Overview:
Smaller payrolls. Bigger stakes. The Brewers and Rays are about to show America how entertaining baseball can be.
America, give me your attention for this one.
The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays are going to play for a World Series championship, and I could not be more excited about what that means for baseball.
Give me Pat Murphy. Give me Kevin Cash. Give me two teams that understand how much a single base, a productive out and a well-executed pitch can mean.
Give me a World Series where you need to pay attention to the entire field.
This is exactly what Major League Baseball needs.
We spend so much time talking about what baseball costs. The contracts. The payrolls. The bidding wars. Hundreds of millions of dollars committed to players before a single pitch is thrown.
For the next several nights, we get to talk about how baseball is played.
And these two teams give us plenty to talk about.
There is something beautiful about a team manufacturing a run when everybody in the ballpark knows how badly it needs one. A runner gets aboard. The pitcher has to divide his attention. A good jump changes the situation. A ball hit to the right side moves somebody ninety feet closer.
Now an ordinary fly ball can put a run on the board.
That inning has a heartbeat. You can feel it building.
That is the baseball I want America to watch.
The home run will always have its place. I love a ball disappearing into the October night as much as anybody. But there is an entire game being played between those swings, and it can be absolutely gripping.
Make the defense handle the baseball. Make the pitcher work from the stretch. Take the extra base when it is there. Recognize when one run might be enough and when you need to go get another.
Apply pressure until somebody gives you an opening.
Then be ready to take it.
That takes talent. It takes preparation. And it takes players willing to do something that might help the team more than it helps their own highlight reel.
It also takes a manager who understands the people in his dugout.
That is why Pat Murphy makes this series so compelling to me.
Murphy has spoken about putting feel ahead of analytics. I appreciate that because baseball demands judgment. A manager has to watch the game unfolding in front of him and decide what this particular moment requires.
How is his pitcher responding? Is the delivery holding together? What kind of swings are the hitters taking? Does the player coming off the bench look ready for the moment?
The information can help. The manager still has to make the call.
And he has to live with it.
There is a responsibility that comes with knowing your players well enough to trust them, challenge them and recognize when they need help. Over a long season, those relationships matter. In October, with every decision magnified, they become part of the competition.
You can see why Murphy’s players respond to him. You can see the belief.
Milwaukee fell behind the Dodgers by four runs in the game that sent the Brewers to the World Series. They kept playing, came back and finished a sweep of the defending champions.
That is a team that believes it can find a way.
Across the field will be Cash and a Tampa Bay club that has earned the same opportunity.
The Rays have spent years operating with a smaller financial margin than many of their competitors. That puts a premium on finding talent, developing it and getting contributions from throughout the roster.
Now they are four wins from the championship.
So are the Brewers.
Neither franchise has ever won a World Series.
Let that settle in for a moment. Every game in this series will bring one of these fan bases closer to a celebration it has never experienced.
There are people in Milwaukee who have waited since 1982 just to see their team get back here. There are Rays fans who remember the disappointment of getting this close and watching somebody else celebrate.
For those people, the names on the front of these jerseys mean everything.
The rest of America ought to take the time to learn the names on the back.
As a broadcaster, these are the games I love. The ones where the tension gives you something to describe before the pitch is even thrown.
A runner edging farther off first. An infielder creeping toward the grass. A catcher looking into the dugout. A manager standing at the rail, watching.
Everybody knows something could happen.
Nobody knows exactly what.
That is an invitation to lean forward.
And if you have drifted away from baseball, I am asking you to give this series a chance. Watch how an inning develops. Watch how one decision creates another. Watch how quickly a game can change because somebody was prepared to do the little thing correctly.
You do not need a rooting interest when the series starts.
Stay with it. You will find one.
There is room in this sport for the biggest stars and the biggest contracts. There also has to be room for America to appreciate the teams that get here through development, resourcefulness, execution and the belief that the next man can get the job done.
Milwaukee and Tampa Bay have earned the biggest stage baseball has.
Now they get to show the country what they can do with it.
So put the payroll conversation aside. Pay attention to the runner. Watch the defense. Keep an eye on Murphy and Cash.
Every ninety feet is about to matter.
America, this is baseball.
And you are going to want to watch.
— Chris Graham is a Carson City native, writer and lifelong baseball fan. A former Western Nevada College play-by-play broadcaster, his work focuses on sports, culture and community. He can be followed on his Substack at https://substack.com/@gamenotes.
