Midsummer’s Night Classic

It began with an uncharacteristic speech in the clubhouse by the star veteran who channeled the past champions to motivate his teammates.

Then the troops took over.

The 2016 Major League All-Star Game held in San Diego, CA, in the shadows of the great aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Midway (CVA-41), was one of the best in a long time. The power of the American League was evident along with solid pitching.

In the end, it was the strength of the American League or more specifically, the Kansas City Royals. In Tuesday night’s All-Star Game, Eric Hosmer of the Kansas City Royals was named the MVP after collecting two hits, two RBIs and hitting a home run. And his teammate, Salvador Perez crushed a two-run homer as the American League won 4-2. Mets manager Terry Collins, who was the skipper for the NL squad, had certainly seen enough. Always classy in defeat, Newsday recounted this story: “We said the same thing,” Collins said of fans having flashbacks. “I’m tired of seeing (expletive) Eric Hosmer getting a big hit. (Expletive) sick of it.”

It’s tough being a Met.

It was the fourth straight victory for the Junior Circuit and sixteenth out of the last twenty. The record now stands at 43-42-2 with the National League leading. The latest tie of course was held in Milwaukee during the 2002 game when teams ran out of eligible players in extra innings.

It’s tough being a Brewer fan.

Next year, the 88th All-Star Game will be held in Miami. And if you have never attended this event, it is a ‘Must See’ on your bucket list.

Play Ball!

Wily’s Gone!

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, under beautiful skies at Miller Park, Wily Peralta, the Brewers opening day starting pitcher, beat the New York Mets and hit his first Major League home run to gain a win. Today he has been demoted to the dregs of the minor leagues. Once the powerful hopeful, he is now twisting in doubt on a flight to Colorado Springs. It is the biggest of falls from grace.

The announcement was made Sunday morning. Yet it wasn’t even put on Milwaukee’s website. It was announced through the press. The Brewers have optioned Opening Day starter Wily Peralta to Triple-A Colorado Springs, per a team announcement. There’s no official word on a replacement, though veteran right-hander Matt Garza could be the choice as he has been making his final rehab start earlier this week. Garza hasn’t yet pitched for the Brewers this year because of a back injury. Many think that is a good thing.

Wily Peralta took the hill for the Brewers in their 7-4 win over the Mets on Saturday, striking out four batters and surrendering three earned runs on five hits and a walk in five innings. Given the way Peralta has performed in 2016, that so-so outing counts as one of his best of the year. The highlight of his day came as a hitter, as he blasted a 429-foot home run off Mets starter Logan Verett, his first in the Majors. But something was up when Counsell jerked him in the 6th, with a very limited pitch count. Something was up.

In 66 innings this season, Peralta had a huge 6.68 ERA, the worst mark among the majors’ qualified starters, with 42 strikeouts and 27 walks. His K/BB ratio sits at 1.56, puts him ahead of just eight other starters. Peralta was a more reliable option the previous two years, combining for a 3.93 ERA, 6.67 K/9 and 3.16 BB/9 across 64 starts and 382 innings. At his best, Peralta had a 3.53 ERA, 6.98 K/9 and 2.76 BB/9 in 198 1/3 innings just two seasons ago.

Peralta, 27, is on a $2.8MM salary this year and is slated to make two more trips through arbitration. However, with the new GM, it is possible the Brewers will simply non-tender him at season’s end.

What a fall.

Imagine, at the beginning of April, the big right hander was at the top of his career…making his first Opening Day start. That is an honor for any pitcher in baseball. Today, his career has crashed. It will take a lot of mental toughness to make the fall stop, even himself out and do the hard work of making the climb back up to the Show.

Today the Brewers have Nelson, Davies, Anderson and Guerra. Can they make it happen with this rotation?

So long, Wily. We had so much hope for you.

Play Ball!
#watchingattanasio

Flumoxity

Flumoxity? ‘It takes one to know one-and vice versa!’

Flumoxity….baseball’s way of flimflamming through nearly any and all problems related to the game.

Baseball is a simple game. It is apparently for simple people.

But for the men running the game, they understand more than simple people can understand. For instance, the Band of 30 (those not so simple owners of Major League Baseball teams) occasionally join together to make policy. They have regularly scheduled meetings in AAAA resorts around the nation or the world to gather, talk, dine and make policy for America’s pastime. They have no fear of any overwhelming governmental intervention because they are immune to Monopoly.

