THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Before they were World Series champs, the Brewers were the Seattle Pilots

So now that the Milwaukee Brewers have won the World Series, will Seattle baseball fans say "their" team finally won it all? 

Especially since the current team in Seattle still hasn't gotten that far. 

It's almost forgotten that the Brewers started out as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 (a team most remembered for being the backdrop for Jim Bouton's best-seller "Ball Four,") until the franchise moved to Milwaukee the following year. 

The book lives on as a classic, but the baseball team was not as memorable.  

The Pilots went 64-98 and finished last in the American League West, behind the Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, California Angels, Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox. 

(You probably read the names of most of those teams and thought "Really? They were in the AL West then? 

Yep. That was the first year of divisional play; before that, there was one big National League and one big American League. The league champs squared off in the World Series. There was no division series, and certainly no wild-card round. The Twins lost to the AL East champion Orioles in the ALCS, and the Orioles fell to the Miracle Mets in the World Series.) 

ANYWAY, IN addition to not being very good on the field, the Pilots played in a renovated minor league ballpark (Sicks' Stadium), which still was considered substandard, and ownership faced financial difficulties from the start. 

The team went to spring training in 1970 as the Pilots. A federal judge declared the franchise bankrupt, and the team was sold and relocated to Milwaukee and became the Brewers. 

As compensation for losing the Pilots, Seattle was awarded a new MLB expansion team, the Mariners (the ultimate compensation pick!) in 1977. 

Seattle nearly lost the Mariners in 1995, until Edgar hit that double. 

The M's stayed, built a new ballpark a few years later, which is still gorgeous to this day, and they nearly made it to the World Series for the first time in 2025. 

Seattle fans can't hold any animosity toward Milwaukee — not like they do toward Oklahoma City, and specifically the owner who moved the SuperSonics there in 2008.  

Most probably have to be reminded that the Brewers were once the Pilots. 

When the Thunder won the NBA title in 2025, Sonics fans claimed no part of it, even though it was the same "franchise." 

ALSO, ACCORDING to Spotrac and USA Today, the Brewers were 19th out of 30 teams in payroll this year. The team they beat, the Tampa Bay Rays, were 28th. 

(The Cleveland Guardians were 30th; the Seattle Mariners were 16th.) 

So, imagine that! A World Series champion can be built with inexpensive players, through shrewd drafting, player acquisition and development. 

Folks say the Dodgers are bad for baseball, for "buying" all those World Series titles in recent years. 

But the Mets spent more than the Dodgers this year, and didn't even make the playoffs. 

So the Brewers and Rays have proven it can be done another way. Teams saying they can't compete because they can't — or won't — spend the money is so much bull cookies, as Colonel Potter would say.

Mariners fans can officially put their excuses away.

Meanwhile, congrats to the Pilots — er, the Brewers. 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.