Get Carter!

In an effort of gigantic proportion, the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club in an attempt to sign every single minor league player in the universe, traded one of their remaining veterans, Aaron Hill to the Boston Red Sox this week for two minor leaguers they did not have, one a 27 year old rehab pitcher and the other a poor hitting infielder. We do not give names in this column for fear we will never hear of them…again.

Thus the tale. There are a couple of veterans remaining. They are all trade bait to find out if a community will come out to a stadium to watch players they have no attachment to. One of the remaining veterans is Mr. Chris Carter who on Friday hit his 21st and 22nd home run this season to put him in position to be the first player to hit 40 home runs in a season since the days of Ryan Braun when he was using…the stuff that reduces pain which nobody ever takes. Ah…those were the days. For Mr Carter, he is now a marked man for one, Mr. Stearns, the neophyte general manager of the Cream City Nine, to showcase in his talks with the clubs who have the few remaining non-Brewer minor leaguers available. In a most unusual method of rebuilding a team, it is the ‘If I own them all, I can control them all’ newbie philosophy of baseball rebuild, this first year General Manager is attempting to make his mark and reshape the entire way baseball thinks about rebuilding teams. Amazingly, in the Hill trade, they still will have to pay the remainder of Mr. Hill’s salary along with an added $1 million bonus Mr. Hill earned when traded. But, the GM did get two more minor leaguers for his trophy case.

Besides Mr. Carter, he has ‘Scooter Gannett, Ryan Braun and the ever popular Jonathan Lucroy to trade yet this season to make it a complete rebuild of names of major leaguers. For Milwaukee fans come August, you really won’t be able to tell who is on the team without a program, which the Brewers will begin to charge for seeing a new way of revenue generation for this new generation of Brewer fans who will follow anything on the field of play as long as the beer and brats availability don’t run out.

As for the owner, he is usually relaxing in his Southern California home running his other business and phoning it in. But he was sighted in his box next to the Crew’s dugout on Saturday. He isn’t worrying. He is about to make a ton of money once the MLABAM deal with Disney closes later this year.

Yup. Quite a year in Pigsville. They have a team with no names…with many more to come up because of the bulging numbers in the minors…and an always smiling happy owner who doesn’t have to live in the Potawatomi ‘Gathering Place By The Water’ and hear the discontent populace quietly complain on talk radio about the shambles he has put on the field under the guise of ‘rebuilding’ yet again.

Besides, he is getting fabulously rich. The MLBAM deal is massive and will give him more than he paid for the franchise and then some. But fans you don’t mind our very own Trump-ian making all that money. After all, he bought the team from the original owners family and kept them in Milwaukee.

Besides, he does give to charity. And he does own a house/condo in Milwaukee.

As for Mr Carter, all off those home runs you have been hitting this season just puts a mark on your back. You are about to be shifted out of here for players to be named later.

That’s what it appears Mr. Stearns does best. He is a collector of minor leaguers. And in his way of thinking, if he owns and controls them all, other teams will eventually have to come to him to get their players in the future.

Only one problem.

Does anyone want the bunch of unproven, over-the-hill has-beens he has collected?

Play Ball!

Happy Birthday, Goobie.

There Ain’t No Pitching In Pigsville

On the 400th anniversary of The Bard’s death, when the buds of Spring state ’Now is the Winter of our discontent’, two teams met near the Johnson Cookies sign atop the factory that produced the legendary Johnson Cookie cards of ’1953, ’54 & ’55, exactly two seasons removed from a time when they ruled the Senior League. On Saturday in a Park called Miller, with a roof over thine selves, they came out of the dugout dressed in togs alike Major League uniforms taking the field as though they were the real, genuine version of those teams not so long ago. ‘There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest’ said the merchants wence I answered ‘Why, though hast put him in such a dream, that when the image of it leaves him he must run mad.’ This was not Sir Toby Belch but a fellow named Anderson, once removed from the team of D’Backs in the land of Sun, who is to say politely in a crowed of boisterous fans, is not the best of pitchers. He is not a Sir. He is not a Toby. But he does make us belch.