Yet these folks, when they gather, can do some amazingly mystical things, like what happened early this year. This was the year when a new Major League Baseball Commissioner was placed on the job. Rob Manfred, succeeded Allan Huber ‘Bud’ Selig. He now sits in a big chair in MLB’s Manhattan offices on Park Avenue, not the one in Milwaukee, where the Commissioner Emeritus sits as an overviewer to allow him to collect a handsome pension, far above the one he would have earned as a used car salesman for his father’s Southside auto dealership. But one digresses because of the love of the man who brought baseball back to Milwaukee.

Alfred sez: “Today, if you ask a car dealer to let you see something for 10 grand, he’ll show you the door!”

One of his first decisions Mr. Manfred made was extraordinary. Imagine if you will, naming Barry Bonds the head of drug enforcement for the ‘good of the game’. No. That has not happened yet. Or, he could allow Pete Rose eligible for the Hall of Fame even though he confessed to betting on baseball games while he was a manager. No, that hasn’t happened yet. But beware. He could do something curious because in one of the first decisions he made when he became the new commish was to appoint New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon as the Chairman of Major League Baseball’s Finance Committee.

That is not a misprint. It is in fact truth. Rob Manfred named Fred Wilpon the overseer of MLB’s money…as the Chair of MLB’s Finance Committee.

Alfred sez: “Most people don’t act stupid: it’s the real thing!”

It is a strange choice. Wilpon was on the financial ropes after he was involved with Bernie Madoff.

His team allegedly owes hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and there is a question of whether the New York Mets franchise has been properly financed over the past half-dozen years. Fred Wilpon seems to be bad with money yet he will be in charge of counting Major League Baseball’s cash. Who would have guessed?

It takes all kinds of Brass Junk Hangers to make a decision like this and actually say ‘Public be damned. I’m the Commish!’.

And that he is.

He has to, however, in order to earn all of that annual pay, walk a high-wire act to make the bad inferences all go away. He has been handed a Selig legacy of personal friendship between the former Commissioner and his friend, Wilpon. Selig used personal relationships to build his internal baseball political power base. Favors flowed between the various owners. Selig to former Twins owner, Carl Pohlad, who lent $3 million short-term bridge loan to Selig’s Milwaukee Brewers in July 1995. Contrary to a Major League Baseball rule, the loan was not approved by other team owners at a time that Selig was serving as acting commissioner while continuing in his role as president and chief executive of the Brewers. Coincidently, Fred Wilpon of the Mets said at the time, ‘It may ruffle some feathers, but it’s inappropriate and sad that people would attack Carl and Bud on this.’ ‘Frankly, I’ve borrowed very little money in my lifetime,’ Selig said. ‘He [Pohlad] was a friend. He was a banker.’

Selig and the White Sox owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, who was more like a collusion brother where they together made a pact to keep players pay down, have had an ongoing friendship. They tried to fix free-agent pay scale. That didn’t work. But they tried.

Alfred sez: “Blood is thicker than water . . . but it makes lousy lemonade!

Fred Wilpon and his brother-in-law, Saul Katz, the Mets’ other owner, had been fighting a $1 billion lawsuit against them by the trustee for victims of the infamous Bernard L. Madoff’s fraud. The trustee, Irving Picard, accused them of using illicit profits from their Madoff accounts to fuel their sports and real estate empire. Selig was pleased that Wilpon and Katz, who said they were victims of evidence fabricated or misrepresented by the trustee, tried to sell nearly half the team to raise up to $200 million and the Commish felt it unnecessary to step in to force them to do any more.

The owners trying to get in on the inside, guaranteed high interest returns, had invested some $500 million with Bernard Madoff, the ‘Don of the Greedy’, whose Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2008. After everything unraveled, Mets ownership didn’t even get the benefit of being considered “victims” because they had made more in fictitious gains than they had lost. By 2011, Wilpon and Katz faced a $1 billion lawsuit from Irving Picard, trustee for the liquidation of Madoff Investment Securities, which accused Wilpon and his partners of being reasonably aware of Madoff’s scam while investing more money into it. Now, in 2015, the Mets owners gained a legal victory with Picard and agreed to a settlement whereas Wilpon and Katz could pay the trustee just $162 million, a fraction of the $1 billion he was seeking. Thus, the two will be liable for far less than that huge figure because it has been gradually offset by their losses as Picard continues to recoup funds lost for the Madoff fraud victims.

