Brewers manager Pat Murphy at the podium is kind of like if your dad… well, actually that’s it.
He’s kind of like your dad, if your dad had a team of professionals transcribing his every word and a captive audience implicitly egging him on.
This is great for quotes. He cuts off a reporter mid-question to say the following about Sal Frelick: “He’s just the ultimate competitor, winner. He’s got the It Factor. You think of Joe Montana. You think of people – Larry Bird – that have the It Factor.”
And if I try to explain why that’s a surprising thing to say about Sal Frelick (worth a negative half a win this season) I will end up being ruder than I intend to be.
Sometimes, his loquaciousness takes on a life of its own, one that is completely unrelated to baseball. Before Game 2, he talked about ties and how there’s no tying in baseball.
And he didn’t mean the result kind of tie either.
“Did you wear a tie yesterday?” he asked one reporter who was in the middle of a question. When the reporter said no, Murphy was pleased.
It’s difficult to make anything you say about a fanbase Showing Up feel resonant or commensurate with actually experiencing it.
Of course, the first World Series game in many fans’ lifetimes was a sellout. Of course, the crowd got loud watching their team win. I bet it’s always a sea of blue and yellow in Brewers country.
But what has struck me as unique in Milwaukee is just how early arriving the crowd has been. Media availabilities have been kicking off about five hours before first pitch. (Side note: don’t love that.) And for both games, fans have been waiting at the gates when I’ve arrived.
At least some number of Brewers fans got to the ballpark more than five hours before the game to sit on the ground near the gates. I’m pretty sure it was hours before they opened to anyone without credentials.
The team store opened at 4 p.m. local time. By 4:08, this was the line (or, mass of people who did not quite form an orderly anything) trying to get in:
The parking lots are filled with fans tailgating for hours ahead of time.
Around 4:30, dozens waited to take a picture with the Bob Uecker statue outside the ballpark and leave him their Miller Lite beer can as tribute.
There are five MLB teams that have never won a World Series. After this season, there will be four.
That alone imbues this series with compellingly straightforward stakes. For the Rays, it has been 29 years of existence and two failed trips to the Fall Classic, most recently in the neutral-site Covid-19 World Series in 2020. For the Brewers, it’s been 58 years of existence and they haven’t played in the final game of a season since 1982, before many of their current fans were even born.
The Rays, in particular, are often mocked on a national level for their fickle Florida fanbase that would rather enjoy the year-round sun than sit in the necessary traffic to get to games in St. Petersburg.
But when the broadcast cuts to either crowd in a clinching scenario, keep in mind the people who are there are hoping to see history made.
At the end of this series, the final party will begin. It will be the last in a long line of them.
Every major US sport has multi-round postseason schedules, but none of them party like MLB teams. Locker room celebrations in the NFL tend to be subdued until the Super Bowl, and since hockey players are famously superstitious, popping bottles early is practically verboten in the NHL; the Stanley Cup is all that really matters.
Boston Red Sox clubhouse manager Tom McLaughlin has spent over 40 years with the Red Sox, and he says he’s lost track of how many celebrations he’s been involved in, but he counts them in the dozens. He told CNN Sports it was “pretty tame” when he started in the ‘80s, when the postseason was much shorter, but the back end of the season now can feel like one enormous bender for the most successful teams.
Successfully navigate the wildcard round? Let’s get wild.
Made it through the Divisional Round? Get another round in.
Won the Championship Series? We’re going on a spree.
By the time a baseball club wins the World Series , let’s just say that the celebration will not be their first rodeo. Everyone will have had plenty of practice.
Read more here on why baseball teams party all the time, party all the time, party all the time in October.
How about some cool, fun factoids while No. 2 BYU tries to stave off a stunning upset by UCF in the college football world.
Friday’s Game 1 marked the first World Series opening game without a home run since 2000, according to Major League Baseball.
