Can’t You See I’m Crying? Can’t You See the Tears?

It is not the cloth that we have to worry about. It is the thread that makes up the cloth. The fabric is critical. If just one strand is of poor quality it makes the entire piece cheaper. In baseball, this equates to each player who makes up a team. Often, this magic ingredient is called “chemistry”. The chemistry of the Milwaukee Nine is based on the ball and glove logo of old, strong, true blue, built through a farm system that has made every effort to make a small market team viable with good quality people and players that these fans can believe in. After all, they have lived and breathed with these young men’s progress ever since they were signed. That is what a small market team community does. It is always in search of hope and dreams to come. Ryan Braun was once believed to be the strongest thread in the entire Brewer cloth. His deterioration has not happened because he cheated. Cheats are cheats. We know how to handle them. But what has made our cloth, the fabric of what we believe in as the True Blue Brew Crew, crafted by legends like Yount, strong and rich is the belief that all is as good as the people who have made the beer, cheese and sausage that has made our land famous. To the good people of Milwaukee and Wisconsin, that is as important as life itself. Nietzsche said, “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” You ask why?

“This is all B.S. I am completely innocent.’ Braun, Dec 2011

“I truly believe in my heart and I would bet my life that this substance never entered my body at any point.” Braun, Feb 2012

“There are a lot of haters-a lot of people who doubted me and lot of people who continue to doubt me.” Braun, Feb 2012

“When you know you’re innocent of something, it’s extremely difficult to have to prove it when you’re in a process where you’re 100% guilty until proven innocent.” Braun, Feb 2012

“We were able to get through this because I am innocent and the truth is on our side.” Braun, Feb 2012

“I have been an open book, willing to share details from every aspect of my life as part of this investigation, because I have nothing to hide.” Braun, Feb 2012

“I have always taken tremendous pride in my image and my reputation in being a role model and handling myself the right way and doing things the right way.” Braun, Feb 2012

“I have nothing to hide and have never had any other relationship with Bosch.” Braun, Feb 2013

“The truth still hasn’t changed.” Braun, July 9, 2013

“I have tried to handle the entire situation with honor, with integrity, with class, with dignity and with professionalism because that’s  who I am and that’s how I’ve always lived my life.” Braun, Feb 2012

“Lies were never innocent. Their purpose was to escape punishment, or work, or responsibility, and they were used for profit.” John Steinbeck, ‘East of Eden‘

The improbable happened when performance enhancing drugs removed this icon in our minds. A terrible battle emerges between loyalty for the team and the loyalty for the individual. That is…team loyalty remains while loyalty for the icon diminishes until our next close encounter…at a ballpark whether the icon is still in the uniform that is familiar to us all.

The real problem remains because it wasn’t about PEDs at all. It was about this former icon’s ruthless use of fabricated truths that made so many…that made us lose faith in truth itself. What to do?

In business, we fire cheaters. Contract or not, cheaters are dealt with severely and sent packing. As for liars, we fire them. No matter what we do to them we can never trust them again. They have planted the seed of doubt. They have no more authority. They have nothing more we can trust them with.

Now, as the season is ebbing and after the season has ended, our disgust continues because of the reminders…because Braun brought into his sleeve of lies another stalwart hero of this land, Aaron Rodgers.

He Braunschweigered Aaron to profess his innocence.

How could you? How could you lie to others to get them to profess your alleged innocence?

“Lies are never innocent.”

Go away. I am hurt. Can’t you see I am hurt? You lied to me. You lied to all of us. I don’t want to see you at Maryvale this coming Spring. It would mean that the Season of Braunschweiger, the Lost Season of Lie, will become the Spring of Doubt. We want to see Nori in right; Cory at first; GoGo in center; Jean at short. We want to see Luc behind the plate and Aramis at third and Rickie at second. We want to see Khris or Logan or anybody in left. We don’t want to see you. We don’t want to see you at all.

Spring is about hope, not doubt and dope. Get out. Get out before all of the disdain of your lies come heaping down on the team I love, we all love. These are the hopes brought about by Bambi’s Bombers, Harvey’s Wallbangers…legends of our youth and of our dreams. These are the guys Cooper made the hit for. These are the guys Rollie came in and saved. These are guys Augie, Mollie, Simba and Sanders fought to bring the dream. Guys like Gimby, Vuch and Stormin, Juan and Sixto created and allowed the dream to grow and what Oglivie made the catch in Baltimore for. Get out. Go to where all liars go to live…in a castle of themselves surrounded by a moat of never-ending lies.

