The Brewers Did It! World Series Champions!

I'll be honest with you, I'm not a big baseball fan. But you don't have to be one to know how huge this is. On Wednesday night, October 28, the Milwaukee Brewers won the World Series, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 down in St. Petersburg to take the series 4-1. The first World Series championship in the 58-year history of this franchise, and it happened in front of thousands of Wisconsin fans who made the trip to Florida just to be there for it. If you were watching at home, you know exactly how that final out felt.

This team earned every bit of it. The Brewers won 114 games including the playoffs, went 11-2 in October, and knocked off the two-time defending champion Dodgers along the way. In the clincher, young ace Jacob Misiorowski threw 5 and 2/3 scoreless innings before leaving with a calf cramp to a standing ovation, and the bullpen covered the last 4 and 1/3 innings without giving up a run. Rookie Cooper Pratt, who set a Series rookie record with six straight hits across Games 4 and 5, drove in two more runs, and Jackson Chourio set a five-game Series record with 11 hits. This was not a fluke, folks. This was a dominant team from start to finish.

But the moment that got me the most came after the game, when Christian Yelich looked into the camera and dedicated it to Bob Uecker. "He's smiling, man," Yelich said. "This one's for Ueck." Mr. Baseball was the voice of this team for 54 years, and he passed away last January without ever getting to see them win it all. Manager Pat Murphy said it best from the victory podium: the man Ueck upstairs is looking down. I know a lot of us in Fond du Lac were thinking about him too, and about every summer spent listening to him call a game.

So here we are, Wisconsin. World Series champions. The drought is over, and this team will be celebrated for a long, long time. If you haven't already, go grab yourself some Brewers gear, fly that flag, and soak this one in. Wisconsin waited 58 years for this. Go Brewers Go, forever and ever.