The legacy of the mid-1990s Capital High School baseball teams, led by coaches Dennis Gray and Michael Spencer, trickled down to the 2026 World Series and made an imprint on the Milwaukee Brewers winning their first Fall Classic in team history.
Spencer Allen, a 1996 Capital graduate and former all-state baseball standout with the Cougars, stands alone as the first CHS product to win a World Series championship. The Brewers’ first base coach helped take the organization to the top of the baseball world on Oct. 28, as Milwaukee defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in five games.
Since reaching the pinnacle of the sport, Allen has spent time “getting back into the real world” and spending time with his family after the longest postseason run in franchise history.
“Each day, I feel like I’ve had a moment or two to really take in some of the bigger moments throughout the playoff run,” Allen said. “We had the talent. We had depth. We had some injuries, but we had enough depth to make up for it. There was a low ego of the group. Guys like Christian Yelich and Jake Bauers who have been in the game a long time still want to learn from our mistakes. I think that was pretty special.”
For the lucky group that has watched Allen’s career blossom from his Capital days to his head coaching stint at Northwestern University to his first year as the first base coach in Milwaukee in 2026, there’s a common play style that follows him wherever he travels.
Call it small ball. Call it pressure baseball. Call it the short game. If you’re from the state of Wisconsin, you probably prefer “Brewer Ball.”
Whatever label you want to throw on it, it’s a strategy that has worked for Allen and his clubs. Within this style, the focus is on the fundamentals and situational baseball: moving baserunners around with good speed and contact hitting rather than the glorified long bombs and extra-base hits.
Case in point, the Brewers hit the fewest home runs in the National League in the 2026 regular season but were atop the majors in batting average, hits and on-base percentage. They also ranked in the top five in the majors in stolen bases.
That identity fit Allen’s vision as a first base coach, and that’s thanks to Gray and his staff back in his Capital days.
After a year of playing junior varsity baseball as a freshman at Capital, Allen played three years with the varsity team and led the Cougars to back-to-back state semifinal trips, including a Class 3A runner-up finish in 1995. He helped set the foundation for the Cougars to win the state title in 1998 under Spencer.
Allen was one of several Capital Cougars from that era to play baseball at the next level. He played at Green River College before transferring to Iowa State University in the last three seasons of its baseball program’s existence. His teammates included Jared Sandberg, a former third baseman for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays; Damien Kolb, who played at Arizona State; Lars Hansen, a former Hawaii Rainbow Warrior; and Jimmy Smith, a former standout closer for UNLV.
“When you look at that team, I think the whole team went on to play either professionally or Division I baseball. It’s kind of bittersweet because it was such a good group,” Allen said. “But man, we ran into a tough Lindbergh team. The fact that we didn’t win it was tough. But good memories, for sure.”
Allen was born in the small town of Wrangell, Alaska, a borough located on an island in the Alaska Panhandle, and he moved to Olympia around the age of 5. His baseball journey began as an elementary schooler at Garfield Elementary School in Olympia. He grew up a Seattle Mariners fan during the days of Ken Griffey Jr., Dave Valle and Randy Johnson.
Allen believed he was bound for a career in basketball up until his sophomore year at Capital, when he made the full-time switch to baseball. He played all over the field, focusing on the outfield in his sophomore year and spending most of his time in the infield as an upperclassman.
Allen started receiving attention from college coaches following Capital’s run to the state title game his junior year, and he finished his prep career with an all-state campaign in 1996. Scouts came to Capital’s practices, and Gray often pointed them in Allen’s direction.
“They wanted to talk to me, and I said, ‘Just go see that kid right there. His name is Spencer Allen, and he’ll give you a good idea of what we’re all about,’” Gray said. “He was an honest kid and a good ball player. He was a strong kid. You never had to worry about him getting in trouble in school. He’s a special kid.”
Allen credited Gray for inspiring his interest in coaching. The two reconnected in 2017 when Allen’s Northwestern Wildcats played Santa Clara in San Jose, where Gray was raised.
