The Gamers Won: What Murph's Brewers Teach Us About Becoming Uncommon
Almost twenty years ago, I interviewed for a job, and one of the first places my soon-to-be boss took me was Miller Park.
It sat right in the backdrop of where I would end up working. Every day, there it was. By the time we had unpacked the boxes, we were Brewers fans. No transition period. No easing in. Wisconsin has a way of doing that to you.
Since then, we have lived the full Brewers experience. The hope and the heartbreak. CC Sabathia carrying a city on his back in 2008. The 2011 NLCS. Game 7 against the Dodgers in 2018. The ninth inning against the Mets in 2024. Getting swept by the Dodgers last October, just months after we lost Bob Uecker.
Every year, the same quiet question: is this the one?
This year feels different. And it is not because of the talent.
On Thursday night in Los Angeles, the Brewers fell behind 4-0 early against the two-time defending champions. A roster full of stars. A payroll most of baseball can only dream about. The kind of team that is supposed to win.
The Brewers came back, won 6-4, and finished the sweep. First trip to the World Series since 1982.
Afterward, Pat Murphy summed it up better than anyone could: the Dodgers may have the Hall of Famers, but "we've got a bunch of gamers. And the gamers won this week."
I have not stopped thinking about that line.
Talent is common. Gamers are Uncommon.
At the highest level of any sport, everyone is talented. Talent gets you in the room. It does not decide what happens once you are there.
What decides it is the stuff that never shows up on a scouting report. How you respond when you are down four in the second inning. Whether you run hard on a routine ground ball in September. Whether you can act when you are scared.
That is the difference between the common path and the Uncommon one. That's why I wrote Becoming Uncommon. And Murph's Brewers have been a season-long case study in three things.
They hold the standard nobody is requiring.
On the night the Brewers won their 100th game, Murph pulled William Contreras, an All-Star, for not running out a grounder. A month earlier, he benched a rookie mid-game in New York. "You've got to be locked in if you're going to play at this level."
Nobody would have blamed him for letting it slide. They had the best record in baseball. That is exactly why he didn't.
The next day, Contreras dove headfirst into first base, and the two of them laughed about it. The standard was not a punishment. It was the culture.
They respond.
In May 2025, this team was four games under .500. They finished with 97 wins. Last October, the Dodgers swept them. This October, they swept the Dodgers back.
No team in Major League history had ever swept a postseason series against the team that swept them the year before.
Losing a series can set up owning the next one. But only if you respond instead of retreat.
They act in spite of fear.
Murph has talked about this openly. Courage is not the absence of fear. In his words: "Act in spite of fear. That's courage, but you keep going."
That might be the most useful sentence a young athlete can hear. You do not have to stop being nervous. You just have to keep showing up.
Murph lived it first.
Pat Murphy does not just coach resilience. He has lived it.
He was forced out of the college program he built. He rebuilt from a $30,000 job managing a Rookie League team. He survived a heart attack in 2020. He got his first full-time big-league managing job at 65, and won Manager of the Year in each of his first two seasons.
When a leader like that tells a young player to respond, the words carry weight. That is what credibility looks like. The message and the life match.
What this means for you
To Student-Athletes: Most of you will never be the Hall of Famer on your team. That is not a problem. Nobody needs you to be.
Be the gamer.
Be the one who runs hard when nobody is watching. Who owns the mistake before the coach brings it up. Who shows up the day after a bad game ready to go again. Who is nervous and goes anyway.
That is not a talent. It is a choice. And you get to make it every single day.
To coaches: Murph's players say they never have to wonder where they stand with him. Hold the standard evenly for the star and the rookie. Then let it go the next day. Accountability without a grudge is what builds trust.
To parents: The scoreboard will not always reward the gamer. Notice the effort, the response, and the courage anyway. Those are the things that last long after the uniform comes off.
Four more wins
To Murph and the Brewers: thank you. For twenty years, this team has given our family a reason to hope every spring. This year, you gave us something more. You reminded a whole city that grit still beats glamour, and that a group of "Average Joes" can do something Uncommon.
Somewhere, Ueck is calling this one.
Four more wins. Let's go.
If the gamer mindset resonates, it is the heart of what I wrote in Becoming Uncommon: The Student-Athlete's Guide to Leadership and Life. You can find it here.
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