No franchise has reached the National League Championship Series more times than the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their 13th visit begins Friday at Miller Park against a new opponent: the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that often plays in obscurity.

The Brewers’ franchise, now in its 50th season, has never won the World Series. The team has been to the Series only once, as the American League pennant winner in 1982. The Dodgers have not won a title since 1988, but as the franchise that promoted Jackie Robinson and helped establish major league baseball in California, they still have one of the most famous brands in sports.

“We respect history around here,” the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw said late in the regular season. “Obviously, franchise-wise, we might have the most history of any team, really.”

The N.L.C.S. franchises and cities would seem to have little in common, but there are some peculiar connections, one of them forged by a sitcom. Milwaukee has a downtown statue of Henry Winkler’s Fonzie, from “Happy Days,” but there are no statues from its sister show, “Laverne & Shirley.” Those characters, you may recall, eventually left their Milwaukee brewery jobs for a new life in sunny L.A.