‘The Moment’

‘The Moment’

Many people in life have ‘a moment’. And, in the annuals of life, one time…..just one time, a person has ‘the moment’. It is defining.

On Friday with most of the crowd headed for the parking lot, the 31 year old rookie sensation, Junior Guerra, was pitching a gem for the Cream City Nine. He had stepped into the top of the ninth against the mighty Pirates, having giving up only two hits the entire evening and now was leading 3-0. He appeared to be in complete control.

His journey in Pigsville had begun, not against the Pittsburgh nine, but when rookie General Manager, David Stearns’ made his first official move after being hired in that position. He claimed, last Fall, one Junior Guerra off waivers from the Chicago White Sox. As Manager, Craig Counsell said, ‘I don’t think anybody accurately forecasted this. But he was claimed for a reason. He was claimed because we thought there were possibilities there and there was talent there. We thought he was a guy that had gone about it in a really different way and got to this place in a really different way, but that he was a really good pitcher at this point. This level of success, maybe not. But yeah, I think we thought he’d have success.’

And he showed his confidence that really wasn’t at all about the Bob ‘Hurricane’ Hazel of this generation, but rather the rookie manager’s grasp of the psychology of the game. In the 9th inning, Junior had begun with only 87 pitches and Counsell was attempting to have his starting pitcher finish a complete game, the first complete game for the Brewers since last July. The first batter, Matt Joyce, got a single. Then John Jaso was walked. Two on, nobody out, Gregory Polanco was coming to the plate as the tying run.

It is one thing to face Jaso, but it was quite another to face this guy before the big guy in the Buc’s lineup.

The eyes of the 29,000+ were all on the manager in the dugout. Would he come out and bring in, what has been, a very iffy bullpen to try to wrap up the game? Or would he let his rookie pitcher try to complete the game in style? It was the beginning of ‘The Moment’ that will live with Brewer fans forever. Out came Counsell, looking quickly right down the first base line, then eyes down and walked up toward the mound as he approached the pitcher and the gathering infielders, Carter, Gennett, Villar and Jonathan Lucroy (in his last inning and game as a Brewer?).

Collectively the crowd at Miller Park was disappointed expecting the manager to accept the ball from his pitcher. But now he became a fan-legend in the land of beer, brats and cheese. With Guerra offering the ball to the manager, Counsell refused to accept his pitcher’s decision and slapped him on the back and it was now his game to try to finish. With stunning and overwhelming approval and cheers from everyone in the crowd and those watching on television, Counsell left the mound, with an astonished pitcher receiving slaps with the gloves of the other players on the mound. This was ‘The Moment’ when the guy from Whitefish Bay proved to be the next great Brewer manager, in the shadows of George Bamberger and Harvey Kuenn. Right then and there, Craig Counsell would be marked in history as doing something that most in the stands had never seen. But to be truthful, all were very happy to see. What a confidence booster. This was one giant step for the kid from Whitefish Bay.

The rest of the story, although a bit bizarre, finished with a win. Polanco hit into a fielder’s choice as Carter forced the runner at second. Andrew McCutcheon hit into another fielders choice to drive in Pittsburgh’s only run when Marte singled off the head of the second base umpire before Jeffers relieved Guerra and retired Kang to end the game with another (sic) Brewers victory. While the details of the game were unusual, THE story was about the decision that Counsell made on this historic night. ‘I really wanted him to get through the inning’, Counsell said of Guerra. ‘I thought he pitched like he deserved to, and I don’t think he was tiring or anything like that. I thought he was still making pitches.’

Guerra had won his seventh game of the year. He had lowered his ERA to a most respectable 2.70, ranking him #8 among Major League starters, just behind Stephen Strasburg and ahead of Jake Arrieta. And for all the stat rats, in 16 starts over 103.1 innings this season, the ‘Velvet Venezuelan’ has posted a 3.67 FIP, and an 85/34 K/BB rate while generating ground balls (46.3%) and infield pop ups (11%) along with a 20.8% K rate and an 11% swinging strike rate.

But the real story that will live well beyond the wins and losses of the pitcher will be…’Do you remember the time when Counsell walked out to the mound and kept the pitcher in the game?’ That will be ‘The Moment’. And that is when Whitefish Bay’s favorite son became THE manager of the Milwaukee Brewers in the minds of the Crew’s faithful forever.

Play Ball!

#win63
#watchingattanasio

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 ⚾️

SAC Attack

Stearns/Arnold/Counsell…this is the triumvirate of the Milwaukee Brewers. They will attempt to put together a team that will do something none have done with this organization before…win a World Series. In 45 years, no combination of General Manager, Assistant General Manager and Manager have ever won a Word Series for this franchise. For those who are 45 years old, nada. For those who are 55 years old, nada for a ball club in this city. For those who are 57 years old, join the ‘never seen a World Series winning ball club in this City’ (NSAWSWBCLITC) club.

