The best pitcher in baseball led the best team to victory over the second-best team?
asserted
pitcher → lead → team
A World Series that makes the logical feel novel began on Friday as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 in Game 1.
asserted
Brewers → make → 1
Of course the Brewers, with their MLB-topping 103 regular-season victories, should be facing the 98-win Rays on the grandest stage.
asserted
Brewers → top → stage
That this best-of-seven title decider is at once a shocking cold shower and a comforting warm bath is largely explained by the absence of the two-time defending champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were swept 4-0 by the Brewers in the National League Championship Series.
asserted
who → explain → Series
Analytics over affluence, a triumph for the teams who scrimp and strategize rather than simply lobbing money at the best free agents each offseason.
asserted
who → scrimp → agents
The Dodgers have parlayed financial dominance into winning the National League West division in 13 of the past 14 years.
asserted
Dodgers → parlay → years
At the start of this season there was every reason to expect they would win their third World Series in succession.
asserted
they → be → succession
But instead of spending this title fight lamenting the Dodgers’ dominance and fretting that money has made baseball dull and dynastic, we have the first match-up in 46 years – and second since 1920 – between two teams that have never won a World Series.
asserted
that → spend → Series
A country where the world’s richest person has reportedly made political donations in excess of $442m in this election cycle is culturally conditioned to believe that wealth wins.
uncertain
wealth → make → cycle
Yet baseball is, after all, still a sport where the won-lost standings and the salary tracker are not fully interchangeable.
asserted
standings → win → ?
Here are successful teams, boasting talents as luminous as Rays third baseman Junior Caminero and Brewers catcher William Contreras, with payrolls less than half the size of the most lavish spenders.
asserted
teams → boast → spenders
Milwaukee’s annual outlay ($146m according to Spotrac) ranks 19th in the 30-team league with Tampa Bay ($96m) in 28th position.
uncertain
outlay → accord → position
And the Rays reached this point by beating the Cleveland Guardians, who have MLB’s smallest payroll, in the American League Championship Series.
asserted
who → reach → Series
Only the Dodgers, Brewers, Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees have more regular-season wins in the 2020s than the Rays, who are in their third World Series.
asserted
who → have → Series
Tampa Bay, founded as an expansion franchise in 1998, reached the final in 2008 (where they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies) and in the Covid-wracked 2020 season, losing to the Dodgers at the makeshift site of Globe Life Field in Texas.
asserted
they → found → Texas
Though there are suspicions that national television audiences will be meager for a series between small-market teams lacking superstars, the games in Milwaukee are some of the hottest tickets in World Series history.
asserted
games → be → history
On one resale site the asking price for standing-room only tickets to Saturday’s Game 2 in Milwaukee was north of $3,000.
asserted
price → stand → Milwaukee
The first clash held moderate value for the neutral spectator.
asserted
clash → hold → spectator
Where ordinary pitchers throw fastballs, Jacob Misiorowski, MLB’s strikeout leader in the regular season, hurls fireballs.
asserted
Misiorowski → throw → fireballs
Misiorowski surrendered one run in five innings’ of work.
asserted
Misiorowski → surrender → work
“Not perfect, but good enough to get a win,” he said.
asserted
he → get → win
Milwaukee led 3-1 after the seventh but Tampa Bay mounted a late rally, scoring a run in the ninth to induce a tense, if gauche, finish.
asserted
Bay → lead → finish
The visitors loaded the bases but catcher Liam Hicks appeared to hit into a game-ending double play.
asserted
Hicks → load → play
The Brewers celebrated but the fireworks and high-fives were premature.
asserted
fireworks → celebrate → ?
The Rays challenged the decision, which was overturned on review.
asserted
which → challenge → review
This confirmed that shortstop Cooper Pratt had taken his foot off second base too early as he threw to first, and also that Milwaukee fans can boo almost as loudly as they cheer.
asserted
they → confirm → first
Still, there was more than enough air left in the lungs of the fans at American Family Field to reboot the celebrations after the teams returned to the field and closer Trevor Megill struck out outfielder Jonny DeLuca for the win, for real.
asserted
Megill → be → win
“It’s a big credit to Trev for locking back in right there and making some huge pitches after.
asserted
It → ’ → pitches
You know, you kind of have that emotional dump and then you have to get back on it.”
asserted
you → know → it
Brewers slugger Christian Yelich told Fox Sports.
asserted
Yelich → tell → Sports
It was perhaps early evidence that in a series that is likely to be decided by fine margins, Milwaukee’s formidable bullpen might ultimately make the difference.
uncertain
bullpen → decide → difference
Pat Murphy, the Brewers manager and Bruce Springsteen superfan who was FaceTimed by The Boss in midweek, declared Contreras the “player of the game” after he drove in a run and threw out two attempted base-stealers, neutralizing a key strategy for Kevin Cash’s aggressive Rays.
asserted
he → facetime → Rays
“Money isn’t everything” is a nice narrative as far as the action goes, but the peculiar genius of American sports is how they generally preserve parity and uncertainty on the field while embracing rapacious capitalism.
asserted
they → go → capitalism
Three years ago, the Brewers, who are owned by Mark Attansio, a Los Angeles-based investor who also controls Norwich City FC and has an estimated net worth of $2bn, managed to squeeze $500m out of lawmakers in taxpayer-funded upgrades for a 25-year-old ballpark that cost less than $400m to build in the first place.
asserted
that → own → place
A high-stakes financial duel engulfing the entire league played out to gaggles of reporters before the game as two power-brokers dug in to entrenched positions near the first-base dug-out.
asserted
brokers → engulf → out
Bruce Meyer, the interim head of the players’ union, called the owners’ proposal of a salary cap a “nuclear bomb” and - more reasonably - argued that the presence of two small-market clubs in this year’s World Series proves that competitive balance is possible without a cap.
asserted
balance → call → cap
Meanwhile, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred broadened the context as he made the case for a limit: “It’s been 40 years since we’re here.
asserted
we → broaden → limit
It’s not that no small market can win, it’s just that it’s pretty rare.”
asserted
it → ’ → ?
Milwaukee has a retractable roof, and Tampa Bay an indoor dome, but storm clouds are gathering above all the same.
asserted
clouds → have → roof
The owners are virtually certain to lock out the players on 1 December in a row over money that will threaten the start of the 2027 season.
asserted
that → lock → season
…and 2 more, not listed.
The Aporia
