The World Series of 2026

 

The 2026 World Series begins in two days, and it will feature the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  Interestingly enough, each of these teams had the best records in their respective leagues over the course of the 162 game regular season, 103 wins for the Brewers and 98 wins for the Rays.  I am too lazy to look it it up, but is this the first time that this has happened since the introduction of divisional play and multiple rounds of post-season baseball?  Anyway, that fact alone makes this an "old school" kind of season in that the two teams with the best records in each league will face off in the Series, just like it used to be.  I think of my good friend Jim Haller, a baseball junkie if ever there was one, who maintains that 1968, the last year before the leagues were split into divisions, was the last "pure season" in Major League Ball.

Another cool fact about this World Series is that the two teams playing in it have never won a World Series.  It will be fun and exciting to watch a team win its first ever Championship.   Now I did do a little research into this factoid and I can tell you that this is the 10th time in World Series history that there has been a match-up of two teams looking to claim their first World Series championship.  As you might expect, this happened frequently in the early history of the World Series, seven times between 1903 and 1920.  It happened again fourteen years later when the Cardinals met the Tigers in 1934, and then again in 1980, forty-six years later, when the Phillies met the Royals, and now, after another forty-six years, it is happening again.

My rooting interesting in this year's contest will be for the Brewers.  I like their manager, Pat Murphy, who seems to be an old school kind of guy, who relies on his gut instincts more than analytics.  I am sure that the Brewers computer nerds supply him with all of the statistical mumbo jumbo that they generate, but when it comes down to it, Murphy has the final say.  That's just what I see looking at it from afar.

I also have made some friends from Milwaukee over the years through the connective tissue of the Tony Kornheiser Show podcast.  Most notable of these is Steve Ozbolt, a terrific guy.  We first met Steve in person when he traveled to Pittsburgh in 2023 on a Brewers road trip, and again when we met him and his wife at their Emerald City Catering business when we visited Milwaukee in 2024. I am hoping that he will get to pop open that celebratory champagne bottle at the conclusion of this Fall Classic.