On this night, not the ‘Twelfth Night’, but the Eighteenth night of the new season’s play, two pitchers decided to set back time and proceeded to throw 59 pitches in the first inning where there were more 3-2 counts than the master of liver pills could provide. ‘If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!’ said ol Sebastian. I wanted it to be a nightmare. The game became unwatchable as that first inning lasted nearly an hour. And they wonder why the younger women and men do not grasp the game as their parents and grandparents do. The home team with the funny logo on its cap, however, had fans in the stands, young and old, mostly older. ‘It is the cause’, they said. It certainly was not the pitching. When this many come out to witness such trivial play where the three basic tenants of the game of ball is played…pitching, fielding, hitting (‘You are three men of sin’)…is not in evidence, then in the stands they say, ‘I must eat my dinner.’ Ah, The Tempest. But after all, this is one place where you don’t have to ask another if they want to grab something to eat. After all, this is the land of beer and cheese for butter or wurst.

‘Alas poor Counsell’, the fans sympathetically murmured. No matter what he did, the more he changed pitchers, the more he knew this would be a long season of discontent. He has no pitching except for the horse from Klamath Falls, OR. Of the eighteen games this season, in just the first three weeks of the dream of the impossible, this team, our team…the team of our hearts and of our youth, languish near the bottom of quality starts. In a world filled beyond the a cup full of stats, quality start stats measure the strength of a team. As for the Cream City nine, they rank 29th out of 30 teams with with only 4 quality starts as that horse, James Jacob Nelson, has three. Without quality starts, the bullpen is soon to wear out. As Craig of Whitefish Bay must say, ‘O, reason not the need.’. ‘Hey, David of the House of Stearns. I need some pitching!’

If this season is to be measured by the owner’s need for being competitive in each and ever game, the team named after the monk’s brew of Miller, shows promise. On Saturday, they came back, time after time to give hope. As late as the bottom of the eighth, a fellow on the Crew, another from his former team of D’Backs named Hill, drove a ball which dreams are made of…flying up and up…with hopes of bringing in the leading runs, fell into the hands of that cheesesteak fellow up against the fence in left.

The fans were perplexed. Flummoxed, if you will. In the stands they were heard to say, ‘Once more unto the breach dear friends’ to which the fellow named Romeo yelled out, ‘Dreamt a dream tonight.’ His seat mate, Mercurio, stated ‘That dreams often lie.’ Everyone of the lads laughed. Sitting behind the dugout on first, the only place to watch a game, the lads continued the banter of the moment, Hammy said, ‘A dream itself is but a shadow’. Caliban stated, as the home team took to the field in the top of the ninth, ‘Who I waked, I cried to dream again’. Give me another brat. And some mustard. Now standing, glaring at the pitching mound, he yelled, ‘Did you hear that new pitcher from the pen of bull, some mustard on that ball…now.’

His friend, Antigonus, harking the vendor for more mustard, looked back and up at Cal said ‘Dreams are toys’. After all, these are the kids who pretend they play in the Major of Leagues. This is the fate of a feigned philosophy called ‘rebuild’. It is false hope for us, the diligent bees of the Crew…the True Blue Brew Crew of 2016. ‘What’s in a name?’ Hammy stated, raising one of Wisconsin’s finest brews, standing up with cup held high in his right hand, foam slipping over the top and dropping upon his bald noggin, ‘To die, to sleep-To sleep-perchance to dream…ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pass.’ To which Mac responded, sitting watching the next action on the field unfold, talking on top of Mac’s soliloquy, ’Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.’ he muttered to no one in particular, showing his disgust for that fellow who weaves the tales for the faithful to follow from afar.

The owner, that fellow from afar, basking in the warm climes of a California so Southern, watching via satellite on his telly, was heard saying he is pleased the team is competitive, no overwhelming losses (except for last Monday or Thursday against a team at the bottom of the Junior Circuit called the ’Twinkie’).

