Elliot Anderson

Milwaukee Brewers fans showed up to tailgate World Series Game 1 at nine in the morning. The parking lot gates were still locked. First pitch was ten hours away. In old Japan, when ten thousand people camp outside a fortress at dawn with iron cauldrons, smoke, and provisions, it is called a siege. Milwaukee laid siege to its own castle. Out of pure love. With bratwurst and folding chairs. When reporters told Christian Yelich that fans had been lined up since nine, he said he was surprised it took them that long. In my land, a general knows the battle is already half won when his people light the morning fires before the gates even open. Nobody guards a castle like the Midwest in October.