Alfred sez: “Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!”

The Wilpon family’s burden with the Madoff liquidation trust is down to approximately $60 million. In negotiating this down, Wilpon and Katz quietly managed to sell some 12 minority stakes in the team, 4% ownership each for $20 million apiece. One of the alleged buyers was noted hedge-fund operator Steven Cohen. This entire endeavor brought the brothers-in-law more than $200 million. They also had to then repay their $40 million loan from Bank of America and the $25 million loan from Major League baseball. All of this must have made the powers that be in the MLB feel like Wilpon was some sort of financial wizard.

But never let greed get out of sight too long. It seems, while the Madoff victims will recover 57¢ on every dollar they lost in the fraud, ESPN reported that this was good news for Wilpon and Katz. They can now deduct 57% of their Madoff losses ($178 million) from the $162 million in gains they owe the trustee thus bringing their new debt to just $60.56 million, payable in two installments in 2016 and 2017. And, that figure will likely go down again before the Mets owners need to make the first payment because Wilpon and Katz agreed to pay a guaranteed minimum of $29 million.

Ain’t it great to be an American in baseball?

Alfred sez: “A lawyer is someone who writes a 40-page document and calls it a brief!”

One can reduce a billion dollar debt down to perhaps only $29 million or, for the mathematically inclined, just 2.9% of the total originally owed.

But what legal maneuvering giveth, morality and the gods of baseball taketh away. You see the team and the cable network still carry a lot of debt, even as the owners’ debt to the Madoff trustee shrinks. Just last year, good ol’ Saul was reportedly considering selling his entire stake in the team, leaving his bro-in-law just a minority owner. While Saul may no longer be responsible for his brother-in-laws character, Wilpon was still able to get the team in legal trouble over sexual discrimination suits brought upon them by a former high level single executive. But, who’s counting?

Alfred sez: “Nowadays, the perfect crime is getting caught and selling your story to T.V.!”

They still have more money troubles than that. It is reported that the Mets still owe money to two players that haven’t played for the Mets in 20 years: Bobby Bonilla, who has $1.2 million coming to him every year until 2036 and Bret Saberhagen, who is owned $250,000 each year until 2029.

Now you can see just how good a money man this Wilpon is. The brothers-in-laws have managed to stay afloat largely by borrowing against the skyrocketing equity in their 65% investment in S.N.Y. Yes, that’s the cable home of the Mets. You see, it has been reported that they have been using the local sports television network boom to stave off bankruptcy.

It seems very logical. This Wilpon fellow really knows how to handle finances. Thus, who wouldn’t make him the Czar of all the MLB cash.

Which all begs the question: What’s he got on the Commish?

Play Ball!

Alfred sez: ‘In retrospect, it becomes clear that hindsight is definitely overrated!’.

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!

Like An Empty Pizza Box The Next Morning

http://atmlb.com/1W6M06Z

The entirety of the old confines fell unearthly quiet. The home team’s dugout was complete with disbelief. Sitting motionless with blank stares of imminent closure was complete evidence. The manager stood on the second step of the dugout, set in a frozen stare before an ever so slight shaking of his head as if in shock.

With a 3-2 count in the top of the 1st inning on a Wednesday, October 21, 2015, there was no goat to blame…not Bartman to condemn…no rain as in the night before. Simply put, the pitcher put a pitch over the plate and a fellow named Duda smacked it out, over the vines in deep left center field to bring complete and total silence to Clark & Sheffield, where dreams continue down a path worn with grief and agony. The New York Mets defeated the home team, the Chicago Cubs on that pitch…in that instant…in that fraction it takes to smash a dream for another day…another season…another year.

The look on the young Cubbie faces were blank, searching for an answer to the more than evident answer. The long, long drought of the Chicago franchise on the North Side of the City would continue. Youth was destroyed. Pennants were banished. Blame it on Duda.

The vines began to fade along with the autumn somewhere between the 1st and 2nd inning when Duda drove in two more to make is 6-0 in 1 & 2/3rds innings of the fourth game of the NLCS. The only sound one could hear was the movement of arms-to-mouth for another sip of Old Style. And that seemed slower than usual, as the crowd was in nonbelief.