’This is the excellent foppery of the world’.

Playest some ball!

#watchingattanasio ⚾️

Averages

Baseball is all about averages. You can predict with fair accuracy, how a team will perform based on averages of pitchers and hitters. After all, this is a game of pitching and hitting.

In 2014, many followers of the Milwaukee Brewers believed that this was a team of destiny. In fact it was. It was destined to fail. As the beginning of the year, for the first three plus months, the team performed way above average with Lucroy having a career year, Aramis Ramirez experiencing one of the best first half of the season performance in his career, Carlos Gomez having an All-Star first half and a rookie second baseman doing way better than expected. And the pitching staff was doing well backed by a bunch of runs to support victory after victory.

Then, the bottom fell out. Some blame it on Matt Lapay, a college announcer who was brought into help fill in for the team’s voice, that being Brian Anderson who was frequently away from Brewer telecasts to work with whatever network needed him for whatever sport. But in fact, sometime in July, Lapay or not, players who had questions about when the ball would fall throughout the hot first half of the season, discovered the disaster that awaited them. Lucroy didn’t quite deliver as he had earlier in the season. Braun was not really Braun as he was experiencing a hand problem. Ramirez stopped delivering in the clutch. Gomez began running into trouble rather than pushing for success. And the pitching staff got old overnight.

For the season, after it was all over, in 2014, the Brewers ranked #15 in hitting with a .250 batting average. And it ranked #17 in pitching with an ERA of 3.67.

Yet what did the general manager do? He felt it was enough to reward their manager with not a one year but a three-year contract extension feeling that overall the club had improved and that the last half of the season was simply a ‘blip’, something that just happened and wasn’t the fault of a manager who brought the team to its first Division title in decades a few years earlier. What many do not understand, that was a team that was managed by Ned Yost who last year took his new team, the Kansas City Royals, to an American League Championship and just a run away from a World Series title. It was not Roenicke who was responsible. He just got into a very good car and drove it to a Divisional championship. Yet he was rewarded for that?

Now this year. In 2015 Milwaukee ranks #24 in pitching with an ERA of 4.13 vs 3.67 in 2014. In 2015 Milwaukee ranks #18 in hitting with a .250 BA vs .250 in 2014.

This team has not only not improved to justify Roenicke’s extended three-year contract but has in fact gotten worse. In fact, they remain in the bottom half of all teams who play in the Major Leagues.

Baseball is all about averages. You can tell, with some accuracy, what a team will do when you look at what players have done in their careers, weighted with age and experience and with an experience manager and general manager who guide the ball club.

The Men of Milwaukee’s management do not understand. Averages tell us that. In 2003 when the general manager began his first full season at the helm of the Cream City Nine, the team finished #23 in hitting as it finished with a batting average of 2.56. The pitching staff finished #25 with a 5.02 ERA. And the rest is history.
2003 Batting #23 with a .256 BA. Pitching #25 with a 5.04 ERA
2004 Batting #29 with a .248 BA. Pitching #12 with a 4.24 ERA
2005 Batting #16 with a .259 BA. Pitching #10 with a 3.97 ERA
2006 Batting #27 with a .258 BA. Pitching #25 with a 4.82 ERA
2007 Batting #11 with a .262 BA. Pitching #15 with a 4.41 ERA
2008 Batting #17 with a .253 BA. Pitching #4 with a 3.85 ERA
2009 Batting #9 with a .263 BA. Pitching #27 with a 4.83 ERA
2010 Batting #12 with a .262 BA. Pitching #26 with a 4.58 ERA
2011 Batting #11 with a .261 BA. Pitching # 9 with a 3.63 ERA
2012 Batting #3 with a .259 BA. Pitching #22 with a 4.22 ERA
2013 Batting #19 with a .252 BA. Pitching #16 with a 3.84 ERA
2014 Batting #15 with a .250 BA. Pitching #17 with a 3.67 ERA
2015 Batting #18 with a .250 BA. Pitching #24 with a 4.13 ERA

For his career as general manager, his teams have finished on average #16 in batting with a .256 BA. The team’s pitching has ranked #18 with a 4.25 ERA.

