True World Champions: Jackson Chourio, William Contreras Chasing Rare Double Triumph

If the Brewers win the World Series beginning next week, they'll call themselves the champions of the baseball world. That claim will be legitimate, but not exclusive, because one other team has already proved their primacy on a global scale this year: Team Venezuela, at the World Baseball Classic in March. The 2026 event was the sixth edition, but only once before has what might happen this fall come to fruition: players who won one of the game's great tournaments also winning its other one.

When Team USA won their first and only WBC title in 2017, the roster included a young star on the infield named Alex Bregman. Their bullpen was fortified, in part, by veteran righty Luke Gregerson. Less than eight months after winning the sport's preeminent international competition, Bregman and Gregerson won the most prestigious domestic competition in the world, as members of the 2017 Houston Astros. For Gregerson, it was a capstone moment. He would never make another significant on-field contribution to the game, but winning the WBC and the Fall Classic in the same season was a seal upon a solid career of middle relief. For Bregman, it was more like a springboard. He began to burnish his legend as a winner even while he was an amateur, but winning the double championship raised that reputation to a new level.

This fall, Jackson Chourio and William Contreras have a chance to become the only players other than Gregerson and Bregman to be meaningful contributors to a World Series winner in the same season in which they played for the winning team in the WBC. The Brewers couldn't have gotten nearly this far without them, and they're counting on the experience each brings to this moment as they await the winner of the American League Championship Series.

There's some irony in this observation, where Chourio is concerned, because his desire to play in the WBC imperiled his season. During an exhibition game before the tournament began, he was hit in the hand, and suffered a fracture. Rather than get a clear diagnosis on that injury and withdraw from Team Venezuela, though, he played through the problem. He was noticeably worse for wear, going just 3-for-15 with two walks and occasionally being protected via substitution during Venezuela's run, but it was immensely important to him to be there. He ended up going on the injured list just before Opening Day and missed the first several weeks of the season, but he did find ways to help Venezuela win games.

It was a bumpier ride through the tournament for Contreras. Sometimes usurped by Salvador Perez, he found only inconsistent playing time, and didn't make much of it. He was 0-for-13, though he did draw three walks. He played fine defense, including throwing out a runner, but was carried to the victory by his teammates.

No one can say that of him this fall. Contreras has been worth 5.7% of a championship over the last two series, with 11 hits (including three homers) and a seemingly insatiable hunger to win that has spread to his fellows at the most important moments. Chourio is one such recipient of the catcher's leadership and intensity, and (mostly thanks to that game-flipping walkoff single against Mason Miller), he's been worth 4.2% of a title this October. Contreras and Chourio are the twin fires fueling the whole team, and they're hoping they're enough to power a second team to a championship in 2026.

Of course, there's also a melancholy echo of what Bregman and Gregerson achieved that would be part of the two Brewers batters' story. When the Astros won the 2017 title, they did so in the shadow of Hurricane Harvey, which crashed into Houston late that summer. The storm killed over 100 people and caused over $125 billion in damage. The Astros' victory became a great symbol of the city's resilience.

Chourio and Contreras carry the same weight on their shoulders, but it's because of their homeland, not their big-league team. On June 24, two severe earthquakes hit Venezuela—the worst the country has suffered in at least 100 years. According to the IFRC, at least 6,500 people were killed. (According to World Vision, as many as thousands are still missing.) The quakes leveled 190 public buildings and damaged almost 900 more, in addition to countless family homes. They created over 4 billion pounds of debris. The humanitarian crisis in the country is huge and ongoing. The IFRC estimates that their immediate response project will last at least two full years. 

It's no stretch to say that Chourio and Contreras are each playing for their country and their team, at the same time. Their victories and their heroic moments bring ever-greater awareness to the need for more resources and more action in Venezuela, to save lives and rebuild reshaped communities. Their native country suffered a cruel blow from fate this summer, barely three months after a long-awaited victory in the nation's favorite sport. Chourio and Contreras can't fix that. They can, however, do something exceptionally rare on the field, by winning both parts of this dual championship opportunity. No matter who wins the ALCS, no one will take the field with more emotion than Chourio and Contreras come Friday. They bear some responsibilities other players won't have to worry about, but they also have a chance to go down as two of the greatest champions in the history of the sport.

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