On Sept. 26, the Milwaukee Brewers Become More National League Than American League

On Sept. 26, 2026, the Milwaukee Brewers will play their second-to-last game of the regular season in a Saturday night home game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

That game will also be a quiet milestone in brewers history. The Brewers for the first time will have played more total games as a National League team than they played as an American League team.

The current Brewers Major League Baseball team began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, moved to Milwaukee in 1970 to become the Milwaukee Brewers. They were in the American League of Major League Baseball (or in other sports, known as a "conference"). Then in 1998, with the addition of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks, the Brewers switched from the American League to the National League.

Does this really matter? Sure it does.

For any of us born before 1997, the only time we saw American League baseball teams play National League teams was in the World Series. In 1997, Major League Baseball became the last of the four major American sports to have every team play every team in the league in the regular season, regardless of which league/conference they belong to.

Milwaukee's Pro Sports Teams vs. Relocation

In the opening narration of “BASEketball,” the 1998 sports comedy directed by Shorewood native and Wisconsin sports fan David Zucker, the movie begins with one of the best franchise-relocation rants ever put in a sports movie:

“Soon, it was commonplace for entire teams to change cities in search of greater profits. The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles, where there are no lakes. The Oilers moved to Tennessee, where there is no oil. The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where they don't allow music. The Oakland Raiders moved to LA and then back to Oakland. No one in Los Angeles seemed to notice. The search for greener pastures went on unabated. Continued expansion diluted the talent pool, forcing owners to recruit heavily from prisons, mental institutions, and Texas.”

American sports history really is a mess of teams moving, names staying, names leaving, records following franchises, records staying with cities, fans losing everything, fans getting consolation prizes and leagues pretending the paperwork makes the emotions go away.

Which brings us, somehow, to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Long before the current Brewers existed, there was another Milwaukee Brewers baseball team from 1894-1901. Their history now belongs to the current Baltimore Orioles.

Half a century later, Milwaukee got the Milwaukee Braves (1953-1965), a relocated team from Boston. The Braves won a World Series in Milwaukee—the only World Series won by a Milwaukee team. But due to relocation, Major League Baseball regards all of the Milwaukee Braves' history as belonging to the Atlanta Braves—including the 1957 Commissioner's trophy.

In pro basketball, Milwaukee had the Milwaukee Hawks (1951-1955), an NBA team whose history now belongs to the Atlanta Hawks. The Milwaukee Bucks began play as an expansion team in 1968 and would win championships in 1971 and 2021—Milwaukee's only expansion-original team to win a championship. The Bucks also still have the record for fastest North American expansion team to win a league title.

Back to baseball. In 1969, MLB had an expansion team called the Seattle Pilots. The Pilots went bankrupt and moved to Milwaukee in 1970 to become the Brewers in baseball's American League. Across that era, including regular-season games, postseason games and the 1982 World Series, the Brewers played 4,584 total games as an American League club - including the one year as the Pilots.

At first glance, the Milwaukee Brewers’ final regular-season game of 2026 would appear to be the game that pushes them past their American League total.

But that count leaves out Game 163. That day, the Milwaukee Brewers played the Chicago Cubs in a 2018 tiebreaker game for the National League Central title. That game counts as part of the regular season, and the current total as a member of the National League.

So Sept. 26, when the Brewers take on the Cardinals at American Family Field—it will be the moment the Brewers have played 4,585 total games as a National League franchise.

Why it feels strange

A fan born in 1998 has never seen the Brewers play in the American League. That fan is now old enough to have grown up, gone to college, moved, gotten married, had a kid and still watched only National League Milwaukee Brewers baseball.

The Brewers’ National League life began at home on April 7, 1998, against the Montreal Expos. The Expose would leave Canada in 2005, move to Washington, D.C., and become the Washington Nationals. The Expos history moved with the team.

Baltimore's Colt-shaped Scars

The Baltimore Colts were an NFL team from 1958-1983. In the spring of 1984, the Baltimore Colts left Baltimore for Indianapolis, with moving trucks taking the franchise out of Maryland under cover of darkness. It remains one of the ugliest relocation stories in American pro sports.

The Indianapolis Colts kept the name, records, and Johnny Unitas—all the Baltimore Colts history went to Indy.

The scars remain in Baltimore, even after two Ravens Super Bowl titles. And as of 2015, the Colts have played in Indianapolis longer than they did in Baltimore. Still, when the Indianapolis Colts play a road game against the Baltimore Ravens, the Ravens do not even use the word “Colts” on the scoreboard. It says "Ravens vs. Indy."

The Browns, Ravens, Hornets and SuperSonics

The original Cleveland Browns of the NFL moved to Baltimore in 1996 to become the Baltimore Ravens, but the NFL did not let the Cleveland Browns’ history become Baltimore Ravens history. Cleveland kept the Browns name, colors and records.