Those are the averages. Baseball is all about averages. The team has averaged 16th in hitting out of 30 baseball teams. This places them in the bottom half of all teams in Major League Baseball. The team has average 18th in pitching out of 30 baseball teams. This has placed them in the bottom half of all teams in Major League Baseball.

If the owner wants to continue in the bottom half of Major League Baseball, he should continue to have the current general manager with the team. If the owner does not, and wants to move into the upper half of baseball, he needs to replace him with a new general manager responsible to the owner only and not to the guy who has not gotten this team, on average, to finished in the top half.

#watchingattanasio

UPDATE: At 1115A (CST), Tuesday, August 11, 2015, Doug Melvin stepped down, effective immediately, as General Manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. He is leaving the job he’s held since September of 2002. The days of #melvinitis may be over. Then again, these are the Milwaukee Brewers. He may still be the head of baseball operations.

Play Ball!

The Cloud Over Milwaukee

Call it what it is…Braunschweiger covers the skies over the Cream City Nine like none other before in the history of baseball in this midwestern setting. Usually the talk is about hope and what if’s. Today it centers around how will he handle it. How will the team handle it? How will he perform? How will he handle the jeers when he steps to the plate time and time again when the voices of the opposition are the loudest? How will he handle the bombardment from the fans in the tight confines of right field throughout his tour of cities this season where the taunts are more pointed and individually pin pricking? From the moment when he steps out of the protected environ of the clubhouse and the dugout, and onto the grass, he will be under some of the greatest scrutiny in baseball.

The Brewers on the other hand are using the old fashioned methods of banging the drum of interest. Attempting to get the fans fired up with various hoopla, and the signing of aging starting and relief pitching, the answer to the team’s success still all centers around the one thing management is not talking about…that guy in right field.

The management instead are talking about having a possible team record in payroll. That’s what you get when you hire old players and trade away your best lead-off hitter who only cost a couple of million a year. It is also reflective of having one of the lowest payrolls in the game in one of the smaller markets in baseball. Mark Attanasio has been stated that he expects to win this season. As reported in the Journal Sentinel he stated ‘We’re at the point now where we’re well into the top half of payrolls in the major leagues. We have more pitching depth than we’ve had, really, in 10 years. As I’ve explained to everybody, as investors you wouldn’t make that decision to lose.’ He added, ‘The ownership group felt like this was the year to invest (more) in the team. I think we’re going to surprise people this year.’

Perhaps. They added Matt Garza and brought back K-Rod for the bullpen. Some estimate  the new payroll will top $102 million. Yet this team will go only as far as their #1 player takes them. The guy in right has to perform up to and above his MVP season and during the history-making first few years of his being in the majors. No more Prince to protect him. No more Aoki to be on the base paths ahead of him to provide the added potential RBI. Now with the pressure of all that upon him, will he be able to make this a winning season for the Cream City Nine?

This week we will hear the call,

Play Ball! 

Watching Attanasio

Baseball is never ending. There is a rhythm and flow that predates rock and roll. It is part of past, present and future. It is there for us, on demand, as regular as running water. We know it is there and when we want it, it comes out. It is, after all, our heritage. It is an American legacy.

The temples where the game is played of green grass has a look all its own. There, the gods of the sport, now and before, play the game. Their ghosts are everywhere. Aaron and Banks. Williams and Mantle. Spahn and Mathews, Musial and Koufax. Jackie and Robin. Through the turnstiles, past the concession stands, into the venue itself, the opening is there and passing through, there it is…it is the place where magic will happen today.

Hope for the season ahead is ever present. This is the season when the heavens will open up and victory in the form of a World Series pennant will be ours.

