He's waited his entire life for a Brewers title. Now, his celebration has gone viral

If you've been on social media over the last few days, and your algorithm is tuned into baseball or the World Series or just heartwarming videos that'll make you feel a certain kind of way, you've probably seen it.

An older Milwaukee Brewers fan sitting in his living room armchair -- focused on the final at-bat of Game 5. Watching and listening intently, almost afraid to move, or even make a sound, in case it somehow ruined what his favorite team was trying to accomplish more than 1,000 miles away.

Then, it happened. The Brewers won it all. And 55 years of raw, sweet fandom spilled out for all the world to see and relate to (or maybe still achingly hope to relate to someday).

"Man, oh, man, oh man, that was everything right there," 77-year-old Dick Rice told me over the phone. "It overwhelmed me. The tears started coming and I started hootin' and hollerin'."

Dick Rice grew up in tiny Ellsworth, Wis., just over the border from Minnesota. He was a Milwaukee Braves fan as a kid, and when they left for Atlanta, his mom tried to make him into a Minnesota Twins fan.

"I just told Mom, 'No, I can't do that,'" Rice laughed.

Rice started rooting for the Brewers as soon as they came into town in 1970 and remembers going to games with his dad during those lean early years. They'd get tickets at a local bar -- if they were lucky -- and take the bus up to County Stadium. The new team didn't record a winning season until 1978, still recovering from coming over from Seattle after the Pilots went bankrupt.

"It was the first time Dad had ever been to a stadium and the first time I'd ever been to one," Rice said.

The only other time the Brewers were in the World Series, in 1982, Rice was working at Northstar Steel. Even though he was hard at work, he found ways to check in on his guys.

"I would get in between those steel columns where I could get reception on the radio," Rice remembered. "I was able to listen to it, I wasn't able to watch it. But when we did shift changes, I did get to see some of it. I'll never forget, when Gorman Thomas was the last batter and when he struck out, I mean, I just, it's like the floor goes out from under you. You see the guys cleaning up in the dugout and you think, 'Ohh man, so close, but yet, so far.'"

Rice would have to wait through multiple last-place finishes, 100-loss campaigns, many disappointingly mediocre seasons and another 44 years until his Brewers got back to the Fall Classic.

An eternal optimist, he never lost hope during the late 1980s and 1990s.

"They just got a titch better and a titch better and you're like, 'C'mon, guys,'" Rice said.

"I remember we'd be driving to pick up my friends, my friends would be in the car, and Dad would have to pull over and celebrate on the side of the road," Dick's daughter Katie told me. "He couldn't contain himself. This is just Dad."

And the last few seasons have been different. A new front office and direction have regenerated the franchise and its diehard fanbase.

"The excitement this year, I just know as the one getting the phone calls from dad about it, it's been different," Katie told me. "He just kind of knew this was gonna be an important year."

All of that, all of that more than five decades of fandom, is what everyone saw pour out on Wednesday night.

Dick had his lucky Brewers shirt and lucky Brewers socks on, laughing and yelling at the TV. Like he was a kid again. Repeating his beloved late broadcaster Bob Uecker's name, rattling off a couple "Boom-bahs."

Katie wanted to record the final moment -- mostly for her friends -- but then decided to post on social media where it's been shared by MLB's main account, ESPN and other major sports platforms.

It's not hard to see why when you watch the full clip. Dick is all of us as sports fans, waiting years and years before all of it finally pays off. His daughter was just happy to be there to witness it with him.

"i think one of the cool things is I have so many people reaching out and saying, 'I didn't get this with my dad, I didn't get this with my grandpa,'" Katie said. "Or, I can't wait to finally get this with my dad or my grandpa or my grandma. It transcends everything."