ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The biggest star on the Milwaukee Brewers’ 1982 World Series team stood in the outfield at Tropicana Field on Wednesday night, a party going on around him.
Robin Yount wasn’t crying — at least not at that moment — but a lot of people around him were. These were tears of joy running down their faces, some of which had a shocked expression plastered on them.
For everyone clinging to hope that a proud organization would ever reach this nirvana, well, it finally had. The 2026 Milwaukee Brewers finally were World Series champions after a 4-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5.
It had been a long wait since Yount and Co. came so close 44 years ago, losing in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals. There have been plenty of happy times in those 4½ decades, and plenty of hard knocks on the door in recent years, but there had been some miserable seasons to sit through as well.
“It’s been a long time of wondering if it would ever happen,” Yount said. “Kind of a lot of disappointment that we didn’t pull it off, and I’ve always had to hope that while I was still here I would see a Brewers team win. It’s reality now. There’s a lot of — I don’t want to say weight lifted off my shoulders — but this certainly takes the sting out of Game 7 in 1982.”
Does it ever. When Mark Attanasio agreed to buy the team in 2004 and officially took over early the next year, he was surprised by how much people still talked about a team who was more than two decades removed from its glorious moment by that point.
Attanasio would see a highlight of Yount’s 3,000th hit played on the big screen during games, hear fans roar, and feel conflicted: He wanted to embrace the past, yes, but he also wanted to build a future.
“We had to create some memories of our own, and I think we’ve done a good job of that collectively as an organization over 22 seasons,” Attanasio said in the visiting clubhouse, a perma-grin splattered across his face as the champagne flowed around him. “You know those banners we have behind home plate? There’ll be a really big one now that says ‘World Champs.’ ”
Among the things Attanasio deserves praise for is hiring the right people in key positions and letting them do their job.
Like president of baseball operations and general manager Matt Arnold, who assembled a roster that was a blend of players the Brewers drafted and developed, and ones they acquired via trades, often for big-name players the team no longer could afford.
The Brewers have become a postseason fixture and reached the National League Championship Series in 2018 and 2025. Arnold never lost faith that the organization could get over the hump, but he understood the challenges of competing in a small market and how it would take a perfect storm for Milwaukee to break through.
“You never expect it, you know what I mean?” Arnold said. “It’s something that you work and work and work and work as hard as you can to get there. But for it to actually happen is very surreal.”
Among the brilliant decisions Arnold made was hiring manager Pat Murphy after Craig Counsell left for the Chicago Cubs following the 2023 season. It seems like such a no-brainer move now, with Murphy deserving of a third consecutive NL Manager of the Year award, but going outside the organization for a new voice wouldn’t have been the craziest idea three years ago.
Instead, Murphy was exactly what Milwaukee needed. He’s not perfect, but he’s created a culture of accountability throughout the team and is loved and respected by his players.
“I’m just really, really grateful, really thankful that we did it,” Murphy said. “Like, who believed it? There’s so many things that led up to it now that I look back, and see the years of getting eliminated or being beaten last year by the Dodgers, that was a blessing because we learned from it and we grew, and we came in with a different attitude. We came in with a spirit about us, and we weren’t going to be denied.”
The beauty of these Brewers was that the contributions came from all over. Case in point: Catcher William Contreras was named World Series MVP, an honor that was well deserved, but you could have made a case for a handful of others.
Rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt hit .421 in the World Series and led the Brewers with seven RBIs. Jackson Chourio hit .458 and led the team with 11 hits. Jacob Misiorowski recorded two of the four wins, and Aaron Ashby just kept producing scoreless innings out of the bullpen.
Meanwhile, captain Christian Yelich and the de facto pitching captain Brandon Woodruff guided the clubhouse with their leadership.
Win No. 114 of the season looked like so many others: a combination of great pitching and an offense full of relentless hitters.
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Trevor Megill (29) and designated hitter Christian Yelich (22) celebrate after they beat the Tampa Bay Rays to be World Series champions in Game 5 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida on Wednesday, Oct. 28.
Kim Klement Neitzel / IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
“It looked like a replay of the way they played all season,” Yount said of the clincher. “That’s how they won games. They know how to win baseball games.”
And, now, they’re champions.
“Nobody can take this away from us,” Woodruff said.
What Woodruff and others were still coming to grips with in a clubhouse that was as steamy as it was wet was how they’d stepped into a place of immortality.
Just like we’ll always remember Yount, Paul Molitor, Cecil Cooper and others from that 1982 team, these 2026 Brewers officially have entered fans’ hearts for good.
They’re legends.
“We’re world champions,” Pratt, holding an orange Fanta in each hand, kept saying over and over. “We’re world champions.”
A few minutes earlier, the past had embraced the present, one shortstop pulling aside another and delivering a message. Yount encouraged Pratt to keep doing what he’s doing before walking away to join in the celebration.
By then, Yount’s blue ballcap with the famous Brewers glove logo had been turned backward on his head and now had a black “Champions” hat resting on top of it.
A weight had been lifted for Yount and so many others, including Brewers fans everywhere. It was time to let go of the past and rejoice.
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