For many of us, it is a way of life, passed down to us from our grandparents, parents or relatives. It is our legacy. When remembering the past, it is the time we spent with our grandfather and grandmother, Mom and Dad at the ballpark. For those who grew up in Wisconsin, the home team, our home team is the Milwaukee Brewers. So much had been seen there; the great players like Roger … ‘The Rocket’, perhaps the greatest pitcher the game has ever seen, or Reggie and Yaz, Cal and Randy Johnson, as well as Griffey, Jr. and Ichiro, the greatest hitter the game has seen in our lifetime. ‘The Brewers Win The Pennant’ with Simba, Robin, Pauly, Gimby, Stormin, Rollie, Vuch, Coop, Benji and the Harvey were all witnessed with family and friends, Moms and Dads, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. CC and Sheets, Prince and Braun, Greinke, Weeks and Nyjer, K-Rod and AxMan, brought the feeling back but fell ever so short.

This was a team that was brought to Wisconsin after the first great heartbreak of our sporting life, on a loan from the Schlitz Brewing Co. family to a car dealer’s son who would become the Commissioner of Baseball (after he was involved and found guilty in the collusion between the owners to keep players from earning their fair share through free agency) to fill the void left by the carpetbagger who moved the beloved Braves to that city down south.

We live in a world of globalization. We live in a world where the game is played by athletes everywhere. Milwaukee is a community that has diversified over the past half century as well. Today 39% of Milwaukee County is made up of Black Americans, 13% Latinos, 5% Asian Americans. It became a majority minority dominated city in 2000.

Today’s baseball team in the Cream City no longer reflects that diversity. Of the 40 man roster, there are only two Black Americans, one an aging Weeks nearing the end of his career and Davis, a young man just beginning his career. The Latino contingent is well represented, with some sixteen team members. There is one Asian, a Taiwanese pitcher who is yet to make it to the Bigs.

We no longer live in a Jim Crow era. Yet the team that is in Milwaukee has just two Black Americans. When they made a run for the pennant, the starting first baseman, second baseman and center fielder were black. Prince was beloved since he came up through the minors and would, fans thought, forever be an All-Star Brewer. Rickie was the college educated, All-Star second baseman. Nyjer was the center of joy. And he did get THE HIT. Together with Braun, Hart, Lucroy, Grienke, Vonnie, K-Rod and Axford they made their run which would be only the first of many to come. Today there is no Prince, no Nyjer, no Grienke, no K-Rod nor Axford. And there is no Hart. Rickie is waning, Vonnie is struggling and Braun is coming back from the unknown.

The team has no minority manager or coaches with the single exception of John Shelby who begins his third season on the coaching staff after joining the organization as outfield coach/eye in the sky, whatever that is; no upper management who are minority. Yet this is the governing body of the team that represents a majority minority city in the great Midwest. ‘A team is a reflection of the community it represents.’

The owner is from Los Angeles. There is little that is the same on Wilshire Boulevard or Pacific Palisades as compared to Pigsville or Lincoln at Kinnikinnick. In the City of Angels, Brats (with Secret Stadium Sauce) and beer are as foreign as sushi and wine are in Bayview. Brookfield is not Beverly Hills and Racine has kringle. Try finding that at Gilsons. This is a town where there are bubblers and kids wear rubbers on their feet when it rains. There is a separation here. It is not just distance, but a cultural misunderstanding that Milwaukee is the same as it was or the same as everywhere else. It is not. The Packers and Brewers, Badgers,  Bucks and Marquette belong to Wisconsinites, not Californians. Curley, Uecker, Crazylegs and Chones are our guys. Spencer Tracy, Fred MacMurray and Gene Wilder are our guys. They all, uncommon individuals and brilliant in their craft, who have all played at one time or another in California, are Wisconsinites through and through. The Brewers, every last one of them who ever played in the Cream City, belong to us.