On this Fall evening, after the lights were out, the North Siders failed…again. This time it was the Metropolitans from the place where the Big Apple rises in center field who won in four straight games to win the National League Championship in 2015 with a score of 8-3.

Long live the memories of Tinkers to Evers to Chance. It didn’t happen when Baez to Castro to Rizzo played in their dreams.

Play Ball!

New Kind Of Tradition?

For many fans of the remaining 26 teams no longer playing the game that began when the pitchers and catchers reported back in February, this is the worst of bad times. All of the hopes of Spring have evaporated into listlessness of Fall. Those teams we almost hate are parading around on our television sets as if they belong in the Fall Classic. They are all pretenders.

There are teams in blue, not Dodger Blue, but some kind of blue based in the Midwest or in Canada. There are teams who rarely if ever appear in post season events, outside of baseball card shows, who are not front and center night after night. Much of the land has no team to cheer for, only against. There is no team left west of the Kansas/Missouri border or two miles south of I-70.

There are moose antlers, for goodness sake. Someone hit an apple with a home run. There are vines in an outfield, never seen before in many, many decades. And there are fans who throw Molson bottles and cans onto a field as if it were octopus after a hat trick. Everything about this year is backwards. Opposite of groundhog day, this is the nightmare of ’15, something we have never seen before.

There is a team participating where the second baseman decided to stop running for a pop fly and it proverbially, opened the gates to defeat. There is another team that hasn’t been this high since a guy named Bartman decided to become infamous.

In other words, this is one messed up season of the year as the marathon comes near its end while all of the favorites, except one, are participating in something which has become a traditional classic. There is nothing traditional about this year’s happenings.

All you have to do is look at the stands to see why this is a different type of post season. There are a lot of young people in the parks. Look at Wrigley. They have never witnessed anything like this. There are a lot of guys in the New York ballpark. Women don’t like baseball in that part of New York? Seinfeld in post season? You’ve got to be kidding? They don’t even drink regular beer in one of the parks. After all, its been 20+ years since real fall baseball appeared in Canada. Then there is the guy in Kansas City who insists on wearing an orange Marlins jersey behind home plate behind the batter’s head.

Yup. This is some kind of post season, kind of like being invited to a Thanksgiving dinner from that aunt you’ve never been invited to Thanksgiving since you were a kid and that was because it was your parents who received it and dragged you along, probably for protection rather than enjoyment.

Now all you look forward to is your aunt standing up after tapping that water-glass and saying, ‘What a lovely tradition’.

Egads.

OK. Play ball.

M*A*S*H In The Show

http://atmlb.com/1gDMJct

At this time during the season, some teams are just a M*A*S*H unit. You need to go no further than the Milwaukee Brewers. On Saturday, after throwing another game due to an inadequate bullpen, the hot hitting Khris Davis, the left fielder, twisted his ankle rounding second base. His replacement, Shane Peterson, ran into Ellian Herrera (3B) on a pop up in short left field, left the game with a bruised knee. As for Herrera, he had to be carried off the field and taken to the hospital which showed a deep thigh bruise which may keep him out for the rest of the season. Ryan Braun, the regular right fielder, could not play due to a continuing back injury.

Earlier this week, starting pitcher, Dave Nelson was hit by a line drive sending him to the hospital. He was back in the dugout to see Herrera take his place at Froedtert Hospital. Nelson’s battery mate, Jonathan Lucroy, has been in and out of hospitals from Pittsburgh to Milwaukee to figure out his concussion syndrome after taking one in the mask in Miami a little over a week ago.

But Milwaukee isn’t the only team to have injuries this season. And in no way should it be used as an excuse for one of the great flops of any season by a team that failed to improve itself over the off-season.

There are five teams left in the National League for the race to win the World Series. There are seven teams left in the American League in the race to do the same. All have experienced some sort of injuries during their marathon season.

So as the final two weeks of the season begin, the favored St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers, along with the surprise of the year, the New York Mets are winners of their divisions. The equally surprising Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates finished the playoff group in the Senior Circuit.

