Milwaukee deserves a World Series. Now, it finally gets its shot

Standing atop the podium near second base at Dodger Stadium, his team’s NL championship trophy lighting up the dark Los Angeles sky behind him, Murphy delivered a quote to ignite a party 44 years in the making.

“They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers,” he said into the microphone. “But we’ve got a bunch of gamers.”

Now, they have a pennant, too. And they did it in a fashion more satisfying than any of the Lamarca or Budweiser that lined the carpet in the visitor’s clubhouse in the evening’s aftermath.

The Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series.

Read that back as many times as you’d like. Maybe you’ve waited since 1982. Maybe you’ve waited your entire life.

A 6-4 win on Oct. 16 to sweep the Los Angeles Dodgers — oh, those Los Angeles Dodgers — in the NL Championship Series means that in one week, Milwaukee will play host to Game 1 of the Fall Classic.

“I do know the city is ready,” said NLCS MVP Jake Bauers, the man whose story perhaps best personifies these gamers. “I know that the fans are ready, and I know that we'll be ready.”

It has been nearly a half-century since Keith Jackson declared to the world, “Left field, base hit. Tying run, Moore, comes to score. Gantner on his way to the plate, throw through — Brewers lead!” In that time, the team has used 496 different pitchers and 456 position players. Ninety-three million more poured through the turnstiles in Milwaukee to watch.

None of them saw a World Series until now.

“How cool is that, man?” said 22-year-old shortstop Cooper Pratt, Coke bottle in one hand, sparkling juice in the other and a childlike exuberance on his face. “We’re going to the World Series."

Up there with Cecil Cooper’s blooper and Pete Ladd inducing a grounder to shortstop are now Garrett Mitchell’s left-on-left homer and Aaron Ashby’s stone-cold, three-inning save.

The Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series.

They did it by exorcising their greatest of demons in Dodger blue, returning the favor for last year’s NLCS sweep with four games of dominance to unseat the behemoths of baseball.

“That's the way you'd want this storybook ending to this,” Murphy said before the series began. “When you're writing the last words of the Milwaukee Brewers championship, you'd want it to go through the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's the way it has to be.”

The images of Jackson Chourio getting on his horse and chasing down Kiké Hernández’s hard-hit liner on the warning track in left-center, of Aaron Ashby hoisting his arms in triumph — fatigued, heroic triumph — and of William Contreras falling to his knees, they will live forever in Brewers history.

This evening was perhaps the greatest night in Brewers history.

It was for the disappointment that still lingers from Game 7 against the St. Louis Cardinals those 44 years ago.

It was for the ball that deflected off Mike Cameron’s glove. For the one that snuck under Trent Grisham’s.

For falling short on the doorstep against these very Dodgers in 2018. For the foul ball off Christian Yelich’s kneecap. For Freddie Freeman against Josh Hader in 2021. For the deafening silence of the stadium after Pete Alonso’s swing in 2024. For the thud of the sweep in this ballpark a year ago when Shohei Ohtani played the greatest game anyone has ever seen.

For all the times it felt like the heartbreak couldn’t get worse in Milwaukee, only for it to do exactly that.

For Jeromy Burnitz and Ben Sheets and Rob Deer and Corey Hart and Corey Knebel and Dan Plesac.

For Bob Uecker.

For that feeling you got when your dad took you to your first game. For how you’ve felt that magic again this October.

For the tears of joy shed after Chourio’s catch. For the tears of sadness shed thinking of those who you didn’t get to experience this bliss with.

This is for Milwaukee. For Wisconsin.

For you.

The Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series.

“I try not to zoom out too much, but this means a lot to a lot of people,” said Matt Arnold, the team's president of baseball operations and architect of the greatest team in franchise history. “I know how much that means and I take that very seriously. That’s why I want to celebrate tonight and we have more work to do. I want to win four more games.

“We can do it. We absolutely can do it. This is the right group.”

Few franchises in baseball have taken more lumps than the Brewers. None has taken more over the past decade. Brandon Woodruff and Yelich, the captain, have been here for all of them, and both agreed: Those repeated tastes of defeat made the champagne taste sweeter.

“How fitting it was that last year, getting swept in L.A. and coming in here and doing this,” Woodruff said. “Nobody thought we were going to do that. We believed in ourselves, but nobody on the outside thought we were going to do this. It makes it pretty sweet. Man, I’m just excited for the fans and the org and the city.”

Really, the only team that could have knocked out the Dodgers was the one to do so. It was only right. The team with the 22-year-old superstar, the pit bull of a catcher, the MVP who wanted to retire two years ago, the junior college reliever who just kept taking the ball and refusing to cave had to be the ones to step into the ring and deliver the knockout blow.

And what a punch it was.

“If you get in the ring and you fight a guy and you lose, you remember it, and you understand that maybe, ‘Hey, what attitude did I come with? What could have been different?’” Murphy said. “I don't know that we could have beat them as good as they played last year in the state we were in, I don't know. I'm not sure. But I know this year when we came in, we weren't coming in to play patty cake. We were coming in to try to do everything we could.

“Again, this is totally out of respect. I respect Dave [Roberts]. I respect Andrew [Friedman]. I respect the whole organization, from top to bottom, and their history. But we were hungry, and as long as it's an even playing field, we're going to come in and give it our best shot to win. That's exactly what we did.”