“Built for Fall,” it says. Built to fall is more like it.

In past stories, I’ve mentioned the concept of “fool ya teams.” It’s a phrase my dad made up for teams who look good, look like they’ll go all the way, are pushed up as big favorite, but they fizzle when it counts. The original Brooklyn Dodgers spent decades as MLB’s original “fool ya team” until they finally won the big one in 1955. In recent years, that torched has been passed, though it can be said that the Cleveland Guardians have fooled people for many years now.

From what I’ve seen in recent years, it definitey looks like the Milwaukee Brewers have that tag. Since 2018, the Brewers have been a consistent playoff team, but they don’t go far. They usually win the NL Central, but that turns into nothing. Last year was the big disappointment; won the Central, had Game Three of the Wild Card Series won, but a three-run HR in the ninth from Pete Alonso took that away.

Here’s the ultimate heartbreaker: that game was the final Brewers game called by this man: Bob Uecker. The longtime play-by-play announcer for the Brewers, Uecker passed away on January 16 of this year, and in his broadcasting career, he only got to see the Brewers in the Fall Classic once, in 1982. It’s not just his announcing he’s known for. Uecker also did some acting, most notably on the sitcom, Mr. Belvedere, and he is also remembered for playing hilarious announcer Harry Doyle in the Major League trilogy.

This year was supposed to be different. Best record in baseball, coming after being behind the Cubs for a good bit. They defeated said Cubs in the NLDS, setting up a meeting with the Dodgers. The defending champs. However, the Brewers owned the Dodgers this year. Six games played, Brewers won all of them. And the Brewers had the home field in this series. Easy peasy, right?

Clearly, you don’t know the Brewers.

Dodgers got off the schnide against the Brewers in 2025 with a 2-1 win in Game One. Game Two saw the Dodgers win 5-1, successfully taking both games in Milwaukee. Even worse for the Brewers, they would not see that beleaguered Dodgers bullpen in those two games. The pen only pitched that ninth inning of Game One. That’s it. Series shifted to LA, where the Brewers lost Game Three, 3-1. I’m sensing a theme here. Game Four was “Death by Ohtani.” Ohtani struck out 10 on the mound, and homered three times at the plate. The final score was 5-1, with Ohtani (the eventual NLCS MVP) basically beating the Brewers all by himself.

Now I see the trend here. It comes in the form of one simple three letter word: one. That’s how many runs they scored in each game. One dinky little run per game. The bats that were hot all season and were ripping and roaring in the NLDS went ice cold against the Dodgers. Jackson Chourio had eight RBIs in this postseason. However, only two of them came in the NLCS, and he had the team’s only homer in the series. Jake Bauers and Brice Turang had the other two RBIs, but Turang went 1-for-15 in the series. Christian Yelich, one of the team’s big bats: 1-for-14, and struck out seven times! Oh boy.

So the Brewers fooled us again. The Dodgers are back in the World Series; the first defending champions to return to the World Series since the Phillies did so in 2009. As for Milwaukee, well, another good season is wasted, but thankfully, the NL Central isn’t exactly deep. It’s basically the Brewers and Cubs for that division, so the former will be fine as far as the regular season’s concerned. They really need to fix their postseason problems, or else the next season could be just as disappointing as this one was.

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