Over in the Junior Circuit, Kansas City is the only sure winner of their Division. The West Division of the American League is a battle with the red-hot Texas Rangers leading and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim along with the absolutely surprising Houston Astros all battling for the crown, all of whom are all contending against the phenom called the Minnesota Molitors (Twins) along with the New York Yankees fighting for the playoff spots. The solid Toronto Blue Jays are three games ahead of the Yankees going into Sunday’s games as are the Rangers in the West. It’s all in the loss column: The Yankees have 66 losses; Astros have 71; Angels have 72 losses and Twins have 73 losses. With a five game lead, the Bronx Bombers appear to have a spot in the playoffs. Now the other three fight for the final spot. All eyes will be on the West.

It could all come down to injuries. The Cardinals have been hurt this year and that is probably why Matheny has a full complement of roster players in the dugout and bullpen for the final two weeks. Pittsburgh lost their big, young Korean infielder, Jung Ho Kang, this week and has already had his operation in the hospital on what was described as a major injury which will leave him out 6-8 months. Toronto has Troy Tulowitzki hurting as he is making progress in his return from a cracked scapula. But will he make it? For Kansas City, Alcides Escobar and Omar Infante left Friday’s game with injuries. Houston has had it problems with the injury prone Carlos Gomez who missed the entire Rangers series this past week. For the Yankees, Mark Teixeira has been on the DL with a right shine bone bruise.

So, doctors everywhere? Begin what you call Medical Practice. The walking wounded are struggling to make it though the remainder of the season.

Play Ball!

Dancing Mets And The Polka Brewers

Dazzling!

They are New York’s second team. And there are plenty of reasons for that position. They are the Diamondbacks-of-the-East as far as ineptitude in making trades. While the D’Backs trade players away who have been, and for some become future All-Stars, the Mets are reluctant to trade to improve without including the Yankee-type head fakes and faints to get the majority of fans in their mind-set before they make a trade. It is the ‘trade dance’.

Then there are the Brewers. A lovely team formerly in pinstripes, the team from the Cream City dances the Polka. No Metropolitanism here, these are the beer and brat team of the Midwest. They have heart. They cry a lot. They leak out the possibility of something new in the bush when rarely does that exist. They never believed that ‘one in the hand’ is better stuff. Go for the unknown hope of the future…never for the reality of today. That just isn’t parochial. And if there is one trait the citizens of Pigsville are known for, they are and forever will be parochial. ‘Hail Mary full of grace…’.

These two teams were made for each other in trades. After all, Frankie Rodriguez came to the Crew via the Mets. But this is another year. And we have a few examples of this amazing dance as the Loveables attempt to fill the holes at third, at short, in the outfield and at first at the bane of the Brewers. They have good noses. They can smell these things. After all, they are the Mets. They have extensively scouted Jean Segura, the young shortstop of the Milwaukee Brewers who will be moved because of a bright young star in the bush leagues. Remember, ‘One in the hand’ philosophy? But the Mets have sent out signals, via the press, that they don’t like his ‘free swinging’. Using the press to push the price down? What would you expect from the home of ‘The Donald’. Segura has shown some upside and is young. Plus, he has three more seasons under club control. That makes him affordable. If there is one thing those lovable Mets like is ‘affordability’. It solves every question in a press conference. All of this for a guy who stole first base.

Moving to the waltz, there is the Aramis Ramirez dance, as the veteran Brewer third baseman is on the Mets radar. He is the one sitting against the wall of the ballroom. A notorious late season hitter, he is at the end of his playing career. But he still has some pop in his bat, as evidenced on Saturday night. But those lovable Mets have again floated a lovely head fake of ‘who would play where’ if Ramirez were acquired. It’s all so wonderful to see a fully orchestrated Metropolitan talk-fest prior to decision making. ‘Run it up the flagpole and see which way the wind blows’ seems to be a favorite tack out at a sea called ‘Citi’. After all, they would only be obligated to pay the last couple of months of his $14 million contract. (Let’s see, $14 million divided by 6 times 2…) He is the ultimate rent-a-player. They, through the press, let it be known that they don’t like his play on both sides of the ball (per Joel Sherman of the New York Post via Twitter). That means they really must like him.

While all this is going on, the Brewers have the Twins and Rangers looking at Neal Cotts; The Padres looking at Gerardo Parra, along with the Giants who have ‘loved Parra forever’ according to Andrew Beggarly of the San Jose Mercury News (via Twitter). They wanted to get him from the D’Backs but then Arizona didn’t want to trade him to a division rival. Note to D’Backs: you have no rivals until you field a winning team. The 2001 Championship is just a memory. The Angels are also looking at Parra. And of course, those crazy Mets have leaked out that they would like a left-handed hitting outfielder who plays in Milwaukee. Head fake!