All of this was revisited this past week when the Cardinals came to town and the TV announcing crew from the St. Louis side brought up the issue again. None of the other PEDboys were mentioned. They just centered upon our former left fielder and how it will burden the team with his long-term contract strangling a small market team.

Welcome to our new world. Welcome to our new life. Thanks for the joy you are bringing to all of us. I am hurting now. We are all hurting. We can no longer see the pennant in our future. We now are on food stamps to get free food at the ballpark because management, who also believed and trusted in you, doesn’t want us to abandon the team like you have done to our City…our team.

We haven’t. We won’t.

Get out. Can’t you see I’m crying? Can’t you see my tears? Can you not see that we can no longer see the dreams of our future? We need freedom…freedom away from you. We need space where you do not exist. We just need to have the guys we believe in to just….

Play Ball!

A Pall Falls On The City

The Cream City has experienced this all before. On the day the announcement was made by the carpetbagger Bartholomay to remove the beloved Braves, a devastated population of loyal fans had jaws agape. It simply could not be true. How could someone remove a team from a city that supported it from day one with Major League record attendance, year after year? Was there no one in town who could offer greed more than the hope of Dixie?

The pain was real. It was deep. It cut through the boyhood memories, dragging them ruthlessly away, well ahead of its time. We had felt disappointment before. There were the continual battles with the Cardinals for the pennant where the sound of fingers on rosary beads were louder than the silent scream of hope that this would be our year. There was the release of Spahn, Buhl, Burdette, Bruton and others. But the hope of the future was there with Aaron, Carty and Torre. And Eddie was still there, the real deal, the heart of the team beloved by so many. Surely Henry and Mathews would refuse to move to the South and force the owners to reconsider.

The ballpark was vacant. ‘No Game Today’ signs hung on the box office windows as if penance from confession was not enough. No one was coming to ‘Will Call’. George Webb made no predictions. They had left town never to return.

No more battles with the Cubs and our next door neighbor who was a religious Cubbie fan. No more “Take Me Out” during the 7^th inning stretch. No more excitement about the anticipation of who would see the stadium first when driving in from out-of-town. Hot dogs never tasted the same after that in our winter of complete and total discontent.

The citizens, with hidden tears being wisped away with a rub of a  shoulder to the eyes when no one was looking, were the same but now with a pall over the City. Joy had been ripped out of our hearts.

Then as if the skies opened up, with a huge check from Robert A. Uihlein, Jr., the owner of Schlitz Brewing Company after being persuaded by Ben Barkin, his and the world’s best PR man, the car leasing dealer’s son was bringing the game back to the City. There was hope. There was joy.

Baseball, throughout all of its years, after all is a game of hope. Players change. Manager’s change. Venues sometimes change. From County Stadium to Miller Park, the spirit of the Braves of old whistled through the stadium on opening day of the transplanted Seattle Pilots who went bankrupt in Seattle.

From that point, a new alliance was born between desperate fans yearning to erase the pain of old and replace it with new hope. A bond was created between fans who loved the game and a team that was saved from extinction. Yes. We were now in a new league but that league had the Yankees. We would now be able to see the greatest team in baseball a number of times a year play in the stadium where our home team once won and lost to them in a World Series.

No more Cubs, but we got the White Sox. Close enough.

We also got that new team up in the Twin Cities as a new rival. Life was getting better and now hope was rampant as a new surge of energy spread throughout the land of cheese and butter, beer and ‘B-O-L-O-G-N-A’. The bubblers and goulashes were back in fashion. Baseball was back in the City, the county, the State.

Through the years we latched onto heroes of the game our home team spawned. ‘Boomer’, ‘Vuch’, ‘The Kid’, ‘Molly’, ‘Bambi’s Bombers’, ‘Harvey’s Wallbangers’, Cecil, Sixto, Money, ‘Augie Doggie’, ‘Kenny The Sandman’, Prince, Rickie, Cory, Aoki, Lucroy, ‘Vonnie’, the new kid at short, ‘St. Jean’ and the guy in left.