It has been a long, cold dry spell.

Now these three will go about their business devising a way which will bring a winner to this City.

What do they have? They have a catcher who can hit, but didn’t this past season because of injury and other things. Can’t really get full value from him until he proves he can hit once again. They have a first baseman who actually stayed healthy and can hit. Good time to trade him. They have a second baseman who might be able to hit but has a difficult time fielding. No trade value. There is a shortstop who has shown signs of great promise and on again, off again fielding and hitting. No real value there unless he gets hot. There is no third baseman except for Rodgers but he might be better at first. No value there.

A left fielder who can hit and hit with power but has one itsy bitsy problem. He can’t throw. The entire league takes advantage of his poor arm strength and accuracy. But teams need hitting and the American League would be a perfect place for this young, valuable bat. The Angels would always go for more hitting because they have never believed in pitching. No real center fielder that is proven. Scout the waiver wires. Center fielder who can run like the wind and hit for a team that traded away their last two who could do so, one to Kansas City and the other to Houston, would be the way you would write a help wanted ad for this position.

There is a right fielder coming back from injury, who is an emotionally tainted superstar and has a contract only a major market can afford. Are you listening, Yankees? Dodgers? Giants? Angels? White Sox? Tigers? Rangers? Sure, he’ll get boo’d in Arizona but chances are if you are an AL team, you won’t have to go there except for every sixth year. There is a back up catcher who can’t hit. A back up outfield who can’t hit. As for pitchers, we have a great young, up-and-coming pitching staff with favorable contracts. Nelson, Jungmann, Peralta, Davies, they have tremendous value. Do you dare trade any of them in a game today where pitching is more valuable than gold? There is Garza who has a contract bigger than most and cannot win any games. Not much value there. And if anyone…I mean anyone offers anything for him, they should not even think twice. Just get rid of this mess of a contract.

There is relief pitching. There is a left hander who has value because there are very few decent left-handed pitchers coming out of the pen in the Bigs. Just don’t tell anyone that he blows a few games every once in a while. He’s got value. There is a great relief pitcher who is destined to become one of the greatest all-time relievers in the game but has a bit of a problem showing up for Spring Training because…now all together, ‘he has problems getting through Venezuela’s passport procedures’ year after year. But once he gets to Arizona, he only occasionally steps on a cactus. There is that big guy, Hellweg, but he probably doesn’t have much value.

There is a third base coach who can’t hit or coach. He leads the league in bonehead plays, year after year. But he’s such a good guy, and, he’s funny. He tells jokes. Works hard. Must have something on the organization or owner because he’s still here after most of the staff was let go. He probably HAS value…to somebody.

Wait: there is a radio announcer who can’t make road trips anymore yet has more value than most of the guys on the field. A TV announcer who is on more networks than any social media surfer. He’s apparently got value. And that guy who sells the popcorn from the wagon behind home plate in the entrance lobby. He’s got value as he is the one person with salt. Then there is the real asset, Bernie. He’s got value…to somebody who wants to slide for a living. Unfortunately, the people with the most value in this organization are the ‘Racing Sausages’ but they are owned by the sausage maker. Great value…but can’t trade them.

There are those motorcycles in the gap in left center field. They have value. The Miller Park sign would fit perfectly into the man-cave of a fan with a basement big enough to house a dirigible. OK. Limited value.

So, as we stand here today, watching the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets battle for the World Series Championship, there is this team on the Western banks of Lake Michigan, near a legendary corner of this earth known to locals as Pigsville, where the aroma of Red Star Yeast waffles through the noses of residents in Kilbourntown, Walker’s Point and Juneautown, within eyeshot of Johnston Cookies, that is headed by SAC.

What on earth will they do this winter? Maryville is just 105 days away.

Play Ball!

A OK

It’s all quiet in the cathedrals of the sport. The last game of the season has been played. No more fans in the stands. No more vendors hawking things. The ball park is quiet today.

The sport of baseball is like that as we enter the period the Hotstove League. This is a time to look back but more importantly, look forward to the time with pitchers and catchers report to spring training. The GMs are down in Arizona soon for their annual meetings and it is a time when the Free Agent agents swarm around, kill bees finding new honey for themselves as their slice is big.

