The Milwaukee Brewers are four wins away from the first World Series title in franchise history. Given that they're the superior team in their matchup with the Tampa Bay Rays and much more rested, the expectation in most quarters is that they'll get those four wins. 

That alone is special enough – the whole point, you would agree. The Brewers, though, are also four wins away from joining an even more exclusive cohort of World Series champions: those teams that not only won the World Series but did so after dominating the regular season. 

Especially in this ongoing era of playoff bloat, Major League Baseball more often than not awards the belt and the title to a team that, from April through September, was something less than the best club. That's the nature of the sport when you reduce it to the relatively tiny sample of games found in the postseason, grow the field, and let randomness rule. It's a sport already built upon a certain level of unpredictability. For instance, the 2017 Dodgers -- en route to winning 104 games and the pennant -- lost 16 of 17 at one point. The 2006 Cardinals eked out 83 wins in the regular season before barging to the championship in October. The 1988 Mets went 10-1 against the Dodgers in the regular season but then fell to them in seven games in the NLCS. These, of course, are just a handful of the many examples.

The upshot of all this is that in MLB, the best team during the regular season doesn't wind up hoisting the trophy as often as it does in the NFL, NBA, and NHL. The shame of it is that the 162-game regular season, because of its remorseless breadth and everyday-ness, is a true cauldron and, in an ideal world, the sport's defining feature. Forging the most wins across those six months means something, and indeed by any sensible standard it means more than stacking up 11 or 13 wins in October. If horse sense prevailed, then MLB would reward the team with the best regular season with some kind of hardware that reflects the hard-won nature of the achievement. On this point, please permit the writer to quote the current Collective Bargaining Agreement between players and clubs: 

"During the term of this Agreement, each Club shall be scheduled to play 162 games during each championship season."

Emphasis mine, but I'm willing to share it. Yes, the regular season in officially official terms is known as the "championship season." But, to our grave cultural diminishment, we don't really treat it as such. Instead, it's an exercise in qualification and seeding for October. I'm disappointed in all of you for this.

In lieu of proper sanctioned recognition for excellence across 162, we turn back to the Brewers and the select company they may soon join. This year's World Series will be the 122nd between National and American League clubs. Of those 121 to date, though, just 29 World Series winners have paired that honor with the best regular-season record and the best regular-season run differential (runs scored minus runs allowed). The current Brewers model, with their MLB-best 103 wins during the championship season and MLB-best +214 run differential, are in position to become the 30th team to claim what we'll hereby call the Team Triple Crown. To restate, a club wins the Team Triple Crown when, in the same year, they win the World Series after achieving the best record and best run differential during the regular season (no ties permitted, which means teams that tied for the best regular-season record or run differential before winning the World Series are not allowed; a Team Triple Crown winner must stand alone on all fronts). 

As for the company Milwaukee may soon keep, here's the current list of MLB Team Triple Crown winners:

Note: No, the 2020 season, abbreviated to 60 regular season games because of COVID, does not count. 

If the Brewers are able to pull off the Team Triple Crown, then they'd be just the 30th team ever to do so. As you would expect, the Yankees have easily the most Team Triple Crowns with 12 (out of 27 championships overall). Winning four Team Triple Crowns in a row back in the 1930s is particularly impressive. The colossus in the Bronx back in the day of course turned dominance into tedium. 

Winning the Team Triple Crown these days is more impressive than it's ever been. We're deep into the expansion era, obviously, and since 1995 there's that third layer of the playoffs that the best teams must fight through. That's why just three squadrons -- the '98 Yankees, the 2016 Cubs, and the 2024 Dodgers -- stand as Team Triple Crown winners since the Division Series was instituted. It's really, really hard to pull it off these days, but the Brewers are tantalizingly close to joining them. 

For the Brewers, that means a World Series crown, provided it's forthcoming, will have been truly earned in every sense. It's already been a season to remember in Milwaukee, and they're close to joining company that's even more exclusive than you might think.