The fifth team was the charm for Jake Bauers. Was it ever.
Traded from Tampa Bay, crushed in Cleveland, slugless in Seattle and gone from the Yankees in a New York minute, Bauers loaded up his equipment bag one more time when the Milwaukee Brewers called, a team always seeking improvement on the margins taking a no-risk bet on a player who couldn't stick anywhere.
Yet nearly three years after the Brewers first snagged Bauers from baseball oblivion, they're going to the World Series together - and Bauers is taking the National League Championship Series MVP trophy with him.
Bauers' fantastic postseason did not stop in the decisive Game 4 of the NLCS, as he drove in half the Brewers' runs and got them back in the game with a crucial two-run double
in a 6-4 victory at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 15.
The World Series will begin in eight days from American Family Field, the Brewers' first appearance since 1982. It's only slightly more overdue and unlikely than Bauers' journey.
The 31-year-old first baseman has been traded four times, released three times and pondered retirement after his first go-round with the Brewers didn't result in immediate success.
Yet he stuck it out one more year, in part to support his family. And was justly rewarded.
"Somewhere along the way, I chose to be confident," he said in a Fox Sports postgame interview. "I chose to believe in myself."
As did the Brewers. They won a club-record 103 games and Bauers was a big part of it, hitting 26 home runs and also setting career highs in OPS (.889), on-base percentage (.389) and RBIs (86).
He, and they, were just getting started.
Bauers pushed the Brewers toward NLCS victory with an epic 12-pitch at-bat against Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2, resulting in a walk that preceded a Christian Yelich RBI single. More important, it wore down Yamamoto and enabled the Brewers' bullpen to assert its dominance.
He came back with another gem in Game 3 Wednesday, flipping the game - perhaps the series - with a two-run, go-ahead left-on-left homer off Blake Snell, capping an 11-pitch at-bat. And a 2-1 Brewers deficit turned into a 3-2 lead and eventual 4-2 victory.
Now, the World Series, a worthy destination for a slugger whose route was so circuitous. Yet so rewarding.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brewers' Jake Bauers wins NLCS MVP for unforgettable heroics vs. Dodgers