If both teams don’t hit it out of the park tonight, it will be the first time without a homer in Game’s 1 and 2 since 1985. So … no pressure to the Brewers and Rays.
Per MLB, history is on the Brewers’ side following their Game 1 win.
The home team has gone 381-324 in 705 World Series Game 2’s. The team with home advantage has went on to the Fall Classic 60 times, including three of the last four years.
CNN Sports’ Andy Scholes broke down Game 1 from the field after the game, watch here:
CNN's Andy Scholes reports from the American Family Field where the Milwaukee Brewers won Game 1 against the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2.
Game 2 of the World Series will feature Drew Rasmussen of the Tampa Bay Rays and rookie sensation Logan Henderson for the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday.
Rasmussen, the 31-year-old ace, has been lights out this season, posting 16-5 record with a 2.67 ERA in the regular season. He has also been dominant in the postseason, taking a no-hitter into the 8th inning against the Yankees in Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series along with a Game 5 win against the Guardians in the American League Championship Series.
However, it will be a bit of a homecoming for Rasmussen tonight after being drafted by the Brewers in the sixth round in the 2018 MLB draft. He was later traded to the Rays in 2021 and has shined ever since.
The 24-year-old Henderson has been an anomaly this season for the Brew Crew.
He went 11-3 with a 2.47 ERA and 110 strikeouts and hasn’t lost a game at American Family Field yet, with a record of 8-0 in 10 starts at home.
The Brewers have been mindful of Henderson’s innings this postseason due to injuries but the team is 2-0 in his starts against the Padres in the National League Divisional Series and Dodgers in the National League Championship Series
Here’s what you missed if you skipped Game 1 on Friday.
The Brewers offense came out swinging in the first inning Friday night, touching Rays starting pitcher Nick Martinez for a pair of runs on a triple by Christian Yelich followed by a single from William Contreras.
Milwaukee leaned on its flame-throwing ace Jacob Misiorowski, who made those two runs stand up as he worked five innings and earned his first career postseason win as a starter.
The Rays cut the Brewers’ lead in half in the fourth inning with an RBI groundout from catcher Liam Hicks, but the Miz was able to avoid any further damage and stranded the tying run on third base to hold the score at 2-1.
Milwaukee added to its lead in the seventh inning with a clutch, two-out single from left fielder Jackson Chourio to drive in Cooper Pratt and tack on a much-needed insurance run to make the score 3-1.
After stellar bullpen work from Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby, Brewers manager Pat Murphy handed the ball over to star closer Trevor Megill for the ninth inning.
The Rays were not ready to go quietly into the Wisconsin night, and back-to-back one-out singles from Jonathan Aranda and Chandler Simpson brought Tampa Bay’s All-Star slugger Junior Caminero to the plate representing the go-ahead run. After getting a fortunate call on a check swing that looked like it might have been strike three, Caminero drew a walk to load the bases.
Hicks then appeared to ground into an game-ending 4-6-3 double play, and the fireworks went off as the Brewers shook hands on the infield grass.
But the Rays challenged the call on the field, and on replay review, it was determined that Brewers shortstop Pratt took his foot off second base an instant too soon. The double play was overturned and pinch-runner Jorge Mateo scored to make the score 3-2 with one more out left to go.
With the smoke from the fireworks still hanging in the air, Megill gathered his composure and struck out Jonny DeLuca with a nasty breaking ball to end the game.
Game 1 kept us on the edge of our seats until the final pitch, and there’s no reason to expect Game 2 to be any different.
This World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers was always expected to be tight and produce a ton of drama, and we got that in spades in the opening round. With American Family Field in Milwaukee expected to be raucous once again, more of the same seems to be on tap tonight.
The Rays will start their ace, Drew Rasmussen, in Game 2 against Milwaukee’s rookie star Logan Henderson.
Follow along with us here as we bring you instant analysis, reporting from American Family Field and all the highlights you need to see.
The game is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET and is airing on Fox and streaming on Fox One and MLB.tv.