If there is one thing a person from Los Angeles knows, it is star-power. They know that if you have a star for your program or movie or team, people will come and fans will pay in record numbers to see them. It is as eternal as Cary Grant, Bob Hope or Babe Ruth. They don’t call Yankee Stadium ‘The House That Ruth Built’ for nothing. Mark Attanasio lives and works in Los Angeles. He occasionally shows up in Milwaukee as the owner. He should know more than most what a star does to propel a team and make money. The present team looks like a fragment of their former self. Yes, the payroll is manageable and the team will make money…a lot of money. What is our VORP? Who gives a crap. Enough with Keith Wollner. We want a PENNANT. We want to be competitive. We want it NOW.

A former owner of the Milwaukee Brewers in the old American Association, Bill Veeck, said, “Baseball must be a great game because the owners haven’t been able to kill it.” The fans will fill the stands. And records will be broken. But we need a Prince or a Price, a Tanaka or, hell, a first baseman who can play first base. It is time for change. It is time for an owner to get in touch with the city his team represents and a management who represents a constant path to victory. We are watching Attanasio.

We will be heading to Maryvale in February and again the gates will open and warm, brilliant sunshine will illuminate the field. The lines will be chalked and fans will press for autographs. The smell of brats and beer will fill the air and the boys from the team representing Milwaukee will take the field. Will this team have a chance to win the pennant or will this owner be like so many before him, make money on a fan base who will support them regardless of the outcome. He will earn it on the millions who will go through Miller Park. He will earn it from broadcast and telecast, mobile and digital rights. He will earn it from the advertising in the stands and on merchandise that is sold. He will make it from those over the limit teams who will spend monies to try to win the pennant and pay the  tax. He will earn it by paying for mediocrity on the field, in the dugout and in upper management. Can you spell Masahiro? David? Or, even Prince?

It is time to …

Play Ball!

For daily baseball updates, you are invited to go to: http://www.facebook.com/overtheshouldermlb   On Twitter, follow @overtheshoulde3

Big Daddy Wurst

We are in the August few of us predicted. After all, the Cubs are not in the basement and the Pirates have not collapsed yet. The Yankees aren’t in first place and the Angels are anything but. The Nats ain’t…nor are the D’Backs. And what has happened to the San Francisco Giants?

In Milwaukee, this weekend 100,000+ faithful continued to go to Miller Park, or as many call it The Schnitzelhaus.  It is a family affair. When in doubt, when things get tough, family comes together to support each other. All of the Brewer fans are part of a unique family. They literally suffer collectively when the team loses and nothing has created more of a suffering than the letdown of their champion…Ryan Braun.

The way the Brewer fans react to trouble is to eat.  They have lost two in a row this weekend. And Big Daddy Wurst, owner Mark  Attanasio, has helped overcome the troubles by announcing that this August, all fans  attending any or all of the Brewer games would be given $10 in a coupon for food and drink. I have dubbed this Braunschweiger. Predictions are that the Brewers will pack the park. Food is FREE. The one word Milwaukeeans love more than food is FREE.

It dates back to the 1940s. In Juneau Park, in August, 135,132 Milwaukee sports fans were in attendance to watch a boxing match between Tony Zale and Billy Pryor, with none other than Jack Dempsey referreeing.

Admission was FREE. To this date it is the largest crowd ever to see a boxing match…anywhere.

Big Daddy Wurst knows this.  In a letter to Brewer fans, “Starting this week, we will be introducing a series of initiatives to reaffirm our commitment to you and all our fans throughout Wisconsin.” He is going to feed the masses. In a near Christ-like move, there probable won’t be fishes in the mix but there will be sausages that will meet the needs of those gathered. Of course the moment all will await is the Sausage Race during each game. Pick Italian. Word is that dude has been working out all July.

Point of all this is that we have a guy named Caleb in left, GoGo in center, Nori in right, Jean and Rickie in the middle with Jonathan behind the plate with Juan and Yuni at the corners.

What am I missing?

Just Play Ball!