The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg have turned baseball's biggest stage into an art-world gamble. Under a friendly wager announced on 23 October, each museum has staked a prized Claude Monet on the outcome of the 122nd World Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays, with the loser's Monet travelling to the winner's city for a victory lap in the galleries.

Milwaukee is offering Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect from 1903, the only Monet in its collection and a visitor favourite, bequeathed to the museum in 1950 by Mrs. Albert T. Friedmann as part of a gift of more than 40 objects. St. Petersburg counters with Houses of Parliament: Effect of Fog, London, painted in 1904 during one of Monet's London visits, a Thames scene that hangs in an upstairs gallery. Ownership of both works stays put; loan and exhibition dates will be set once the series is decided.

The directors traded friendly barbs at the announcement. Milwaukee's Kim Sajet said she was backing the best team in baseball with one of the museum's most beloved paintings, while MFA St. Petersburg chief executive Klaudio Rodriguez suggested Milwaukee's canvas would enjoy a Florida vacation. The Brewers reached the Fall Classic after a 103-win regular season and sit four wins from the franchise's first championship.

Milwaukee has played this game before. In 2011 the museum wagered a painting loan with Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art on Super Bowl XLV, and after the Green Bay Packers beat the Steelers 31-25, a Renoir spent three months on view in Wisconsin.