Milwaukee — 

This introduction to the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays will not make mention of which teams are not playing in the World Series – even if that’s all many folks want to talk about.

That would be a disservice to the very deserving teams that will take the field at 8 p.m. ET on Friday when the Brewers host the Rays in Game 1 of the Fall Classic.

Suffice to say, however, that a neutral fan – and, given the size of the media markets directly involved, there are more of those than there have been in recent years – will likely have less of a visceral reaction to a Rays-Brewers World Series. If you are not from Milwaukee or the Tampa Bay area, perhaps you do not know who to root for or what to watch or, frankly, why to watch.

Here are four reasons to tune in to this year’s edition:

This is a clash of greatness – and familiarity

Small payrolls may have imbued both teams with an underdog vibe as they made their way through the postseason bracket, but don’t be fooled: This matchup is total chalk, two one-seeds. The Tampa Bay Rays had the best record in the American League, the Brewers had the best record in the National League and all of Major League Baseball.

That success is not entirely new, either.

The Brewers had the best record in baseball last year, too, before they were swept out of the playoffs by the eventual champion Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, if you go back to the start of 2024, the beginning of when that Dodger dominance started to feel inevitable, no team has won more games than the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Rays, known for punching above their weight in the big-spending American League East, missed the playoffs entirely the past two years. But a longer lens reveals how they’ve earned a reputation as perennial contenders. The Rays, MLB’s newest team, made the playoffs for the first time in 2008. Starting with that season through today – a 19-year span – only the New York Yankees and Dodgers have won more regular season games.

Within the sport, this sustained success has earned both organizations a reputation for being smart, savvy, and worth emulating. Front offices around the league are populated with people who honed their skills in Tampa or Milwaukee – and that actually includes Milwaukee.

Matt Arnold, now the Brewers president of baseball operations, spent nearly a decade in the Rays’ organization before coming to Milwaukee. Just about 24 hours before the World Series began, Arnold greeted the current Rays’ president of baseball operations Erik Neander, who started as an intern in Tampa while Arnold was a scout there, on the field. Neander lifted Arnold airborne and wrapped him in a bear hug.

“Still really good friends,” Arnold said of the relationships he still has in that front office. “Maybe not this week, but for sure for a lifetime. I consider them some of my closest friends.”

Both teams are playing for the franchise’s first title

All that respect and regular season success has yet to translate to a ring for either franchise. There are five MLB teams that have never won a World Series. After this season, there will be four.

That alone imbues this series with compellingly straightforward stakes. For the Rays, it has been 29 years of existence and two failed trips to the Fall Classic, most recently in the neutral-site Covid-19 World Series in 2020. For the Brewers, it’s been 58 years of existence and they haven’t played in the final game of a season since 1982, before many of their current fans were even born.

The Rays, in particular, are often mocked on a national level for their fickle Florida fanbase that would rather enjoy the year-round sun than sit in the necessary traffic to get to games in St. Petersburg. But when the broadcast cuts to either crowd in a clinching scenario, keep in mind the people who are there are hoping to see history made.

Bring back batting average and balls in play and bunts

Talk to your parents about baseball and see how quickly it takes them to bring up that, back in their day, hitters used to put the ball in play. Now, everyone just swings for the fences and all too often winds up striking out.

Well, mom and dad, have I got good news for you. Tune in to this World Series for a throwback in style. The matchup features the two teams with the highest batting averages in the regular season – the Brewers were best in the sport, the Rays a close second. The Rays had the lowest strikeout rate in the game. The Brewers scored the second-most runs in the sport while hitting the second fewest home runs.

You will probably see someone bunt for a hit. The Rays’ 49 bunt hits in the regular season were not only a league-high this season, it’s the most any team has had since 2008. The Brewers were second in the sport this season in bunt hits. And if it’s Rays’ speed specialist Chandler Simpson who reaches first on a ball that fails to leave the infield, you will probably see a stolen base soon after. Simpson’s 46 steals led the American League in the regular season. He has never hit a home run in the majors.

This style tends to amount to close, low-scoring games. So maybe not the most fireworks, but plenty of drama.

There’s still plenty of power and pop

Something else you’re likely to see in this World Series? The fastest pitch and the slowest home run trot in Fall Classic history.

The former will undoubtedly be supplied by Jacob Misiorowski, the Brewers’ 24-year-old flame-throwing phenom and probable Cy Young Award winner. To set a new speed record, he needs to top the 103.2 mph reached by Aroldis Chapman in 2016.

And will he? Oh, absolutely. His first pitch of the Brewers’ postseason this year was 104.8 mph. The Miz is a miracle of mechanics and strength and human extremes.

“Arguably one of the best arms to ever touch a dirt circle in the big leagues,” Kyle Snyder, the opposing Rays pitching coach, told CNN Sports. “I mean, what a fantastic season and what an incredible talent.”

That blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stuff will be juxtaposed on the basepaths by the unhurried one-man parade put on by Rays’ third baseman Junior Caminero if he homers.

And will he? He’s got as good a chance as anyone else who steps to the plate this series.

Over the past two seasons combined, Caminero has the second-most home runs in baseball. He’s 23 years old, playing in his first postseason, and soaking up every second of it. When he homered in the clinch Game 6 of the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Guardians, Caminero staged an elaborate celebration that took 38.66 seconds to round the base paths.

It was the slowest uninterrupted playoff home trot since MLB Statcast started measuring in 2015 – and the second slowest ever, behind only another one from Caminero in September of this season.

The Miz and Junior aren’t yet household names. But this World Series could change that.