The Season We Needed

The 2025 Brewers season began under a dark cloud.

We lost a familiar voice that told us who we were. We lost a star whose love for the game made fans and players believe we could win. We traded the anchor of our bullpen to the Yankees.

The weight of all that loss hung heavy. And pundits, they took the easy bet. Before a single pitch was thrown, they sowed seeds of doubt.

Then came New York. A series so ugly it almost felt symbolic, an early unraveling of a team with an identity crisis. The pitching faltered. The bats were mediocre. The early-season optimism disappeared. It wasn’t just bad baseball, it was a gut check.

Turn off the radio. Change the channel. The season was over. Yet, Milwaukee didn’t surrender.

Believers Are Born

What happened next was quietly remarkable. A collection of castoffs, journeymen, and prospects found something here – friendship, belief, and a winning way, the Milwaukee way.

Pat Murphy, reigning NL Manager of the Year, deserves a mountain of credit for that. He inherited uncertainty and turned it into chemistry. No superstar egos. No drama. Just a group of guys who showed up, started grinding, and played for each other.

Slowly, belief blossomed as spring turned to summer. You could see it in the dugout, hear it in the crowd, and feel it across the city itself. We rediscovered Brewers baseball.

The Milwaukee Way

For years, this organization has been built around pitching, defense, and efficiency – a model that has delivered October baseball in seven of the last eight seasons.

But this year, something shifted. The Brewers began to find joy again. They started playing like they had something to prove.

Jackson Chourio, still impossibly young, was all energy and all joy. You could see it in every smile. His rookie season gave him a taste of winning baseball, and his sophomore season was equally successful. Now he knows what it takes.

Brice Turang, Sal Frelick, and Joey Ortiz continued to grow while playing gold-glove defense. Christian Yelich continued his quiet leadership, now without the buffer of Willy Adames or Bob Uecker.

Freddy Peralta shouldered the rotation. No longer the third man up in the rotation, but the heart of it. On route to a 17-6 record, he carried the weight of an ace all season long, while never losing that quiet fire that makes him Milwaukee to the core.

Brandon Woodruff returned — not as the savior, but as the steadying force, and the homegrown soul of a staff that refused to break.

Then Quinn Priester arrived and became a revelation. The same pitcher who’d struggled to find his footing in Pittsburgh and Boston suddenly looked reborn — sharper, confident, dominant.

He was followed by Andrew Vaughn, who, demoted by the White Sox, rediscovered his swing. Looser, lighter, and free. Belief displaced the disappointment, and he raked.

It wasn’t luck. It was Milwaukee doing what Milwaukee does – turning potential into production.

And then there’s William Contreras. One of the best battery mates in baseball. A catcher who doesn’t just call a game, he conducts it.

Every inning, every pitch, you can feel the trust between him and the staff. A rhythm that makes the moment feel calmer.

And when Narco hits, those trumpets cut through the air like an announcement. Not just of his arrival at the plate, but of his arrival as a star.

It’s the heartbeat of Milwaukee, set to horns.

The Weight of What We Lost

Losing legends changes a team — and a city. When Bob Uecker’s voice faded from the booth, it left a silence that no statistic or soundbite could fill. His calls were the heartbeat of Milwaukee summers, the soundtrack of generations. You don’t replace that. You carry it.

Same goes for losing stars. When Adames and others left, it wasn’t just about talent — it was about identity. For a while, the Brewers didn’t quite know who they were. But maybe that’s what made this season so meaningful. Maybe you have to lose the familiar to find something stronger.

The Proof

We didn’t play for the headlines, but we had some. While the pundits wrote us off, we wrote our own story.

There were the winning streaks. The first run that nearly delivered Milwaukee its long-awaited free George Webb burger, and then the August surge that did — a 14-game streak that fed a city’s appetite for belief and a record-breaking season. Ninety-seven wins. The best in Brewers history. The best in the National League. The best in baseball.

And it wasn’t just numbers. It was moments.

Moments like Jacob Misiorowski’s debut — a flame-throwing, 100-mph introduction to the big leagues that earned him an All-Star nod and gave us a glimpse of what’s next.

Moments from Isaac Collins and Caleb Durbin, rookies who refused to play small, who turned every opportunity into a reason to notice.

It was Murph’s pocket pancakes and dugout quesadillas.

It was The Power of Friendship, a joke turned mantra that somehow explained everything.

And it was magic when Christian Yelich stepped to the plate during Players’ Weekend with a bat made in honor of Bob Uecker. One swing, and one home run that felt like a nod from above.

We cheered, not just for Yelich, but for Ueck — whose spirit lingered in every laugh, every rally, every comeback.

Then came our farewell. A day that may have marked the start of a new tradition. Every Brewer wore “Ueck” across their back in tribute — no names, just one. The name that meant summer, meant baseball, meant Milwaukee.

So yes, the experts doubted us. But we proved them wrong.

Fourteen straight wins. Ninety-seven total. A playoff series win that knocked out the division rival Cubs. A top-ranked farm system ready to keep the story going.

This wasn’t luck. This was culture. This was Milwaukee baseball, built one inning at a time.

The Superteam and the Spark

And so it ended in Los Angeles — a tough NLCS loss to a team built like a machine. You could say, “we lost to the superteam,” and you’d be right. But that misses the point.

Because this season was never about beating the Dodgers. It was about becoming the Brewers again.

The Dodgers are rich in money. The Brewers are rich in belief.

This was a team that rediscovered its heart. A fan base that remembered why it loves this club — because it’s scrappy, resilient, and unreasonably hopeful even when logic says not to be.

The Season We Needed

So no, this wasn’t a failure. It was a necessary transition — from what Brewers baseball used to be to what it’s about to become.

A changing of the guard. A season that said goodbye to the old voices and made space for new ones.

Pat Murphy proved he can lead with empathy and conviction. Jackson Chourio proved he can carry the torch. And the rest of the roster — from journeymen to rookies — proved that Milwaukee is still one of the most resilient organizations in baseball.

The heartbreaks of spring gave way to the belief of summer. And by fall, even in defeat, you could feel it – the future isn’t something we’re waiting for. It’s already begun.

The Last Word

Ueck used to joke about sitting in the front row, but the truth is he was always in the crowd. One of us – hopeful, heartbroken, loud, loyal.

And if he were with us today, he’d celebrate what this team did, because Ueck knew that baseball isn’t about winning every game. It’s about loving the story enough to keep turning the page.

And this season? It was one hell of a chapter.