Brewers vs. Rays

For the first time since 1980, we are guaranteed a first-time World Series champion.

105 days left until the release of FIFTY SEASONS

Welcome to free Tuesday!

FIFTY SEASONS is done. I count down the 50 individual seasons that echo — Fernando and the Babe, The Bird and Shohei, the longest hitting streak ever, the greatest college baseball season, and the pitcher who threw harder than anyone else.

I’m so excited. I can’t wait for you to see it. Galleys should be arriving any day now (there are still a few days left to enter the Goodreads giveaway and win one of ten advance copies).

There are two preorder campaigns going. One: If you preorder the book from anywhere, I will send you a special gift—the complete list of seasons I write about in the book, plus a bonus chapter on the invention of batting average. Just fill out the Sneak Peek form here. (International customers can email a receipt to support@joeposnanski.com and we’ll send it to you.)

Two: If you preorder the book from our good friends at Rainy Day Books before December 15, I will sign the book and personalize it any way you like.

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Well, now we know: Somebody will win the World Series for the first time. Tampa Bay put Cleveland away Monday night — in the end, as the season demonstrated, the Rays are a better team than the Guardians or any other club in the American League — and now we have the best team in the National League, Milwaukee, playing the best team in the American League, Tampa Bay, in the series that television executives everywhere have been hoping for.*

*Obviously this is a joke: The early game ratings for this series undoubtedly will be super low — perhaps not quite as low as Texas-Arizona in 2023, but pretty darned low. The last two World Series, featuring the Dodgers, drew 13-14 million viewers for Game 1s. After talking with some of those TV execs, they’re expecting three-to-four million fewer for Milwaukee-Tampa Bay Game 1.

But here’s the thing about the World Series — if it’s compelling, people will come. There have been six Game 7s over the last 15 years, and every one of them drew 23-million-plus viewers, which is a pretty good number in today’s divided television world. As I wrote yesterday, casual baseball fans don’t know much about the Brewers or Rays. A great series will win a lot of them over. And a lopsided series? Well, honestly, that might become the lowest-rated series since COVID.

This is the first time since 1980, when the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals met, that the World Series featured two teams that had never won a World Series.

The Phillies’ history is really something, isn’t it? They were founded in 1883 and went 17-81 that first season. They finished 46 games behind Boston. The Phillies reached the World Series in 1915 — led by Pete Alexander, who won 31 games with a 1.22 ERA — but lost to the Red Sox. They didn’t get back to the World Series until their miracle 1950 season, and they got swept by the Yankees.

Finally, they got good in the late 1970s and made the Series in 1980, when Garry Maddox doubled in Del Unser in the 10th inning of the deciding NLCS game against Houston. Then, they beat the Royals in six to win the World Series — almost 100 years after their founding.*

*To give you an idea of how much baseball — and television — has changed, almost 55 million people watched Game 6 of the Royals-Phillies series.

It really is exciting that one of these teams will win its first World Series. On the one hand, you gotta think most of the nation will be rooting for Milwaukee, since the Brewers have been around much longer than the Rays. The Brewers were founded as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, and they moved to Milwaukee the next year. So we’re talking 56 years of disappointment, often crushing disappointment.

On the other hand, if you want to be technical, the city of Milwaukee DID win a World Series in 1957 when Henry Aaron’s Braves beat the Yankees — Lew Burdette tossing the shutout in Game 7. Some longtime Milwaukee fans will still remember that.

St. Petersburg and Tampa and, well, that whole I-4 corridor in Florida have never won a World Series. The Rays have only been around since 1998, but I’m not sure that word “only” is right — that’s almost 30 years ago. Just because it feels like yesterday to old folks like me doesn’t mean it was yesterday. The Devil Rays (1998-2007) were a laughingstock; the Rays (2008-present) have consistently punched way above their weight, and the hardcore fans who have loved this team despite their spending limits and awful ballpark have more than paid their dues.

So it might take time for this series to capture the nation’s attention, but I think for those of us who are, as I learned this week …

沒有棒球就吃不下飯，睡不著覺的 棒球痴、棒球狂

“The kind of person who can’t eat or sleep without baseball — the baseball-crazy, the baseball lovesick”*

… this series is filled with emotion and hope.

*I need to have T-shirts made!

A bit of history over the last 40 years for you:

2023: Texas Rangers win first World Series

Even now, it feels surreal that the Texas Rangers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 World Series. Like: Did that really happen? And how did it happen? Well, it happened because the playoffs were pure chaos. The Rangers swept the 101-win Orioles. The Diamondbacks swept the 100-win Dodgers. Both teams won championship series Game 7s. And then Corey Seager went off in the World Series, and Dallas/Fort Worth had its first baseball title.

2019: Washington Nationals win first World Series

That was a crazy year, right? The Nationals were awful early in the season. They were 19-31 after 50 games, and it looked like they were going to fire everybody. Instead, Anthony Rendon put up an MVP-type season, Juan Soto became one of the elite hitters in baseball, and Stephen Strasburg stayed healthy. They won the last two games of the NL Division Series to beat the Dodgers, and then they beat Houston in one of the weirdest World Series ever, with neither team winning a home game.

2017: Houston Astros win first World Series

We’re not going to relitigate the 2017 Astros now — what I know for sure is how much this championship meant in Houston. The city had won a couple of NBA titles with the Olajuwon Rockets, but all in all the city had gone through a lot of sports pain. Those Astros fed the city’s soul.

2002: California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels win first World Series

The Angels walked Barry Bonds 13 times in seven games and came back from 5-0 down in Game 6 — Scott Spiezio, take a bow! — and there was much joy all around Disneyland.

2001: Arizona Diamondbacks win first World Series

The club was only three years old at the time. And this was just after 9/11, so the vast majority of the nation was rooting for the New York Yankees. But Mariano Rivera gave up the double to Tony Womack and the broken-bat single to Luis Gonzalez, and, for once, mystique and aura failed the Yankees and embraced Phoenix.

1997: Florida Marlins win first World Series

The Marlins were only five years old when owner Wayne Huizenga decided to buy an All-Star team and win a World Series … and it worked. These Marlins became the first wildcard team to win the World Series — in fact, here is one of the more amazing baseball facts you will hear: The Marlins have won two World Series in their 33-year history. The Marlins have also won zero division titles.

1992: Toronto Blue Jays win first World Series

Everybody remembers the Joe Carter home run that won the 1993 World Series — but it was Dave Winfield’s two-run double in the 11th inning of Game 6 against Atlanta that gave the city of Toronto its first bit of World Series glory. Dave’s new book Touching All the Bases is out now, and it’s excellent.

1985: Kansas City Royals win first World Series

“No outs to go.” That’s how Kansas City Royals fans will remember the final fly ball, hit by St. Louis’ Andy Van Slyke, caught by right fielder Darryl Motley. Of course, St. Louis fans might remember an umpire’s call at first base or something like that, but Kansas City will stick with “no outs to go.”