That is why Jim Brown is not a Baltimore Ravens legend. The NFL regards the Browns as having "suspended operations" from 1996-1998.

The NBA created a stranger web with the Charlotte Hornets.

The Charlotte Hornets were an NBA team that began in 1988. That original Charlotte Hornets moved to become the New Orleans Hornets in 2002.

Charlotte later received an expansion team called the Charlotte Bobcats in 2004, owned by Michael Jordan. Then the New Orleans Hornets changed their name to New Orleans Pelicans in 2014.

That same year, the Charlotte Bobcats renamed themselves to Charlotte Hornets. The NBA then restored the Charlotte Hornets history to Charlotte, along with the Charlotte Bobcats' short dismal history.

The New Orleans Pelicans own the New Orleans Hornets years.

Then there are the Seattle SuperSonics of the NBA.

The Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City in 2008 and became the Oklahoma City Thunder. But the city of Seattle, now without an NBA team, retained parts of the Seattle SuperSonics identity, including the name, colors and banners. The 1979 NBA title banner remains in Seattle, but officially, the NBA counts the entire Seattle SuperSonics' history to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

So when Seattle gets an NBA team again sometime in the near future, Seattle SuperSonics history will be subtracted from the current Oklahoma City Thunder's history, and the SuperSonics will be regarded as having "suspended operations" from 2008 through whenever that team returns.

The Los Angeles Dodgers became the modern villain

Back to baseball, again. Since the Brewers moved to the National League in 1998, their top rivals are the Chicago Cubs, followed by the Cardinals.

As a Brewers fan and Los Angeles resident, I will argue that the Brewers' top nemesis right now is the Dodgers. The Dodgers are the only team that the Brewers have played in the playoffs three times. The Brewers faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2018 National League Championship Series, the shortened 2020 postseason and the 2025 NLCS.

The Dodgers are the Brewers' October nemesis.

I was at Dodger Stadium for Game 5 of the 2018 National League Championship Series. The Milwaukee Brewers lost that Wednesday afternoon. There were not many of us in the stands that day—the Brewers and Dodgers split the two preivous games on Monday and Tuesday. I even ran into David Zucker in the concessions line.

Waiting a lifetime for October Brewers Baseball

I hatched in 1985. That means I was not alive for the 1982 World Series. I did not see the Brewers take a three-games-to-two lead over the Cardinals, and then the Brew Crew dropping Games 6 and 7.

The Brewers did not play a postseason game in my lifetime until 2008. That game came at Citizens Bank Park against the Philadelphia Phillies on a rainy weekday—and Rosh Hashanah. The Milwaukee Brewers lost, and I counted about seven Milwaukee Brewers fans in the stadium total.

And then there are the Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers are the NFL team that should not exist by modern sports logic.

By every cold business metric, the Packers should have relocated out of Wisconsin sometime in the 1970s. Green Bay was too small and the NFL was getting bigger. Television money and stadium demands pushed new and relocating teams to major media markets.

No other small-town major professional team stuck around. But the Packers, in a city of barely 100,000 people, stayed.

That is why the Packers are the cleanest answer to the relocation sickness that “BASEketball” mocked. The Green Bay Packers did not become the Arizona Packers, Carolina Packers, Dallas Felons, New Jersey informants, Roswell Aliens, or Detroit Lemons.

The Packers stayed in Green Bay and will forevermore.

That is the counterweight to all of this relocation malarky:

The Milwaukee Braves, who left for Atlanta and took their baseball history.

The Milwaukee Hawks, who left for St. Louis and then Atlanta, and took their basketball history.

The Baltimore Colts, who left Baltimore for Indy and took their football history.

The Cleveland Browns, who became the Baltimore Ravens, but left the Cleveland history behind.

The Seattle SuperSonics, who became the Oklahoma City Thunder, took Seattle's history, but the NBA will be giving that history back to Seattle.

After all the franchise movement, legal poaching, bird-name confusion, tarnished memories and record-book argle-bargle - not to mention population decline in the Brew City—the Brewers still call Milwaukee home. And on Sept. 26 at Miller Park (American Family Field for all you noobs), they will for the first time ever, be more National League than American League.

Fun Fact: The 1957 Milwaukee Braves won the title-clinching game at old Yankee Stadium. The Milwaukee Bucks' 1971 championship-clinching game was in Baltimore. So when Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks won game six of the 2021 NBA finals at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, it was the first major pro sports league championship clinched by a Milwaukee team in Milwaukee. Or consider it the second, after the Green Bay Packers won the NFL championship against the New York Giants at a game played on a grass field inside the Milwaukee Mile Racetrack in West Allis, Wisconsin in 1939.