MILWAUKEE, Wis. — The Milwaukee Brewers reached the World Series on Thursday night for the first time in 44 years, completing a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 6-4 win in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. The Dodgers, the two-time defending champions, had been seeking a third straight title. The sweep ended that bid.
It was the Brewers’ first Fall Classic appearance since 1982. The wait it ended was, by the count of longtime fans, 44 years long, and it was scheduled to conclude on Thursday.
Walt Dombrowski, 74, of Hollis Bend, Wis., has held a season-ticket plan since 1979 and has spent most of that time preparing for the wait to end. Reached Thursday night at his kitchen table, where a binder labeled “Pennant, Later” sat beside a thermos, Dombrowski said he had bought a seat for every postseason game the Brewers did not play between 1983 and 2025 and had kept the stubs in a drawer.
“I was told the wait was 44 years, and I accepted that,” Dombrowski said. “Then it was over on the right day, and it was 44 years early, so I am at the front of a line I was never in. I have to start the wait over, and I don’t know where the wait goes. There’s a form.”
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center has tracked Milwaukee’s waiting since 1987 and built a model that projected the drought would end on October 15, 2026, and then continue until the 2070s. The model was correct about the date of the Brewers’ clinch, Teller said, and about nothing after it.
“The wait was scheduled to end on October 15, 2026, and it ended on October 15, 2026,” Teller said. “The model did not anticipate that it would also have ended 44 years before it began, which would require the wait to have started in the future. We have asked our analysts to check their arithmetic. They have checked it, and they say it is correct, and they would like a day off.”
The Reporter asked a dozen fans outside the ballpark on Thursday night whether the pennant had been worth the wait. Nine said yes. Asked how long they had waited, the nine gave answers ranging from “since 1982” to “since Tuesday.” One fan, who said he had been waiting since 1982 and had been planning to wait until 2070, said he was unsure how to feel and had called his brother in Racine to ask. His brother, reached by phone, said he had also been waiting since 1982 and had also been planning for 2070, and that the two of them would need to talk about the plan.
The Dodgers, who had hoped to win a third straight title, will watch the World Series from home.
Dombrowski said he has already been asked by his grandson what he will wait for next. He said he is considering the Brewers’ next World Series appearance, and that he has moved the stubs to a high shelf, just in case.