Milwaukee Brewers pitching coach Chris Hook will be in the dugout at American Family Field on Friday, Oct. 23, for Game 1 of the World Series. He spent years coaching pitchers at a small independent-league ballpark in Florence before getting there.

Hook helped guide a Brewers staff that finished second in Major League Baseball with a 3.51 earned-run average during a franchise-record 103-win regular season. Milwaukee swept the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-0 in the National League Championship Series (NLCS) and will face the Tampa Bay Rays for the title, according to Yahoo Sports.

Before reaching the majors, Hook served as pitching coach for the Florence Freedom, the Frontier League club now known as the Florence Y'alls. Sources differ on when that tenure began. Baseball Reference lists Hook with the Freedom from 2003 to 2007, while his Wikipedia entry places the start in 2004. According to Wikipedia, Hook became the pitching coach for the Brewers' Double-A affiliate, the Huntsville Stars, in 2008.

Hook's Northern Kentucky roots run deep. He attended Lloyd Memorial High School and pitched at Northern Kentucky University, where he became the first Norse player to reach the majors, according to NKU Athletics. He debuted with the San Francisco Giants on April 30, 1995, and appeared in 55 major league games over two seasons.

His coaching career wound through NKU, Florence, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Huntsville and the Biloxi Shuckers before the Brewers promoted him to major league pitching coach on Nov. 19, 2018. He is now in his eighth season in the role.

The results in 2026 speak loudly. All-Star starter Jacob Misiorowski led all qualified pitchers with a 1.80 ERA, 252 strikeouts and a 0.80 walks-plus-hits-per-inning-pitched ratio (WHIP), according to Fox 6 Milwaukee. Misiorowski tied for third in the majors with 16 wins.

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers president Rob Zerjav praised the coaching staff in an Oct. 20 interview with the Appleton Post-Crescent. "Chris Hook and Jim Henderson, there's just so many of the guys on their staff that got their start or coached in Appleton," Zerjav said. "It's just really, really cool."

Both the Brewers and Rays are chasing a first World Series championship. Milwaukee last won the pennant in 1982.