St. Petersburg will close Central Avenue between 13th and 15th Streets from 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 23, and Saturday, Oct. 24, for two Rays Up block parties while the Rays open the World Series against the Brewers in Milwaukee.

The City printed a limited run of commemorative posters to hand out at the parties, and it is asking businesses and residential buildings to light up in blue and yellow. The St. Pete Pier has been lit in Rays colors since Wednesday night and will stay that way through the end of the Series, the Tampa Bay Times’ Colleen Wright reports.

The Rays went 98-64, the best record in the American League, then beat the Guardians 7-3 in Game 6 of the ALCS on Monday night at Tropicana Field. Junior Caminero and Yandy Díaz each hit two-run homers. Freddy Peralta, acquired from the Mets at the trade deadline, earned series MVP honors. It is the third pennant in franchise history, after 2008 and 2020.

The Brewers won 103 games and swept the two-time defending champion Dodgers in the NLCS. Milwaukee has not played in the World Series since 1982. Neither club has ever won one. Game 1 is on Friday night, Game 2 is Saturday night, and Game 7, if needed, will be played in Milwaukee on Halloween.

Game 3 is Monday, Oct. 26, Game 4 is Tuesday, Oct. 27, and Game 5, if needed, is Wednesday, Oct. 28. All three start at 8 p.m. at the Trop. On-site parking is prepaid only. The City is pointing fans to its parking guide. It is also adding SunRunner buses and starting the free baseball shuttle an hour earlier than usual. The City does not expect to close any streets around the ballpark on Monday.

Mayor Ken Welch and Rays officials raised the team’s postseason flag outside City Hall on Oct. 2, the day before the Division Series opener against the Yankees. Welch’s staff is planning a parade if the Rays win. He told the Times the route may follow the St. Pete Pride parade along the downtown waterfront. Tampa says it will hold a boat parade, Wright and Nina Moske report.

In 2008, then-Mayor Rick Baker declared it the Year of the Rays and had the old Pier lit blue every night of the postseason. In 2012, then-Mayor Bill Foster‘s administration closed the same two blocks of Central for an Opening Day block party before the Rays hosted the Yankees. In 2020, with the Series in a Texas bubble and the new Pier a few months old, the City and Visit St. Pete/Clearwater set up roughly 400 socially distanced pods on Spa Beach for watch parties. City Hall flag raisings also marked the 2022 and 2023 playoff runs.

Hurricane Milton tore the roof off the Trop in October 2024. The Rays walked away from the $1.3 billion Gas Plant deal the following March. The City Council voted in April 2025 to replace the roof, the first installment of a repair bill the City estimated at roughly $56 million, because the use agreement required it. The Rays returned to the Trop on April 6. Their lease runs through 2028. After that, they move across the bay to a $2.3 billion ballpark on Hillsborough College’s Dale Mabry campus, approved by Tampa and Hillsborough County in August and scheduled to open in 2029. Next week’s games are the first World Series games at the Trop since 2008.

Sunday is Halloween on Central, the 22-block street festival between 9th and 31st Streets, which runs from noon to 5 p.m. on a Series off day. The Rays are providing free parking in the Trop lots.

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Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team performed editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review.