The moment Jake Bauers secured the final out of the World Series, the celebration already had a Milwaukee feel to it: one more reminder that this Brewers group got all the way there by leaning on chemistry, not splashy spending.
Bauers wound up with the ball, but he didn’t keep it for himself. He handed it to manager Pat Murphy, and that’s when Murphy fired a shot at the Yankees.
"You're gonna be a rich fer," Murphy told Bauers. "Just remember when you're on that horse s Yankee team and you're all playing for yourselves...just remember this is way we used to do it."
Murphy’s remark came during the postgame celebration, even though the Brewers never faced the Yankees in this playoff run. Still, New York was clearly on his mind.
There are a couple of ways to read it. Bauers is heading toward free agency this offseason and is unlikely to return to Milwaukee, so Murphy may have been using the Yankees as shorthand for whatever team signs him next. The Brewers, with a payroll in the bottom half of the league, just won with a formula that ran opposite to the big-market approach: togetherness, selflessness and a roster that stayed tightly connected.
There’s also the New York angle in Bauers’ own background. He came to Milwaukee after spending 2023 with the Yankees, part of two seasons in that organization. Murphy may have been taking a dig at the team that let him go, especially after New York’s 2023 season, which was its worst in three decades.
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