Sports
A 1982 Brewers World Series memory meets a costly return to the Fall Classic
Milwaukee native Kris Kodrich watched the Brewers win Game 4 of the 1982 World Series from the stands, after buying tickets for $18 each. With the team back in the Series 44 years later, he passed on seats priced at hundreds of dollars—and later regretted it.
When the Milwaukee Brewers return to the World Series on Friday, Oct. 23, Kris Kodrich will be remembering a night in 1982 when he watched them rally to beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-5, in Game 4.
Kodrich, a Milwaukee native and journalism and media communication professor at Colorado State University, had paid $18 apiece for four tickets after entering a lottery. The Brewers scored six runs in the seventh inning, he recalled, and the win set off celebrations in the stands and later along Wisconsin Avenue. Milwaukee ultimately lost the Series in seven games.
Now, 44 years later, Kodrich is following another Brewers World Series run from Colorado. The team won 103 regular-season games and swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League postseason, a turnaround from last season, when the Dodgers swept Milwaukee. The Brewers are set to face the Tampa Bay Rays, with Game 1 in Milwaukee.
Kodrich’s connection to the team began in childhood, when his family became Brewers fans after the Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee in 1970. He remembers taking the city bus to County Stadium, sitting in the bleachers and, when he had enough money, buying a hot dog. His father sometimes brought people from the family’s bar to games.
He still attends Brewers games when he can, including during visits to Milwaukee and at Colorado Rockies games at Coors Field. This June, he saw Milwaukee beat Colorado 12-4. But the chance to watch the Brewers in the World Series at home proved much harder to secure.
Kodrich asked his sister-in-law, Teri, to try for tickets when they went on sale to Wisconsin residents. She got into the online ticketing system and found Game 1 seats for $882 and Game 2 seats for $544, which included a sausage and beer. Kodrich had expected to spend up to $200 per ticket and declined the offer.
He later saw Milwaukee resale listings reach $4,000 or more and reconsidered. Kodrich and his sister-in-law joked that reselling a few tickets could have covered his trip and meals for family and friends. But they also acknowledged they were uncomfortable profiting from other fans by selling the seats to the highest bidder.
The ticket prices stand in stark contrast to Kodrich’s first World Series, when a lottery and an $18 ticket put him in the stands for one of the most vivid nights of his life. This time, he’ll be cheering from afar—and, as he put it, still kicking himself for passing on the seats.