One club will leave this World Series with the first Commissioner’s Trophy in its history. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay have both carried that wait for decades, and when Game 1 arrives Friday at 8 p.m. ET on FOX, FOX Deportes and FOX One, the sport’s list of championship-free franchises will be reduced from five to four.
The Mariners, Padres and Rockies will remain in line for at least another year. The Brewers or Rays, though, are about to break through in a matchup unlike any since 1980, when the Phillies defeated the Royals in a World Series pairing of teams still seeking their first title.
Two long roads to the Fall Classic
- Milwaukee’s franchise began in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots. Owner Dewey Soriano, a former Minor League pitcher, could not keep the club financed beyond its inaugural season and filed for bankruptcy. That brief Seattle chapter later became well known through Jim Bouton’s Ball Four.
- Bud Selig purchased the franchise in bankruptcy proceedings and brought it to Milwaukee, his hometown. The club spent two more years in the American League West, losing more than 90 games in each season, before moving to the AL East.
- The Brewers remained in the East for 21 seasons, spent four years in the AL Central after the 1994 realignment, and joined the National League Central in 1998, the same expansion year that brought the Rays into MLB.
- Winning took time in Milwaukee. The franchise did not post a winning record until 1978, did not play a postseason game until 1981, and had reached the playoffs only four times through 2017.
- Tampa Bay’s path began with a long campaign simply to land a team. The region pursued a franchise for more than 25 years and had a ballpark ready in 1990, when the building was called the Florida Suncoast Dome and later the ThunderDome. The Rays did not play their first game until 1998.
- Florida native Wade Boggs, a future Hall of Famer, hit the first home run in franchise history. But the Devil Rays endured losing seasons in each of their first 10 years, topped 70 victories only once, and avoided last place in the AL East just once.
- In 2008, the renamed Rays flipped the script. They went 97-65, claimed their first division crown, recorded their first winning season, and made their first World Series.
Milwaukee has waited since Harvey’s Wallbangers
Before this season, 1982 stood as the Brewers’ only trip to the World Series. Manager Harvey Kuenn had replaced Buck Rodgers 47 games into the season, and his club earned the nickname Harvey’s Wallbangers. Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Rollie Fingers and Ted Simmons — all future Hall of Famers — powered a memorable October run.
Milwaukee rallied from an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-five ALCS against the Angels. The Brewers then took a 3-2 advantage over the Cardinals in the World Series after winning Game 5 at County Stadium, where Yount went 4-for-4. St. Louis answered with victories in Games 6 and 7 at Busch Stadium.
The Brewers have returned to the League Championship Series in 2011, 2018 and 2025, but the 2018 defeat has lingered. Milwaukee hosted Game 7 against the Dodgers, scored first, then watched Los Angeles pull away for a 5-1 win.
This edition has built a different sort of case. The Brewers won a franchise-best 103 games, surpassing the 97-win mark set in 2025. They captured a fourth straight division championship and their fifth in six seasons. Since 2018, Milwaukee has made eight postseason appearances, the strongest sustained stretch the franchise has known.
The roster is deep, athletic and young, with dependable defense, sharp baserunning and substantial pitching. Top prospect Jesús Made, ranked No. 1 by MLB Pipeline, has not even arrived in the big leagues. At the front of the current club is Jacob Misiorowski, regarded as the game’s clear top pitcher and a likely fourth Cy Young Award winner in Brewers history. His fastball may be the hardest ever thrown.
For Milwaukee fans, the stakes extend beyond the current roster. They supported the club with regular crowds of 2 million even during lean years in the NL Central. This is the home of Bernie Brewer, “Roll Out the Barrel,” and Bob Uecker, who died 21 months ago. A championship would settle a wait that has crossed generations.
Tampa Bay returns home with another chance
The Rays have already felt the World Series stage twice. In 2008, James Shields won Game 2 against Philadelphia and David Price finished it, producing Tampa Bay’s lone victory in a five-game defeat.
The club returned in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and took two games from the Dodgers. The Series was even after four games, helped by Brett Phillips’ walk-off, two-run single in Game 4 before a reduced-capacity crowd in Texas.
Game 3 against Milwaukee will carry its own weight: it will be the first World Series game at Tropicana Field in 18 years, and only the third Fall Classic game ever played there. The Rays are back in their only home park after repairs following Hurricane Milton, with the building dressed for October in a way it has rarely had the chance to be.
Tampa Bay entered the year with modest outside expectations after two losing seasons, following six consecutive winning campaigns from 2018 through 2023. Many forecast the Rays to finish at the bottom of a difficult AL East, though that spoke as much to the division’s perceived strength as to Tampa Bay’s club.
Instead, the Rays have been strong from opening day. Junior Caminero has produced an MVP-level season, Drew Rasmussen has worked like an ace, and Trade Deadline addition Freddy Peralta delivered down the stretch before earning ALCS MVP honors. Bryan Baker heads a deep bullpen as its dominant closer.
The Rays have spent two decades outperforming their payroll, particularly while sharing a division with larger-spending clubs. Their front-office tree has reached throughout the sport: Chaim Bloom is with the Cardinals, Peter Bendix is with the Marlins, Andrew Friedman runs the Dodgers’ baseball operation, and Brewers president Matt Arnold once worked in Tampa Bay. Arnold now faces his former organization on the game’s largest stage. The Athletics also hired a former Rays executive as president of baseball operations this week.
That record makes the missing ring stand out. Erik Neander, Tampa Bay’s current president of baseball operations, has the opportunity to become the executive who delivers it. One of these franchises will finally get there. The other will head home carrying the familiar weight of an unfinished climb.
