NEED TO KNOW

• For the first time in 46 years, a first-ever World Series winner will be crowned

• Only five MLB teams have never won a championship

• Tampa Bay plays Milwaukee for all the marbles beginning on Friday, Oct. 23

The Tampa Bay Rays or the Milwaukee Brewers — which team will finally break through to win a franchise-first World Series?

It’s been 46 years since the World Series has featured two teams that have never won.

For the teams, the wait has been interminable, but the Brewers — or the Rays — are just days away from winning it all.

Including the World Series teams, three other franchises  — the Seattle Mariners, the San Diego Padres and the Colorado Rockies — have never won a World Series.

In 1980, the Kansas City Royals faced the Philadelphia Phillies in the best-of-seven, which the Phillies won in six games.

Phillies closer Tug McGraw — the biological father of country music star Tim McGraw — struck out Willie Wilson to seal the deal, ending the long drought for Philadelphia. Game Six was one of the most-watched games in World Series history, with an estimated 54.9 million people tuning in to see who would finally win a title.

Five years later, the Royals won one of their own, and the team did it again 30 years later in 2015.

Now, on the eve of a small-market World Series, both teams have big dreams.

“They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we have a bunch of gamers,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said amid the locker room celebrations this month after the team swept the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. “And the gamers won this week.”

“This is crazy, and I am very happy to be here, to be part of this great group and this great organization,” ALCS MVP Freddy Peralta said after the Rays clinched the pennant on Monday, Oct. 19 against the Cleveland Guardians. “This is not only mine. We all earned this. This is for the boys.” 

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Game 1 of the World Series is set for Friday, Oct. 23 at American Family Field in Milwaukee.

Read the original article on People