LOS ANGELES – With each step of their journey to the World Series, the Brewers have tipped their caps to those who helped them get there.
When they beat the Padres in the NLDS, the Brewers popped bottles of bubbly with labels bearing the name of every city officially incorporated within the state of Wisconsin, bringing the Brewers’ statewide fans inside the clubhouse celebration.
And when they vanquished the Dodgers in the NLCS, finishing a four-game series sweep with a 6-4 win at Dodger Stadium, those labels featured the names of every player who played at least one postseason game for the Brewers and laid the foundation for this season’s success, along with the year or years they appeared. They range from Robin Yount, Rollie Fingers & Co. in the 1981 ALDS against the Yankees to the heroes of Thursday’s Game 4, like rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt, who is playing in his first postseason and can’t quite believe it.
“How cool is that, man?” Pratt said in one of his charming interviews amid the chaos. “We’re going to the World Series!”
Who’s behind the custom bottles? It’s a team effort for the Brewers’ clubhouse crew, led by vice president of team travel and clubhouse operations Dan Larrea, whose front office tenure with the Brewers goes all the way back to the 1990s. Larrea also had a hand in creating the “win wall” within the Brewers’ clubhouse several years ago, on which the club builds its season, brick by brick and win by win.
All of it tells the story of a pennant winner.
“You know, the dream wasn't just to go to the World Series. The dream is to win it,” said Brewers captain Christian Yelich. “We'll be locking it in here soon, and we're excited to get back to Milwaukee to see everybody and to play in front of our fans. It’s just amazing to give people memories, families memories, and people with their kids, or even people that are just grown up that have followed the team for a really long time. It's special, you know? Special for all of us.”
And it meant something special to a former player like Erik Kratz, who was a Brewer for only one season in 2018, representing just another example of the way the Brewers conduct themselves as an organization.
"No way did I do anything for this team to win, but when you’re included in that kind of stuff, you start looking back and you start thinking about in 2018 what little thing did you do positively that affected this team," Kratz said on Foul Territory.
"What I think the Brewers did really well, and it culminates to this point where they’re in the World Series, is everybody matters, and everybody has a piece in the next step for them. It was such a cool representation of that to have a bottle with my name on it."