The 2026 World Series is set up to break new ground no matter how it ends. When the Brewers and Rays meet in Milwaukee in two days, one of them will win a first championship.
That alone makes this matchup unusual. Only five clubs entered this season without a World Series title: the Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres, Tampa Bay Rays, and Colorado Rockies.
Milwaukee already cleared one of those teams on the way here, beating the Padres in four games in the NLDS before knocking off the Dodgers, who were chasing a third straight title. Tampa Bay is the last obstacle, and the Rays have never won one either.
These two franchises have been tied together for a long time, even before the Rays took the field in 1998. The connection goes back to MLB’s 1995 expansion process, when Phoenix and Tampa Bay were awarded teams and each league was bumped to 15 clubs.
With interleague play still out of the picture, that setup would have left one team in each league idle every day. The fix was to move one American League team to the National League, and the Brewers were the club chosen.
Instead of sharing a league, Milwaukee and Tampa Bay were split apart.
Their paths have still mirrored each other in plenty of ways. In 2008, both teams finally got over major hurdles.
Milwaukee snapped a 26-year postseason drought by grabbing the NL Wild Card on the final day of the season, the only one awarded at the time. Tampa Bay went from a team that had never won more than 70 games in a season to a 97-win club that captured the AL East and the second seed after dropping “Devil” from its name.
It was only the Rays’ 11th season, but it was still a breakthrough.
The postseason told very different stories. The Brewers were out in four games against the Phillies in the NLDS, though they did pick up their first postseason win since 1982. The Rays made a much longer run, beating the White Sox in four games and the Red Sox in seven before losing to the Phillies in five games in the World Series.
The next several years sent the two clubs down separate roads. Milwaukee returned to the playoffs only once over the next decade, winning the NL Central for the first time in 2011 and reaching the NLCS before losing to the Cardinals in six games.
Tampa Bay made three more postseason trips in that stretch, winning the AL East again in 2010, then earning a Wild Card berth in 2011 and another in 2013 after the second Wild Card spot was added in 2012. Each time, the Rays were stopped in the ALDS.
Both teams later went through rebuilds. The Brewers missed the playoffs for six straight seasons from 2012 through 2017 before ending that skid in 2018 by winning the NL Central again. The Rays went five straight years without a playoff appearance from 2014 to 2018, then got back in during 2019 by securing one of the AL Wild Card spots.
Since then, the two clubs have been regulars in October. Tampa Bay reached the postseason five straight times from 2019 through 2023, including another World Series run in the shortened 2020 season, when it lost to the Dodgers in six games.
The Rays also put together the only 100-win season in franchise history in 2021, finishing with 100 wins and the best record in the AL. Milwaukee, after its 2018 run to the NLCS, reached the playoffs again in 2019 and 2020 - the latter as a 29-31 team in a season with five Wild Card teams in each league - and then won the NL Central in five of the next six seasons, with 2022 the lone exception.
Now they arrive at the top of their leagues. Milwaukee won the NL Central for the seventh time, giving it four straight division titles and five in the last six seasons.
The Brewers also posted their first 100-win season ever, finishing with 103 victories. Tampa Bay won the AL East for the first time since 2021, securing its fifth division title.
The World Series will carry a rare kind of history with it. For just the second time in the last 100 years, the Fall Classic will feature two teams that have never won the title.
The only previous example came in 1980, when the Phillies beat the Royals for their first championship. Before that, you have to go back to 1920, when the Cleveland Indians faced the Brooklyn Robins.
It will also guarantee a first-time champion for the first time since 2023, when the Rangers won.
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The note also served as a nod to everyone who has helped carry that connection forward, from the players and coaching staff to the broadcast crew and the fans who have ridden along with this teams rise. In a moment when Milwaukee is chasing a piece of history, the familys message was about unity and support, with the kind of emotional weight that fits a city still feeling the presence of one of its most beloved voices. [Read more 🡒]