Former Dutch national baseball manager leads Milwaukee to World Series championship
Pat Murphy has led the Milwaukee Brewers to their first World Series title in the club’s history. The team coached by the 67-year-old former manager of the Netherlands national team defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 at their home stadium, American Family Field, during the overnight of Wednesday leading in to Thursday. The victory gave the Brewers a 4-1 lead in the championship series.
Milwaukee clinched the MLB championship by winning four games in the best-of-seven series against Tampa Bay. The Rays, featuring 29-year-old Dutch international Richie Palacios, managed just one victory in the series. The franchise from Tampa has yet to claim its first World Series title.
Murphy had two spells as head coach of the Netherlands national baseball team. One of his most memorable achievements came at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, where the Dutch recorded a historic win over Cuba. Murphy also has Dutch roots through his maternal grandmother.
Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers attracted much of the attention after the victory, but Murphy played down his own contribution to the team's success.
"You can put everything down on paper and hope my players perform the way the statistics predict," the 67-year-old said. "But it doesn't always work that way. I make the decisions I believe are best. I have confidence in my players, and I'm especially pleased with how they have handled themselves mentally this year. They created an opportunity for themselves to win this."
William Contreras was named the World Series MVP after helping the Milwaukee Brewers secure the championship. The Venezuelan catcher had already won the World Baseball Classic with his national team earlier this year. He becomes just the eighth catcher in history to win the World Series MVP award.
Including the one season the team existed as the Seattle Pilots, the franchise went 57 years without winning the Major League Baseball title. They advanced to the World Series by defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers, also giving the Brewers their first-ever National League championship. They last won a league championship in 1982, as the team was part of the American League from 1969 through 1997.
Robert Eenhoorn described Murphy’s championship win as “very special,” highlighting the American coach’s ties to Dutch baseball. “It is an impressive achievement for any coach, but it is especially nice that it was done by someone who coached the Netherlands national team twice and has a strong connection with our country,” the 58-year-old former Dutch international told ANP.
Eenhoorn, who is now Feyenoord’s director, contacted his former coach to congratulate him as soon as the game was over. Because the matches took place at night in the Netherlands, he mostly followed them when he happened to wake up. “That’s how I also caught the end of the final game on Thursday morning,” he said. “People here can hardly comprehend what this title means for a city like Milwaukee.”
Eenhoorn believes Murphy will continue to manage at the highest level of Major League Baseball in the years ahead, having established himself as a respected figure in the sport. “He has built up an enormous reputation there over the past few years,” said Eenhoorn, a former Netherlands national team coach himself.
He is less certain whether Murphy will return to the Dutch dugout. “I don’t know whether Murphy will ever coach the Netherlands again. I don’t think so for the time being. But perhaps he might want to coach the team once more at a World Baseball Classic. That would be wonderful, of course.”