Milwaukee celebrates Brewers World Series victory
Brewers staff take in the parade crowd. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Thousands of Brewer fans packed into downtown Milwaukee and the city’s Summerfest grounds Friday to celebrate the Milwaukee Brewers winning the first World Series in franchise history.
As the buses and cars drove past carrying the team, its staff and local dignitaries — including Gov. Tony Evers, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor — roars echoed through the streets celebrating the end of more than a half century of waiting for a championship team.
Parents lifted kids on shoulders and fans stood on every possible elevated surface, including Milwaukee Police Department vehicles, to get a glimpse of the world champion Brewers — who defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in game five of the series on Wednesday.
On Milwaukee’s Summerfest grounds, the official team rally celebrating the win was held at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater while fans packed in to watch the video of the celebration at every stage in the sprawling festival venue.
While players and coaches spoke from the stage, they repeatedly credited the fan support for carrying them through the playoffs.
“We couldn’t have done it without these people,” Brewers Manager Pat Murphy said from the rally stage.
Days before the midterm elections, after a campaign season in which Wisconsin’s 50-50 political divide has been laid bare, Brewer fans celebrated the common ground the team offered the state. But politics was not entirely absent from the celebration. While the parade moved through the city, a plane trailed a banner noting that “David Crowley helped keep the Brewers in Milwaukee.”
“It means everything, the whole state,” Milwaukee resident Mario Williams told the Wisconsin Examiner, adding that the celebration was for fans in “La Crosse, Wausau and Marinette.”
“We get a bad rep,” he said of Milwaukee. “We’re a great city, multi-cultural, it’s not just all violence.” Thomas Carson, a graduate of Milwaukee’s Casimir Pulaski High School, said that Friday’s celebration was a “spontaneous combustion” of energy in the city.
“I’ve been waiting on this day,” he said.
Laura Toburen, who drove down from the city of Greenwood in Clark County to see the parade with her Milwaukee resident daughter and grandkids, said that after 57 years of waiting she was happy to celebrate the team and its city.
“I love it, to feel it together and just enjoy,” Toburen said.
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