To The Champions

 Brewers Win World Series

I found the World Series to be especially enjoyable this year for a couple of reasons.  One, it pitted the the Milwaukee Brewers against the Tampa Bay Rays, the two teams with the best records in their respective leagues, and two, neither franchise had ever won the World Series, so you knew that whichever team won, you would be seeing something that had never been done before, and you were going to see, regardless of who won, a team and a fan base that was going to be deliriously happy.  Plus, both teams were small market teams with small payrolls.  It can be done, Bob Nutting. I hope you were watching and taking notes.

There was a time, during the Ryan Braun Era, that I did not like the Milwaukee Brewers.  That has changed ever since I saw Christian Yelich send an autographed bat and ball out to a kid in the left field foul territory at PNC Park after he, Yelich, snagged ball for an out after the kid was set to catch a foul ball.  It also changed when we met up with friend and fellow Loyal Little Steve "Oz" Ozbolt made the trip from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh to see his Brewers play the Pirates in 2023.

We have been communication with Oz throughout the season and especially during the playoffs and World Series, so we are just so happy for him and all Brewers fans.  

In the aftermath of the Brewers victory, it was so moving to see how the Brewers and the people of Milwaukee honored the memory of the late Bob Uecker, and dedicated this victory to him.  Loyal readers may recall that when Uecker died in 2025, I asked Steve Ozbolt to write the Absent Friends post for The Grandstander.  It is worth rereading once again in light of the Brewers victory.  You can find it HERE.

And how cool was it to see the Brewers hoist that World Series Trophy at Lambeau Field last Monday night at the Packers game?

Valkyries Win WNBA Championship

For the first time in it's thirty year history, the WNBA Finals went to a seventh game (the WNBA only went to a best of seven format last season).  The Golden State Valkyries, an expansion team in only its second year of existence defeated the Atlanta Dream to take the title. It was an interesting series, with both teams winning games by lopsided scores, and one game being played at 12:30 on a Thursday afternoon.  The seventh game was a close one and as thrilling as any seventh game in any sport should be.

Congratulations to the Valkyries and Finals MVP Gabby Williams, who was unstoppable in that seventh game.

Bob Wins $400

1st Place ($400): Grandstander (Bob Sproule)

Each year, my friend Fred Shugars runs confidence pools for the MLB Playoffs, the NFL Playoffs, and the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Now it must be noted that Fred is an actuary (retired from Highmark BCBS), so the scoring in his pools is quite complex, based upon formulas involving runs/points/goals scored vs. runs/points/goals given up times the confidence values of the teams.  It is all calculated colorful Google spread sheets and when you pay your fifteen bucks to enter, you just gotta trust the process and just accept that this is how your entry is doing and enjoy the snappy banter and photos that Fred posts in his daily email updates.  There were fifty-four entrants in the pool, and this time around, I came in first place.  I have reproduced the headline from Fred's summation email above.

Two comments.  (1) I consider winning a Shugars Confidence Pool one of the highlights of my gaming career.  (2)  I am not the first person in the family to win one of these.  Linda won the Stanley Cup Confidence Pool in 2023.

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.