Most of the pain that we experienced before came flooding back in a flash flood of sorrow. Sure some of the Crew had taken drugs before but none were ever banished with such suddenness, such deliberate heart wrenching disgust and suspension. And in a time when there was no more Prince to defend us, no more Cory to hit us out of our deep depression, the guy in left had us hanging by a thread…without much hope.

Hope drives the game. Hope instills a loyalty that suspends belief. Hope is the lifeblood of youth in all of us no matter what the age. Without hope we are adrift on an endless, joyless whim of no direction.

The pall is over the City once again.

We need a prince to bring life back to the fans of the True Blue Brew Crew.

Perhaps we should just abide and softly in typical Milwaukee fashion, quietly close with …

Play Ball!

Sixto Fingers

Baseball can bring on an argument quicker than you can spell “Aspromonte”. Not that Bob or Ken’s name was that difficult to spell, the point is that baseball is a game filled with opinions, decisions and statistics that can bring about the Third World War.

Recently ‘trades’, more specifically, ‘great trades’ was the topic of debate. Nearly every fan and every team have their favorite or infamous trade stories. Which begs the question: Who was the greatest General Manager of all-time? After all, GM’s are the architects of ball clubs and much of that structure is built through trades.

For me there is one distinct gentleman who because of his savvy on one cold December day pulled off the greatest trade in the history of the game. And because of it, he is the greatest GM of all-time.

On Dec. 12, 1980, the Milwaukee Brewers acquired catcher Ted Simmons, pitcher Pete Vuckovich and closer Rollie Fingers in exchange for outfielders Sixto Lezcano and David Green and pitchers Lary Sorensen and Dave LaPoint. Brewers needed a closer. Cardinals needed an outfielder.

This deal paved the way for the Brewers to make the playoffs in 1981 and ’82. Fingers, a future Hall of Famer, won the Cy Young Award in 1981, Vuckovich won it the following year. Simmons provided offense from behind the plate and leadership in the clubhouse.

It is unheard of to pick up two Cy Young winners in a single trade. This deal however wasn’t as top heavy as some would think. The Cardinals had a surplus of relievers and catchers and needed Sorensen and LaPoint to solidify their starting rotation and got Green, who was regarded as one of the top prospects in baseball at the time. They also got one of the rising young stars of the Brewers, Sixto Lezcano, a fan favorite.

Which brings about the question once again: who was the greatest general manager of all-time? What about Whitey Herzog, who was on the other end of this trade. After all, the Cardinals beat the Brewers in the ’82 World Series.

But the Cards had and continue to have a grand tradition. The Brew Crew had none, not until Harry Dalton moved from the California Angels in 1977 to take over the Milwaukee franchise. Harry was whip smart. He understood the game like few men. He had hired Earl Weaver in Baltimore. We all know how that turned out. In Milwaukee, he hired George Bamberger, Weaver’s pitching coach. ‘Bambi’s Bombers’ began what would become “Harvey’s Wallbangers” when Harvey Kuenn won the only American League pennant in the history of the franchise. The players who came over from St. Louis in that December trade joined the likes of Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Jimmy Gaintner, Cecil Cooper, Ben Oglivie, Gorman Thomas, Don Money, Jerry Augustine, Mike Caldwell, Moose Haas, Pete Ladd, Bob McClure, Jim Slaton and Don Sutton. Check out that lineup and see how many Hall of Famers you can count.

The trade made the Brewers contenders. In baseball, that is all you can ask. The rest is up to the players themselves.

Harry Dalton is the greatest general manager of all-time because he gave those players a chance from mediocrity of what could be and could have been to American League Champions.

Not bad for a guy from West Springfield, Mass, via Amherst College.

I had the unique pleasure of knowing Harry after he had retired. He wasn’t one who patted himself on the back for what he had done. In fact, just the opposite. He once told me that the toughest thing he had done, and one of the poorest decisions he had made, was when he traded Gorman Thomas to Cleveland in 1983 for Rick Manning. “I had to have police protection to walk from my office in County Stadium to the car and back. I didn’t understand the emotional tie Gorman had with the fans and the chemistry he created in the clubhouse.” He brought Stormin’ Gorman back in 1986 to complete his career in Milwaukee.

That’s what made Harry Dalton a great person to me. He understood finally that non-statistical tie to the game. Here’s to Harry. The greatest GM of all-time.

Play Ball!

We lost a good friend of this effort on baseball this week. This is dedicated to mmbupkus. See you on the first base side behind the dugout.