Category: Sports News

The 2026 World Series creeps ever closer.

Both teams participated in World Series Media Day on Thursday before the action finally gets underway Friday night in Milwaukee.

Which team are you pulling for to win its first World Series? Personally, a good friend of mine is a diehard Rays fan so I’m throwing my weight behind Tampa Bay to beat Milwaukee.

For those who will be watching even with the Braves not involved for the fifth straight year, here’s an appetizer MLB posted on its YouTube account Thursday.

And for those who are only particularly interested in watching when the Braves are involved, the timestamp you’re looking for is 47:30.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays now know the umpires that will take them through the 2026 World Series.

James Hoye has been named the crew chief of the nine-umpire crew that will work this year's Fall Classic, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday, Oct. 22. There are seven MLB umpires assigned to the field with a rotation each game that will ensure a different person is behind home plate. There are also two MLB umpires assigned to manage the league's replay system throughout the series.

The Brewers and Rays are set to open the 2026 World Series with Game 1 in Milwaukee on Friday. Here's a look at the umpires selected to work the series and their assignments for each game:

After the Brewers clinched the pennant, the first person I reached out to was my dad.

My father was born and raised in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. He’s been a Brewers fan his entire life, no doubt a consequence of coming of age during the franchise’s glory years in the late ’70s and early ’80s. When I was a kid, he’d tell me about (and show me highlights of) players like Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Sal Bando, and Rollie Fingers.

In 1982, he was 15, and the Brewers were the best team he’d ever seen. Yount was at short, Molitor at third, Gantner at second, and his cousin Tom was Bernie Brewer. If he had friends he wanted to impress, he’d have Tom wave at him from the top of the slide.

My dad had been going to games at Milwaukee County Stadium for years thanks to his uncle, who would take him whenever he didn’t have school. But that fall, his sister took him to see the Brewers play the Angels in the ALCS. The Brewers beat the Angels, but they went on to lose the World Series to the Cardinals in seven games. I asked him whether that loss took the air out of him.

“If anything, it made me more of a fan,” he said. The Brewers were still a great team, one of the best in baseball, and to him, it looked like they had what it took to win a World Series. They’d make it back soon enough.

But slowly, those late ’70s and early ’80s Brewers teams fell apart. While Yount and Molitor remained, Gorman Thomas and Don Money were gone by the end of the ’83 season, Don Sutton by the end of ’84, Fingers by ’86, and Ben Oglivie by ’87.

From 1988 to 2007, the Brewers won 90 games just once and finished under .500 more often than not. As my dad got older, his fandom faded a little, too. He went to college, moved away, and spent much of those 20 years working, preoccupied with more immediate concerns than the Brewers’ record. Baseball is magical, but it’s easier to see the magic when you’re a kid. He never stopped being a fan, but the love he’d had for those late ’70s and early ’80s teams didn’t quite return. Not until I came along.

He showed me the Brewers, and somewhere along the way, I fell in love with them on my own.

We visited family in Milwaukee in 2007, and my dad took me to a game at Miller Park, the first baseball game I ever saw in person. Rickie Weeks hit a walk-off single, and that was it: I was officially a Brewers fan, too. What my dad felt as a kid watching Yount and Molitor, I felt watching Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo, and Rickie Weeks.

And because I cared about the Brewers, he started caring about them again, too. When he’d pick me up from school or take me to practice, he’d already have the Brewers game on the radio. He’d given me the team. Without meaning to, I gave it back.

I was six years old in 2008, the year my dad really got back into the Brewers. He remembers the CC Sabathia trade fondly, as many fans do. CC only pitched half a season in Milwaukee, but that run was unforgettable. More than that, as my dad put it, it was the “first time in (his) memory that he ever saw the Brewers go after a big name midseason.” That team felt different from the teams that came before it.

As I fell in love with Fielder, Braun, Nyjer Morgan, and the 2011 squad, he did too. That team didn’t make it to the World Series, and neither did the 2018 team or the 2025 team, but our love for the Brewers never wavered. Whether or not the Brewers were doing well, we made a point of watching every game we could together.

Sometimes that meant complaining about the roster and praying for a .500 season, and sometimes it meant hoping the Brewers would finally make it back to the World Series. As every season ended in heartbreak, some more than others, the hope my dad had had for the 1982 team stayed with him, and with me. Someday, maybe next season, they’d be back in the World Series.