Some time things work out where fans and free agents find a satisfying conclusion. And none would be better than having Nori Aoki sign with his home town team, the Milwaukee Brewers. There is real benefit her. Aoki has a great consistency to his game. Look at this: he has batted .288, .286 and .285 in his three seasons in the big leagues, the first two with the Brewers. But it is his ability to get on base that is of great value. His OBPs of .355, .356 and .349 is remarkable. The man walks a lot. But his real hidden key is his ability to hit left handers. He has batted .363/.428/.435 against lefties in his first three years. Imagine, a left-handed hitter banging at that rate against left-handed pitching.

He’ll be 32 this year, right in the prime of his career. With a two-year contract, probably at a $15 million for two-year agreement, the Brew Crew could once again have the kind of player that is perfect for the City of Milwaukee. Ron Roenicke said of Nori, ‘He fit in really well with the guys. We had fun with him. But he worked as hard as you could work. You can’t put more effort into the job than he did.’

This would be a perfect move as it would allow the team to trade a valuable Gerardo Parra, who is one of the best defensive players in the league as shown by his two Gold Gloves. But he simply cannot hit and get on base at the rate of Aoki. Every team wants and need a starting outfielder who is a good defensive player. But the Brewers do not. Use the value of Parra to trade for more pitching.

We know the heads of the management of Cream City’s Nine do not like Aoki for whatever reason. So this may be moot in thinking…in hoping such a player who gives his all would come back.

Milwaukee needs the kind of player Nori represents. That would be A OK.

Play Ball!

Still Quite On Wisconsin Avenue

The crowds have stopped cheering on Market Street and have dispersed from City Hall. The Champions of the World are putting on their third Championship ring in five years. For Madison Bumgarner, Jockey has distributed thousands of their new MadBum shorts to the crowd. To the victors go underwear and another ring.

Arguably, the San Francisco Giants have the best pitching staff on the planet. Hitting is for show. Pitching is for the dough and Championship rings.

It is a good thing for the owner and management of the Milwaukee Brewers to note. Used first basemen from Toronto will not fill the seats at playoff time. It takes pitching and a lot more pitching than exercising the contract for Vonnie. It will take better pitching than they have now.

The crowds haven’t cheered on Wisconsin Avenue since 1957.

Play Ball!

The Coming Of ‘Him’.

‘Him’

The stands were full as the anticipation of ‘him’ coming to the plate was a long-awaited event, second only to the unveiling of the Bud Selig statue the previous year. But this anticipation was for someone who could actually do something ON a baseball field, not conspire against the players by collusion with the owner down on the South Side of Chicago.

Many had their first brat of the season, fully dressed with kraut and Secret Stadium Sauce from the middle stand on the third base side of the main entry. That’s where you get the good ones. It is dipped and smothered with the magic sauce. It went down smoothly with that cold Miller Lite as all eyes were on the first base dugout.

As he appeared to go onto the on-deck circle, picking up the rosin bag and tapping it on the handle of his black bat, there was a heightened murmur rolling throughout the stands as he was grasping it with both hands and pulling it over his head, waggling it back and forth over the back of his head to loosen up the kinks of a long winter wondering if he could play without assistance. The fans watched in near quiet as Gomez, last year’s Gold Glove winner in centerfield, led off the game for the home team against the team that left the Cream City so many years ago, breaking hearts of a generation of fans in the hinterland where beer and sausages go together like peanut butter and jelly, not chicken and grits.

The practice swings he made took on new meaning as last year’s All-Star, Jean Segura, batted second. Then, taking the bat upside down, grabbing the barrel of the stick, popped the bat to the ground, releasing the bat ring which weighted the bat for practice swings, he stepped out of the on-deck circle and riding a wave of applause and fans standing in ovation of their fallen star, Braunschweiger stepped across the batters box, across home plate and took his practice swing facing third base before he stepped into the box where right-handed hitters stood, politely acknowledging the crowd’s moving welcome with a slight upward motion by his right hand, bat resting and tapping home plate, before he took his stance.

Why?

Why this acknowledgment of by those who are, all that is, right and good, to a fallen hero who not only took PEDs but lied about it to everyone he had ever met…family, friends, workers, fellow players from his team and opposing teams, partners in business…everyone?

The understanding here, Milwaukee is an extremely parochial town. It is, from the very beginning, built upon hard-working, blue-collar folks who went to school to be educated  and to church on Sundays and were taught the Golden Rules of life. The town is Catholic, not unlike Boston or Chicago or Baltimore. Yet this is a community filled with deep conviction that you do have a second chance to redeem yourself and people are entitled to redemption.

That won’t happen in Philly or Cincinnati, Pittsburgh or Los Angeles. It’s not that they are bad. It is simply that they are not this parochial. It absolutely will not happen in Phoenix where they still believe that it is better to shoot someone than allow them to explain what they did and why they did it. After all, the Zona is only a bit over 100 years old. It is also the home of the Sherriff who puts his prisoners in pink and has them stay outside all year-long in Tent City.

