After being forced to wait an extra day, the Milwaukee Brewers could finally celebrate their first-ever World Series title on Wednesday night.
After over 50 decades in the making, the Brewers were crowned MLB champions as they clinched a historic championship with a 4-1 series triumph over the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The Brewers had been forced to wait for their long-awaited title after the Rays battled back in extra innings Tuesday night’s Game 4. But there was no doubt they would be crowned champions on night later as they stormed to a 4-0 win.
As closer Trevor Megill induced a soft ground ball for the final Rays out in the bottom of the ninth Tropicana Field erupted to raucous decimals as the traveling Brewers fans broke out into celebrations.
The Brewers players, meanwhile, rushed up the steps of their dugout and flooded onto the field in a celebration that has been in the making for more than half a century.
The Brewers, playing in the smallest market in the major leagues, proved to be a scrappy team that got hot at the right time throughout the playoffs. Earlier in the series, Milwaukee had taken a 3-0 lead over Tampa Bay while hitting just one homer.
The Milwaukee Brewers won their first-ever World Series title on Wednesday night
The Brewers sealed their triumph over the Tampa Bay Rays with a 4-1 win in Game 5
Raucous traveling Milwaukee fans broke out into wild celebrations inside Tropicana Field
And Wednesday night was no exception as the Brewers demonstrated the same grit that saw them battle throughout the entire postseason, including a National League Championship Series sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In Game 5, they sealed their historic championship by driving in runs using two singles, a sacrifice fly and a double.
22-year-old rookie Cooper Pratt set a Series rookie record with six straight hits before a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. Jackson Chourio set a five-game Series record with 11 hits.
Young ace Jacob Misiorowski threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings of two-hit ball before exiting the game because of a right calf cramp. He got a standing ovation from the Brew-Crew fans, who took over the section behind Milwaukee’s dugout for the last three games.
Brewers fans have been waiting for their crowning moment since 1970 – the franchise began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and moved to Milwaukee a year later – and thousands of fans made the trip from Wisconsin to Florida to witness the moment of history.
Many sported jerseys of blue and gold, some even donned the iconic ‘cheese heads’ of the region’s NFL franchise, the Green Bay Packers, as they sat among the cowbell-ringing Rays crowd.
Their celebrations had been made to wait, postponed for one more day after the Rays rallied to a remarkable comeback in the 12th inning in Game 4 for their first win of the season on Tuesday night.
But with the Brewers heading into Game 5 with a 3-1 series lead, their historic World Series title had always seemed inevitable.
The Brewers players rushed up the steps of the dugout and flooded onto the field
The Brewers are given the Commissioner’s Trophy as blue and gold confetti falls around them
Catcher Williams Contreras is captured on the brink of tears as he emotionally celebrates
Of the 43 previous major league teams to fall behind 3-0 in any best-of-seven postseason series, only the 2004 Boston Red Sox rallied to win four straight games when they beat the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
There had been 25 teams that previously took a 3-0 lead in the World Series. Of those, 21 finished the sweep in Game 4, and the remaining four won the series in Game 5.
Ultimately, the Rays failed to join the same ranks as the 2004 Red Sox.
The Rays, an expansion team that debuted in 1998, dropped to 0-3 in the World Series after defeats in 2008 and 2020. They are reportedly only the third team to lose in their first three Series appearances, joining the Brooklyn Dodgers and Detroit Tigers.
The championship-clinching game was the fitting end to the last Major League Baseball action fans may seen for an extended period.
The Brewers won the World Series at a time when owners are pushing for a salary cap from the players’ association because they maintain small-market teams can’t regularly succeed. A management lockout is likely to start December 2 and could threaten the 2027 season.
Ironically, this was the first Series since 1991 between teams in the bottom half of payrolls. The Brewers ranked 19th as of August 31 and Rays were 25th.