Now, for the first time since my dad was 15, the Brewers are back in the World Series. This year’s team is also different. My dad, who watched the ’82 team in person, says it’s the most fun Brewers team he’s ever seen. He loves Pat Murphy and thinks Murphy has them playing “as a team” more than any other version of the Brewers he’s seen. No one player is bigger than the team, and no one lets his ego change the dynamic. No matter who’s in the starting lineup, it’s all the Brewers. He loves the small ball, too: “four hits in an inning instead of waiting around for someone to hit a homer.”

I asked him what it would mean if they finally won it.

“Like many people have said: just one before I die.”

I’m in my hometown for the playoffs for the first time since 2019, so I’ve been watching almost every game with him at my parents’ house. As is often the case with parents, my dad and I don’t always know what to say to each other. When the Brewers are on, we never have to figure it out.

It turns out that works with strangers, too. During last year’s playoffs, I met a guy wearing a Brewers hat in an airport in Portugal, of all places. We were both jet-lagged and tired, but we immediately flashed each other a smile and struck up a conversation about the team. We didn’t have to explain anything. We both knew about 1982, 2011, 2018, the Cardinals, the Cubs, and the Dodgers, and we all know how rare this is.

I wasn’t home for the clincher. I was at the game in Los Angeles. After the final out, I was outside Dodger Stadium high-fiving people I’d never met and will never see again. I saw Yount jerseys, Braun jerseys, Morgan jerseys, Ben Sheets jerseys. Even a Norichika Aoki jersey. In Los Angeles. For a franchise that’s never won a World Series, fans find each other.

It was the first postseason game I’d ever been to; I was both elated to be there and sad I couldn’t watch it with him. So I texted him from the Dodger Stadium bleachers. He wrote back:

“So glad you got to see it. So sad I am not with you.”

“Here in spirit,” I responded.

I’m grateful to the Brewers for always giving me a reason to reach out to him. I’ll be watching every World Series game with him, hoping he gets to see one before he dies. This time, I’ll be there with him.

Because for us, and for so many Brewers fans, the Brewers are more than just a baseball team.

The 2026 White Sox broke through the national recognition barrier that has haunted them as a team with a small-market reputation and the figurative youngest child in Chicago baseball. Sporting News named Will Venable AL Manager of the Year and tapped Chase Meidroth for the AL All-Star team, in voting by fellow managers and players, respectively.

Venable became the first manager in MLB history to lead a team to the postseason after the Sox posted back-to-back 100-plus-loss seasons. Although South Siders may scoff at their underwhelming September, no other team has won 84 games after losing 100-plus games in three consecutive years. Venable kept the Sox atop the AL Central for 96 days and became the third manager since 1901 to oversee a 19-plus-win improvement in consecutive seasons, excluding 2020 and strike seasons. Applause is especially warranted considering the Sox started 11-17 in the first month of the 2026 season.

Sporting News’ award makes Venable the sixth Sox manager to earn the title, alongside Ozzie Guillén (2005), Jerry Manuel (2000), Jeff Torborg (1990), Tony La Russa (1983) and Chuck Tanner (1972).

Though Meidroth made less history, everyone felt his impact on the field. The 25-year-old slashed .276/.350/.415 in 154 games and led AL second basemen in hits, walks, runs scored, doubles, total bases (235) and slugging percentage while ranking second in average, on-base percentage and OPS (.765). His 4.5 WAR this year was the highest among all Sox second basemen in the 21st century and the best performance at the keystone since Nellie Fox in 1959 (6.1 WAR).

Meidroth is a Gold Glove Award finalist and the second Sox second baseman named a Sporting News All-Star, and the first Chicago infielder since José Abreu in 2020 to earn the honor.

The Sox will keep basking in the glow of their pleasantly unexpected season while the World Series plays out. Even as chatter shifts to next year, Venable and Meidroth will remain cornerstones of Chicago’s near-term future.

When it comes to top free agents, the Dodgers rarely tip their hand.

At the outset of Tarik Skubal’s free agency this offseason, that remained the case once again.

