The final group to really feel a bit just like the Milwaukee Brewers felt on Thursday evening, a minimum of primarily based on what they completed on paper, was the 1968 Los Angeles Lakers.
The feat: Sweep the identical group that had swept you out of the prior postseason.
One irony, in fact, is that the Brewers did it towards the Los Angeles Dodgers — a little bit of delayed balancing out of the sports activities universe, if you’ll.
And even these Lakers didn’t do it in a seven-game sequence — the 1967 assembly had solely been best-of-five.
However nonetheless, let’s take a little bit of a visit in a cross-sports time machine right here.
Brewers Match Lakers Historical past
That is the stat from OptaStats that explains precisely what the Brewers completed:
The @Brewers are the primary MLB/NBA/NHL group to comb an opponent that swept them within the earlier postseason because the Lakers did so within the 1968 Western Division Finals towards the Warriors.
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) October 16, 2026
Milwaukee had its postseason ended a 12 months in the past by the Dodgers in convincing vogue. And now this 12 months, they reversed it completely to ship the back-to-back champs house.
1968 Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers needed to defeat the San Francisco Warriors to advance to the NBA Finals.
They received the clinching Sport 4 by a 106-100 rating.
In that sport, Jerry West was good, going for 29 factors on 12-for-21 taking pictures and 5-for-6 from the foul line. He added seven rebounds and 4 assists.
Elgin Baylor put up 28 factors (10-26 FG, 8-13 FT) and 20 rebounds.
Freddie Crawford added 14 factors, Archie Clark had 11 and Mel Counts had 9 factors and 12 rebounds.
The Warriors have been led by 27 from Fred Hetzel and 23 from Rudy LaRusso.
These Lakers went on to lose in six video games within the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics and Invoice Russell.
It’s value noting that the Warriors of the 12 months prior, after they swept the Lakers, had each Rick Barry and Nate Thurmond, neither of whom have been there to stave off a sweep the next 12 months.
2026 Milwaukee Brewers
You aren’t going to discover a ton of parallels between a small-market baseball group from Milwaukee and the late-60s Lakers of West and Baylor.
Nonetheless, it’s cool to see how sports activities can comply with its personal long-ago historical past, even throughout leagues.
When a group is swept by one other, you wouldn’t often depend on the tables being completely flipped only one 12 months later, however that’s what these Brewers did, and now they’ll get to go to the World Collection.
Milwaukee has by no means received the World Collection. The one time they performed in it earlier than, 1982, was when the Brewers represented the American League and misplaced in seven video games to the St. Louis Cardinals.
It’s a brand new period of baseball in Milwaukee, and so they proved it by doing one thing that hasn’t been completed in additional than a half-century.
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