Soak in the chaos of this World Series before baseball goes dark
The Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays will meet in a best-of-seven series, beginning Friday, for what could be the last Major League Baseball games for the foreseeable future.
President Donald Trump may not care about this World Series, but it carries a lot of potential.
The Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays will meet in a best-of-seven series, beginning Friday, for what could be the last Major League Baseball games for the foreseeable future: The collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players expires on Dec. 1, and both sides are expecting an extended work stoppage while the owners push for a salary cap.
In the meantime, this matchup offers a preview of what life might look like under just such an economic structure: The Brewers hail from the league’s smallest media market and boast the No. 20 payroll ($125 million); for the Rays, those figures are No. 19 and No. 28 ($85 million). Neither team’s starting lineup features a player signed in free agency. Only three players on the field — Brewers designated hitter Christian Yelich ($24 million) and pitcher Brandon Woodruff ($22 million), and Rays first baseman Yandy Díaz ($12 million) — made more than $10 million this year, and only Yelich (nine years) and Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio (eight) are on more than five-year deals. There is not much star power here.
So if you are entering this series without a rooting interest, as is most of the country, what should you hope for?
Speed
First of all, chaos. Both of these teams put the ball in play, bunt for hits and steal bases, which means you should expect to see a lot of terrified-looking pitchers.
The most dangerous pair of legs on either side belongs to Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson, the only man in the sport who averages a home-to-first time of less than four seconds. Simpson has never homered as a professional, but he led the league in infield hits by a wide margin this year, with 61; the next best was 43. Brewers third baseman David Hamilton finished tied for fifth with 29.
Velocity
Milwaukee Brewers righty Jacob Misiorowski threw 743 pitches faster than 101 mph this season. Next best among starting pitchers was the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bubba Chandler, with 23. Next best for a career is the Cincinnati Reds’ Hunter Greene, with 166. No one has ever seen anything like the Miz — including the Rays.
Reliever Aroldis Chapman holds the record for fastest pitch ever thrown, 105.8 mph, as the Reds’ closer in 2010. With the adrenaline of starting Game 1 of the World Series on Friday, Misiorowski might top it.
Theatrics
Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, 23, unleashed a mighty bat flip and an even mightier home run trot after hitting a two-run shot to ice Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. (At 38 seconds, his trot was the second slowest since Statcast began tracking such things, in 2015, trailing only his own trot from two weeks earlier.)
But that was nothing compared to his reaction to his go-ahead bomb for the Leones de Escogido in Game 7 of the championship series in his native Dominican Republic last year. It’s hard to imagine topping that, but maybe a World Series home run would come close.
Spooky stuff
Game 7 is scheduled for Halloween, but things could get weird before then.
Start with the ballparks themselves, which are both domes. (The Brewers’ retracts.) Generally indoor baseball just means worse sight lines and no risk of rain delay, but this October both ballparks have become characters themselves: In Game 1 of the National League Division Series, what seemed to be a San Diego Padres go-ahead home run instead struck a cable on the roof of American Family Field and became an out. The next day, in Game 2 of the American League Division Series, a New York Yankees pop-up hit a catwalk at Tropicana Field and likewise ended up in a glove.
But the real scary moments might come off the field: The Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, where visiting MLB teams generally stay, is supposed to be one of the most haunted locations in the country.