During an end-of-season press conference on Wednesday, less than a week removed from the team’s sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman carefully sidestepped a question about Skubal, saying a lot of words that offered no substantive indication of the club’s urgency level to potentially re-sign him.

Friedman started by praising the two-time Cy Young Award-winning left-hander, whom the Dodgers acquired in a blockbuster trade deadline deal with the Detroit Tigers in August.

“It’s not easy for a guy to get traded in the middle of a season to come to a new city, new clubhouse,” Friedman said. “You have set routines, and you have to make those adjustments.”

The longtime top executive then complimented the way Skubal acclimated to his new surroundings, and the impact he made even in a year the Dodgers fell short of a World Series three-peat.

“The way he was able to seamlessly transition, not just in terms of on the field, but in the clubhouse, I can’t say enough good things about the impact that he made in such a short period of time,” Friedman said. “We have a tremendous amount of respect for him on and off the field.”

What Friedman didn’t do, however, was say that the Dodgers would be all-in on Skubal this winter, or that they would do whatever it takes to lock him up in a free agency process that is expected to end with the soon-to-be 30-year-old breaking Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s record guarantee of $325 million for a pitcher.

That wasn’t unexpected, of course.

Even in the run-up to this year’s deadline, the Dodgers publicly downplayed how aggressive they would be for the superstar ace.

Still, by playing it coy Wednesday, Friedman allowed a vacuum of speculation to develop about exactly where the Dodgers will stand in the Skubal sweepstakes.

“He’s put himself in this position to go out and be a free agent,” Friedman said, acknowledging only that the club will have conversations with Skubal’s agent, Scott Boras, going into the winter. “He and his family have to make a choice over where they want to spend the next X number of years, and obviously we wish him nothing but the best.”

Granted, it’s still extremely early in the offseason. And as the Dodgers have shown the last couple winters, they can never be counted out for a top free-agent target (remember when they were supposedly not going to break the bank for Kyle Tucker?).

At this point, however, there have been questions from some corners of the industry about the Dodgers’ willingness to give Skubal the lengthy, lucrative contract he will be seeking.

The team already has ample future financial commitments tied up to Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and others. Even without Skubal, they will have one of the majors’ best rotations next year, assuming Justin Wrobleski and Roki Sasaki continue to develop, and Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow can avoid the injury problems that have plagued them the past few years.

Much could depend on the league’s looming CBA negotiations, which might result in a salary cap –– or some other drastic changes to the sport’s economic structure –– following a lockout all but certain to commence on Dec. 1.

It’s unclear if Skubal will try to sign a new contract before then; with the Mets, Cubs, Angels and Yankees all seen as potential suitors, among others.

It’s also unclear how the Dodgers’ approach to long-term payroll might change depending on what the new CBA entails.

That’s why, for now, the club will remain the ultimate wild card in his free-agency process.

They have the resources to swing a record-breaking deal if they want. They have a track record of getting aggressive for players they feel swing their World Series chances. But if they are planning an all-out press to re-sign Skubal, they aren’t tipping their hand yet.

“We’re still wrapping our arms around our off-season plan and strategy and timing of things,” Friedman said.

His cards, once again, were staying glued to his chest.

MILWAUKEE — The Tampa Bay Rays had ace Drew Rasmussen available on regular rest to start Game 1 of the World Series.

But Rasmussen on extra rest is even more dominant. And that made it a relatively easy decision for Rays manager Kevin Cash to skip Rasmussen and name right-hander Nick Martinez his World Series Game 1 starter.

Martinez, 36, will oppose Milwaukee Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski in the Friday, Oct. 23 opener at American Family Field. Martinez is coming off a strong 5 ⅓-inning, two-hit, one-run start against the Cleveland Guardians in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, tying it 2-2.

Rasmussen followed with a dominant seven-inning, four-hit effort to win Game 5 and send Tampa Bay home with just one win necessary to reach the World Series. No. 2 starter Freddy Peralta followed suit with a Game 6 gem to send them to Milwaukee.

Rasmussen pitched Sunday, putting him on regular rest Friday. But Cash is not going to burn that bullet just yet.

“We prioritized Drew getting an extra day. We’re trying to get the full pitch allotment out of him,” says Cash before the Rays worked out in Milwaukee on Thursday. "He's had a pretty thick workload here. We've relied on him heavily.

"When Nick pitches, we win."