman Brice Turang threw out Richie Palacios to end the game — and the 2026 MLB season.

Catcher William Contreras was named World Series MVP, but he might as well have received the award for being the best player of the postseason. The three-time All-Star slashed .373/.448/.588 in 13 games while throwing out six of 13 baserunners and winning 21 of 31 ABS challenges.

In the World Series, he hit 8-for-21 (.381) with four RBI, including one on a double in Game 5.

In baseball, the batter, the catcher, and the pitcher have the opportunity to challenge a call, which the player must do immediately upon the umpire's call, and two incorrect challenges exhaust the team's stock of challenge unless the game goes to extra innings.  No booth review nonsense.  The Brewers established a four run lead and took it from there.  I heard something on Brewer radio about the team being unbeaten all season once they established a four run lead, but the way Google's algorithms comb through the record books I could not verify that.  Note, dear reader, that both the Dodgers and Rays established early four run leads during the playoffs and subsequently lost those games.

Nor did it matter that the Brewers were playing a best-of-three series in St. Petersburg.

The Brewers players knew that plenty of people would likely follow them to Florida. But then the gates opened, pitcher Jacob Misiorowski said, “and all of sudden all I saw was Brewer fans flooding in.”

“Normally it’s 35,000 against 9,” said Brewers starter Robert Gasser, who allowed just one hit over six shutout innings Monday. “But tonight we had 20,000 people behind us.”

Drawing fans has always been a problem for the Rays. They ranked 28th out of 30 this season and have been in the bottom five of the major leagues every year since 2011. Their new ownership group, led by real-estate developer Patrick Zalupski, hopes that a new stadium in Tampa scheduled to open in 2029 will solve their attendance woes.  In the meantime, Brewers fans swarmed in. The least expensive tickets on the secondary market for Games 1 and 2 in Milwaukee cost about $2,500. At the Trop, they were around $500, meaning it was cheaper for people to travel to the Tampa Bay area, even when factoring in flights and hotels.

The fans who weren’t in St. Pete found other ways to gather. A sellout crowd of 31,000 packed American Family Field in Milwaukee for a watch party. The NBA’s Bucks, who were playing the Indiana Pacers at the same time as World Series Game 3, drew just 10,674, their smallest home crowd for a game since 2015 outside of the Covid season.

“That’s a statement about how much this team has captured the hearts of the people from Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.

A new stadium will not do anything for attendance, no matter how many rent-seekers get to wet their beaks.  When the national television coverage did a split-screen of fans at the Milwaukee watch party and fans at Games 4 or 5, only viewers familiar with the construction of the stadiums could tell which was which.  Nor does that surprise: the same thing happens whenever the Packers play at the Pirate Ship.  Yes, the Buccaneers have a more recent Super Bowl trip than the Packers, and yet, Packer Nation can often take over the stadium in Florida.

There might have been more fans watching baseball in the Deer District than were attending another futile Bucks game.  We'll cut the national media slack for not discovering watch parties at the like of the Bavarian Bierhaus.  Think of it as extra innings of Oktoberfest.

Milwaukee's victory parade commences at 10 am Central time near the old Boston Store, concluding on the Summerfest grounds.

Prosit!