“Number one, he is just such a good human. A great individual. You could tell he really cared for the students he taught,” Allen said of Gray. “As a coach, I probably didn’t realize it at the time, but he did a good job of delegating. He had some young coaches that were eager. He held everybody accountable. I’ve stayed in touch with him to this day. He’s a good one.”
After his collegiate playing career concluded at Iowa State in 2001, Allen’s first coaching opportunity came in 2002 as an assistant at Edmonds Community College in Washington state, and he moved up to the Division I coaching ranks as a volunteer assistant at Iowa in 2004.
He moved all over the country for the next dozen years, making stops at Creighton, Purdue, Washington State, back to Creighton, and then Illinois, all in assistant roles.
In 2015, Allen was hired as the 26th head baseball coach at Northwestern and became the first Black head coach in Big Ten baseball history. He won 101 games in five years and led the Wildcats to a Big Ten Tournament berth in 2017 before stepping down from his position after the 2021 season.
Allen has been a part of the Brewers organization since the 2022 season, starting as a field coordinator before working his way to the title of director of player development. He was promoted to the on-field staff ahead of the 2026 season as the first base coach, a role he hadn’t served since his days at Washington State.
“Every night, it’s the competition between the pitcher, catcher and the baserunner to either steal a base or make the right reads on the bases or to add pressure and ultimately try to contribute to wins,” Allen said.
The Brewers had grown closer and closer to reaching the Fall Classic during Allen’s time in the organization prior to their breakthrough this fall. They won the National League Central division in four straight years, including 2026, and reached the NLCS in back-to-back seasons before sweeping the two-time reigning World Series champions Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS in 2026 to reach the World Series.
Milwaukee steamrolled through the first three games before Tampa Bay walked off Game 4 in the 12th inning to extend the series. The Brewers sealed their first title in a 4-1 victory in Game 5 in Tampa Bay, and they partied in the streets of Milwaukee during their parade on Oct. 30 in front of over 750,000 people.
“It was pretty fun just seeing the people and how excited they were. Sports are a sense of pride, and you really saw that in the faces of the people as you’re driving by,” Allen said of the parade. “You talk about Brewer Nation. Gosh, as we traveled throughout the year, I was always shocked how many Brewers fans were in San Diego or in St. Louis.”
Much of the media coverage around the Brewers’ postseason run, especially when they were pinned against the Dodgers, was their depiction as underdogs in terms of payroll, market size and betting odds. The Brewers embraced the underdog mentality, as manager Pat Murphy notably said, “They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we have a bunch of gamers,” in the locker room after they clinched the NL pennant against the Dodgers.
The media loves an underdog, but the Brewers were slowly building the concoction of a championship-caliber team for years. All the stars aligned this fall, and they were nearly unbeatable in the postseason in large part due to the “Brewer Ball” tactics enforced by Allen.
Allen believes the Brewers could remain in title contention for years to come because of their core of talent and leadership in the front office.
“When you look at it, we’ve got some real superstars. Jacob Misiorowski, Brice Turang, William Contreras, for the next seven to eight years, these guys are going to be superstars,” Allen said. “We have a little bit of a perfect storm in that, though we did have an underdog mentality, we had superstars at a lot of positions. We’re hopefully in this 10-to-15-year span where we can look back and go, ‘Gosh, the Brewers were always in the mix in the playoffs. I think we’re gonna be able to put ourselves in playoff contention year after year for the next five to eight years.”
When Gray watched the Brewers in the postseason, he was reminded of his Capital Cougars of the mid-90s and felt pride in seeing the successful utilization of the short game.
“That’s what we used to do, and Spencer was a big part of that. He understood it and knew why we were doing it,” Gray said. “We hit behind runners. We shortened our swings, just like the Brewers do.
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be impressive to anybody. He’s smart. He’s a smart baseball guy, and I hope he continues up the ranks,” he continued. “This is just the beginning. I love that kid. I’m anxious to keep watching him.”
