World Series matchup set and the missing Louvre jewels

Sam Baseball has its matchup for the title, and the way it got settled made for one of the biggest sports nights of the year. What actually happened to lock this in?

Maya On October 19, the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians seven to three in Game 6 to win the American League pennant, and MLB.com described it as the Rays becoming champions of the American League after what it called a night this team and these fans will never forget. The National League was already settled: on October 15 the Milwaukee Brewers had swept the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were chasing a third straight championship.

Sam A sweep means the Dodgers didn't win a single game in that series — for a team trying to three-peat, that's a complete reversal. How lopsided were these two series compared to a normal trip to the championship round?

Maya The Rays beat the Guardians four games to two, which is a fairly standard result. But the Brewers swept the Dodgers four games to none, and most championship series go five or six games, so that result stands out. Milwaukee also finished the regular season 103-59, the best record in baseball, while the Rays went 98-64.

Sam A 103-win season sounds like a team that was dominant basically from Opening Day. Where does that put them compared to what it usually takes to lead a league?

Maya The win total usually needed to lead a league sits somewhere around 90 to 95, so Milwaukee's season was well clear of that. And whichever of these two teams wins the World Series, it will be the franchise's first title — neither the Rays nor the Brewers has ever won one.

Sam Neither team has a championship in its history at all? What's the backstory on these two franchises that makes this such a rare pairing?

Maya The Brewers joined MLB in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots and have never won a World Series. Their only previous trip to it was in 1982, when they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, so this is just the second pennant in the team's history. The Rays have been twice before: in 2008, when they lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, and in 2020, when they lost to the Dodgers.

Sam So this is the Rays' third pennant since they began playing in 1998, and they are still waiting on a first title. How is their run being talked about this time?

Maya The reporting frames it as a significant underdog story, given the Rays have run a modest payroll for most of their 28-year existence and have often struggled to draw fans despite being competitive on the field. Milwaukee's run carries its own weight too, since sweeping a two-time defending champion is what got them back to a World Series.

Sam And on the calendar — when do they actually start playing each other, and does the better record from the regular season carry any weight into the series itself?

Maya Game 1 is scheduled for Friday, October 23, at American Family Field in Milwaukee, with first pitch at 8 p.m. Eastern. Because Milwaukee had the better regular-season record, they get home-field advantage for the full seven-game series, which is the format MLB has used since 2017.

Sam With both of these franchises coming from small markets, is there actual concern about how many people will tune in to watch, or is that more of a talking point commentators like to float?

Maya It's a real pattern worth watching. Historically, World Series ratings tend to dip when big-market teams like the Yankees, Dodgers or Red Sox are absent, and with Tampa Bay and Milwaukee being two of the smaller television markets in the sport, commentators expect this series to test that trend. The actual numbers won't exist until after the games are played.

Sam So there's no verdict yet on whether people will watch — it's just that the ingredients are different from a typical Yankees-or-Dodgers-type matchup that usually pulls in casual fans.

Maya That's the shape of it. Beyond the ratings question, there's a broader story about what this season did to expectations. The Dodgers came in as the presumptive favorite, and got dismissed in that one-sided sweep, which reorders what people expect heading into next year and hands two lower-revenue franchises a shot at the sport's biggest stage.

Sam It's interesting that neither fan base has much history to compare this to. Does that show up in how the coverage is treating it?

Maya It does. Local and national coverage has been heavy since the pennants were clinched, with both fan bases treated as long-suffering in different ways: Milwaukee back for only the second time and the first since 1982, Tampa Bay chasing a first title after losing in 2008 and 2020.

Sam That's a nice contrast to end on for the baseball side — two teams with very different histories, both chasing the same first-ever trophy.

Maya And it sets up Friday's opener in Milwaukee as the start of something neither franchise has ever gotten to finish.

Sam Our second story is in Paris, one year after jewels were stolen from the Louvre in broad daylight on October 19, 2025. I keep assuming someone has been caught by now. Where does the case stand?

Maya Four main suspects, all from a Paris suburb called Aubervilliers, are sitting in jail awaiting trial as of October 19, 2026 — exactly one year after the theft. But both AFP and Türkiye Today report that police have run out of leads on where the jewels themselves are.

Sam So they caught the people but not the jewels. Walk me through how fast they made those arrests, and what the search since then has turned up.

Maya All four were arrested within ten days of the heist. Since then, a 100-strong investigation team has searched the suspects' homes and their families' homes — cellars, garages, attics — without result. The jewels were last tracked to an underground lock-up in Aubervilliers, and that's where the trail goes cold.

Sam So the trail stops at that lock-up. Beyond those four, was anyone else swept up in this, or has it stayed contained to the same small group from the start?

Maya Nine more people were detained at various points, six of whom were released, and charges have ultimately been filed against five suspects total. That's a separate count from the four "main suspects" now described as awaiting trial — the numbers shift depending on which stage of the investigation you're looking at.

Sam A theft of something this valuable sounds like it needed real planning. Were the suspects described as professionals, or as something else entirely?

Maya That's the twist that's come out this year. Transcripts published in July, from Le Monde, show two alleged thieves describing their actions to investigating judges, and the Paris prosecutor publicly called the suspects petty offenders rather than seasoned professionals — a plain mismatch with the "heist of the century" framing the case got when it first broke.

Sam So the crime looked elite, but the people behind it were described as ordinary. Has that gap pushed anyone to argue the museum itself should've stopped this before it ever got that far?

Maya It has. A CNN piece from October 16 features a convicted former art thief named Octave Durham, who stole Van Gogh paintings in 2002, offering himself as a security consultant and saying, "If they asked me, I would show them that I can still get in." It's kept the security debate alive alongside the mystery.

Sam Given all of that — the missing jewels, the ordinary suspects, an ex-thief pointing out weak spots — is there any date yet for when this goes to trial?

Maya No outlet has reported one. What's confirmed is the October 19, 2025 date of the theft, the roughly $100 million valuation, and that the jewels haven't turned up. Everything about where they might be now — melted down, moved out of France, hidden locally — is informed guessing from outside experts, not confirmed fact.

Sam Before we go, if someone remembers just one thing from each of today's two stories, the World Series and the Louvre case, what should it be?

Maya From baseball: whichever team wins, a franchise lifts its first World Series trophy, starting with Game 1 in Milwaukee on Friday. From Paris: four suspects are awaiting trial, but a year on the jewels are still missing and no trial date has been set.

Sam Thanks for walking through all of it, Maya, and we'll catch everyone in the next episode, which lands tomorrow.

Maya Thanks for having me along for it, and I'd just add that this show is AI-generated, with synthetic voices, built from source reporting whose authors have no connection to this show. Everything today came from reporting by AFP via France24, Türkiye Today, Wikipedia, a Paris-based criminal-law commentary from Hassan Kohen, and CNN.