The Brewers Won, and All Across Wisconsin, We Knew Whom We Wanted to Call

Thirty seconds after the third out, fireworks exploded in my Plover, Wis., neighborhood. We’re about two and a half hours northwest of Milwaukee, but whoever lit those fuses spoke for an entire state.

The Brewers had won the World Series. More than 12 hours later, I’m still numb, caught somewhere between happiness and shock.

Milwaukee beat Tampa Bay 4-1 in Game 5 to claim the franchise’s first championship. I knew the score, but I kept watching the faces.

What stayed with me was how the players celebrated. Instead of the usual frantic pile of bodies, I watched them hug the hell out of each other.

Jacob Misiorowski, Cooper Pratt, William Contreras, and their teammates cried. They sought each other out, held on, and shared a moment too big to explain while it was happening.

Then their children came, collecting blue-and-gold confetti in containers and pockets. Watching them save those scraps of paper nearly undid me.

Before the championship, I’d asked family and friends what winning would mean. Their answers kept returning to the people who taught them to care.

My brother Dean remembered doing barn chores with our uncle while Brewers broadcasts played over a loudspeaker in the barn. Our uncle’s love of the team stayed with him long after those chores were finished.

Dean wished our Dad, late brother-in-law Gregg, and Bob Uecker could’ve seen this championship. In his mind, they had excellent seats upstairs, and nobody charged admission.

My nephew Michael’s devotion began in 1992, when his dad insisted that he watch Robin Yount pursue his 3,000th hit. Seven-year-old Michael had to go to bed before the hit arrived, but the anticipation had already made him a baseball fan.

Decades later, Michael watched the first two World Series games in Virginia with his father and brother. His dad, Paul, treasured those same evenings with both sons together.

Michael and his wife, Kristen, had spent the season watching games together. “What better thing to do with your best friend than watch Brewers baseball?” he asked.

My son-in-law Joe traced his fandom to his mom, Sue, and remembered his Uncle Ron’s love for Wisconsin sports. My friend TJ remembered his grandparents’ house in Osseo, glasses of Leinenkugel’s (the original), and Grandma Dien watching the Brewers well into her 90s.

I wished both my parents were beside me. We couldn’t talk because we’d be crying.

I remember Uecker’s sheer joy calling the pennant-winning play in 1982. I believe winning the World Series would’ve made him even happier, and I ache to hear that call.

Grantland Rice understood how closely baseball follows us through life. His original “Game Called,” published in 1910, closes with these words:

Nor victory, nor yet defeat
Is chalked against the player’s name,
But down the roll the final scroll
Shows only “how he played the game.”

Watching those embraces, I understood why those lines belonged beside a championship. The players had won together, and their first instinct was to find the men who’d helped them to do it.

Dean woke up with a headache, work ahead, and his grin intact. I’ve loved baseball my entire life, and everything feels surreal. Every Packers or Badgers game this season will feel like a letdown after this kind of happiness.

Someday, those children may open a container or find a few creased scraps of blue and gold. I hope their dads are beside them when they do.

I hope they ask about the tears, the hugs, and the noise. Their dads will have quite a story to tell.

I’d give anything to tell Mom and Dad. First, though, we’d have to stop crying.

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