Brewers Take Their First World Series Trophy Down Wisconsin Avenue: Milwaukee's Parade Ends With 'Glory Days' at the Lakefront
Two days after the clincher, the champions rode past the Bob Uecker mural to a sold-out lakefront rally - Yelich took a black eye for the crowd, Misiorowski caught a beer one-handed, and nobody, by their own account, has really slept.
Milwaukee waited 58 seasons for Friday. The Brewers, who won the first World Series in franchise history with a 4-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5 on Wednesday, celebrated it with a championship parade through downtown Milwaukee and a rally on the lakefront, USA TODAY reported - the Commissioner's Trophy riding along the whole way.
The parade started at North 4th Street and West Wisconsin Avenue and worked east and north through downtown before finishing at Henry Maier Festival Park, where a sold-out amphitheater crowd chanted 'Let's Go Brewers' as play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson emceed the rally. The route passed the mural of the late announcer Bob Uecker, unveiled in June, and manager Pat Murphy paused to acknowledge it; players including Jake Bauers, carrying the trophy, jumped off the buses there to take selfies with fans.
The day produced its own box score of moments. Christian Yelich told the rally he had taken the trophy into the crowd during the parade and come away with a black eye for his trouble - and that it 'was worth it.' Jacob Misiorowski, the 24-year-old ace, caught a beer can thrown from the crowd one-handed from a bus and drank it, and admitted the team was running on two or three hours of sleep: 'This is amazing. This is awesome. It's so much fun,' he said. 'This is the pinnacle. This is what you play for.' World Series MVP William Contreras - .381 with four RBIs and four would-be base stealers thrown out against Tampa Bay - led the crowd's 'M-V-P' chants, and outfielder Sal Frelick, hoarse and holding the trophy, told the fans: 'I'm on top of the world. It doesn't get any better.'
It was the third stop of a victory lap that began with Wednesday's clincher in Florida and detoured Thursday to Lambeau Field, where the Packers hosted the trophy during their Thursday night game against Carolina. Friday's rally closed the way the season demanded: with Bruce Springsteen's 'Glory Days' played for Murphy, the manager, as the confetti settled over the lakefront - a first championship, celebrated at exactly the volume it was waited for.