What will be interesting is to see how he is greeted in one of the most respected baseball towns in the country, St. Louis. The bitter rival of the Milwaukee nines throughout most of the later half of the Twentieth Century, St. Louis has a reputation not unlike Milwaukee. It has seen some of its own disgraced and ashamed. How will they welcome the latest Black Sheep from the other beer city up North?

On Monday, April 28th, we will find out. That will be the fourth game of the year between the Brewers and the Cardinals and the first visit of the Cerveceros to the Land of Busch to play the Cardenales.

Then we will see. Then we will learn the depth of the disgrace. Let’s hope his thumb gets better before then.

Play Ball!

 

Booker T’s Finest

A member of the All-Century Team…Mr. Cub.

The other day, in Mesa, Arizona, there were more than 15,000 packing in the new Cubs park. It really didn’t matter who they were playing. Cub fans descended upon it in hoards. And for the same reason they gather on nearly every game no matter where the Cubs play…it’s an event. Family and friends gather for one common cause: misery and comaraderie.

Here they were, gathered again, smiling, laughing, Vienna in one hand and a drink in another. It was Cub time. It was ‘hope’ time. Will this be the year?

Back in the day, there really was hope. A young all around athlete from Booker T Washington High School in Dallas was entering his first full season. He starred in track, basketball, football as well as baseball. In his brief appearance in the previous season he had only appeared in 10 games with 35 at bats. But he took measure of greatness as he banged out 2 home runs, a double and a triple, along with 7 other hits to bat .314. He really was the hope the Cubs had been looking for since Gabby retired. For the next 18 years he would be ‘The Cub’….’Mr Cub’.

I first met Ernie Banks at a game in Milwaukee. He was there, walking through the stands, greeting everyone, shaking hands and given a warm welcome even in the dreaded enemy city of the Cream City. But this was Ernest Banks, always smiling and instantly recognizable and personable. Shaking his hand he simply said, ‘Great day to play two’, sort of giggling and smiling every second and looking directly into you eyes.

What I remember most about that day was not just meeting him but the respect the fans in Milwaukee had for him, applauding him everywhere he went in the stadium while he was waving and smiling all the way to his seat, next to Cub fans who were simply in delirium as their hero was amongst them.

And it is a funny thing about this Hall of Fame hero. He never disappointed. Here was a man who had hit 47 home runs in one season. Here was a man who drove in 147 RBI in a single season. He was an All-Star in 13 games in 11 years (remember, they used to have two All-Star games in certain seasons). He was MVP twice in back-to-back years, 1958-1959.

On this day in Mesa, everyone was talking about how they got to the park that day and one said he had just flown down from Chicago where it had been snowing when he left. Now it was 80 degrees and he ask, ‘Where’s Ernie?’.

That’s what Cub fans have been asking for decades. That’s what bring hope to these fans who follow their beloved Cubbies everywhere. Now it’s time to …

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! 

In The Air

“I love playing this game and every spring training feels like the first.”, said Rickey Henderson. ‘People who write about spring training not being necessary have never tried to throw a baseball.’ stated Sandy Koufax. Harry Carey, the great announcer for the Cardinals, the A’s, the White Sox and the Cubs gave us a fans perspective. ‘It’s the fans that need spring training. You gotta get ’em interested. Wake ’em up and let ’em know that their season is coming, the good times are gonna roll.’

Everyone has a different view of how spring training is part of the most wonderful times in our lives. Spring training is all about hope. Today, it is in the 70’s in Arizona and Florida. The air is beginning to warm up. No clouds in the high, blue sky.  With very little wind, it is a great spring day. For those in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati, its a different story. And it it that which makes spring training the first ray of hope of the coming year.

Down on the 101 in Scottsdale, the sound of bats hitting balls, balls slamming into gloves is loud and clear. At Camelback Ranch, the same sounds are beginning to be heard. Twenty miles apart, the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers begin their training ahead of all the others because they will be playing in the first regular season series of the year…down under in Australia at the end of March while the other big league teams are reaching their peak of spring training.

Steve Earle probably summed it up best when he rambled, ‘I love baseball. I’ll probably be one of this old farts going to spring training and drive from game to game all day.’ It’s that kind of wonderful dream many desire and dream about but few achieve. Chasing that dream to see our heroes in the cathedrals of spring is never ending.

But that is what spring training is all about. It is now the season of hope. Now we know this winter of misery will end. Baseball is back. Our worries are over.

Play Ball!