Why a sausage race?

The 2026 World Series starts on Friday 23 October in Milwaukee. The Brewers (103 wins, a franchise record) play the Tampa Bay Rays (98 wins, the American League's top seed). Neither has ever won it, so whatever happens, baseball gets a first-time champion.

Milwaukee's best-loved ballpark tradition isn't a fight song or a mascot slide. It's the Famous Racing Sausages: performers in 7-foot-3 costumes who sprint around the field in the sixth inning of every home game. They've raced live since 27 June 1993 and they've taken on visiting teams before (Pittsburgh's Racing Pierogies come to town twice a year). So we asked: what would Tampa Bay send? A Cuban sandwich, obviously. Salami on.

Wurst of Seven is a one-day fan game for the week of the Series. It's free, it has no ads or trackers, and it isn't affiliated with Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers or the Tampa Bay Rays. The five Milwaukee racers are tributes to the real sausages. The five "Bay Bites" (Cuban Sandwich, Grouper Sandwich, Deviled Crab, Key Lime Pie, Stone Crab Claw) are our invention, inspired by Tampa Bay food. Every character on this site is drawn in code, and none of it is official artwork.

How the race works

• Rhythm, not mashing. Each alternating step adds speed. Steps between roughly 120 and 260 ms apart count as "in rhythm". Faster than that adds wobble, and the same foot twice makes you stumble.
• Wobble and toppling. Wobble also builds at high speed and fades over time. If it reaches the top, your costume topples and you have to mash to get back up. Balance (a racer stat) controls how fast wobble builds.
• Stamina. Every step drains it, resting refills it, and low stamina weakens your stride.
• Crowd Roar. Three mustard bottles fill the meter. Boost gives you 2.4 seconds of extra top speed and steadier footing.
• The Series mode follows the real 2026 schedule: Games 1–2 in Milwaukee (23–24 Oct), Games 3–5 in St. Petersburg (26–28 Oct) and Games 6–7 back in Milwaukee (30–31 Oct). Game 7 is on Halloween, so our Game 7 has pumpkins on the warning track.
• Easy tap lets you hold a single key or button to run at a steady pace, for one-handed play or anyone who'd rather not tap fast.
• Best times, Series titles, trivia scores and your saved call stay in your browser's local storage. Nothing is sent anywhere.

The other pages

• Pick Your Bandwagon: a 12-question personality quiz with 8 fan types for neutral fans.
• Fall Classic Firsts: 42 trivia questions on both franchises, the sausages and World Series history.
• The Drought Board: all 121 World Series titles from 1903 to 2025 across 30 franchises.
• Call the Series: a prediction ticket you can share now and dig up later.

Sources

Facts on this site come from these pages, read on 22 October 2026:

• Wikipedia, Sausage Race: first live race on 27 June 1993, the sixth inning, costume height, Chorizo added 2006–07, the 2003 Randall Simon incident, the 2013 missing Italian sausage, the Racing Pierogies.
• Wikipedia, 2026 Tampa Bay Rays season: 98–64, AL East title, the return to Tropicana Field, Caminero's walk-off clincher, ALDS and ALCS results.
• Wikipedia, 1982 World Series and Cuban sandwich (Ybor City, salami, Tampa's 2012 signature-sandwich vote).
• NBC Sports, Milwaukee Brewers World Series history: the 2026 schedule, 103 wins, Pat Murphy, NLCS sweep of the Dodgers.
• MLB.com, 2026 World Series FAQ, and teams that could win a first title.
• Yahoo Sports, The ties between the Brewers and Rays: Peralta, Rasmussen, Bauers, Matt Arnold.
• TSN / AP, Rays top Guardians in Game 6, and the Boston Globe recap.
• SI, World Series odds (Brewers favoured going in).
• World Series champions by year: the standard historical record (1903–2025, no Series in 1904 or 1994), cross-checked against Wikipedia's list of World Series champions.

Game physics, racer stats, fan types, ad boards and the Bay Bites are fiction made for fun. Nothing here is betting advice, and the predictions page is just for bragging rights.

Credits

Design, code, drawings and sounds are original and made for this site. Fonts: Alfa Slab One, Barlow and Barlow Condensed from Google Fonts. Sounds are generated live in your browser with the Web Audio API. The organ plays the traditional bugle "Charge!" call.