Surprisingly, The Mets haven’t said anything about their bullpen. The Blue Jays are looking at Francisco Rodriguez. Everybody in need of a first baseman are looking at Adam Lind of the Crew including those Loveables.

Why all of this interest in a team in last place in the National League Central? Last year at this time this same team was in First place. The only addition since their collapse was Jonathan Broxton who has disappeared in a fog of ineffectiveness. Along with the acquisition of Will Smith who became a Brewer in one of the most despised trades in Milwaukee history (OK…Stormin’ Gorman to Cleveland was a doosey) when traded to KC for Nori Aoki, they also got rid of the numb Roenicke as a manager.

Point is, the teams who are chasing this year’s dream of winning a pennant and a World Series championship, see weakness in the Brewers executive ranks. The non-effective General Manger is in limbo as he is in the process of being offered the face-saving transition to upstairs where he will be in charge of Zoo Nights in August with the title of ‘Head of Whatever’, a title passed down by Harry Dalton in his quiet dual with Buddy Selig, the ex-used car ex commish. Craig Counsell is in line to become the next GM. The San Diego Padres interim manager, could succeed Counsell in the dugout. The third base coach would be replaced; Garza would be sent to limbo on permanent DL and all the world would be better in Cream City. Weak GM? Lower costs for players needed. The Mets love this type of upheaval.

That’s how the Mets play ball..err dance. Floating rumors and letting the pot boil with ‘what ifs’ and ‘why nots’. That’s the way those dizzy Metropolitans like to play the game. And their record shows exactly what a success that has led to. Of course, Milwaukee is not much better. Looks like a marriage made in baseball heaven. #watchingattanasio

It’s time to roll out the barrel.

Play Ball!

Happiness Is Links

When the play on the field is less than spectacular, fans throughout baseball can always smile when their mascots cavort. In a season gone wrong, for many it is only habit which keeps fans coming back. It’s hot out. The summer is long. Kids demand it. Moms and Dads everywhere seek the shade of the stadiums as a brief respite from the daily tasks of raising their children.

That’s baseball in many parks in America this June, the last Sunday of June, 2015.

In Philadelphia there is the Phillies Phanatic. The team’s manager resigned this week. What? A manager resigned rather than letting the team axe him so he can walk away with the monies that are owed him? Yet there is always the Phanatic…the one with the wobbly stomach whose antics are some of the best in all of sport. Many, this season, just go to the ball park in the City of Brotherly Love to see what the Phanatic will do on that day. They already have a pretty good guess on what the team will do.

In Milwaukee, they have a bunch of mascots. There is barrelman roaming the stands as the original mascot come to life. Bernie is in his chalet ready to make that slide in case this team is a memory of Harvey’s Wallbangers. And then there are the ‘sausages’…Klement’s Racing Sausages.

Twenty-two years ago, when the team was as bad as they are today and would remain until the ‘Prince’, Ricky, Cory and Ben would save them from obscurity and the misunderstanding of the game by the Family Selig, one of the team’s sponsors, Klement Sausage Co. wanted to put their product on the field as the ‘Racing Sausages’. If you were in the stands on that day in 1993, you witnessed one of the greatest spectacles in sport. Yes. Greater than the skier falling off the ski jump in the ‘Wide World of Sports’ opening on ABC. Yes. Greater than Howard’s call, ‘Down goes Frasier. Down goes Frasier’. The sausages racing in from left field to somewhere past the first base bag, had the crowd betting ‘ons ons’ on the sausages.

By the way, if you don’t bet on Polish this season, you are going against the house. It is named in the honor of Max Surkont who ate himself out of major league baseball during his stint as a Milwaukee Braves ‘sausageing’ himself beyond recognition as he dined on a number of them each and ever night. But I digress.

Back then, in the 90s, the crowd went wild. And well before the day of social media, everyone in the community began talking about it, even in the boardroom of Splinter Pickles where it was discussed whether ‘Pangborn S. Pickle’, the company mascot, should challenge Klements, another south side food manufacturer, to a duel in the sun. But alas, the Splinter board found out it would cost sponsorship monies and that deal was out. Their lawyer, the Grand Russ Pickel said in a statement, ‘No Dill!’.

Up in Little Chute, the executive committee pondered introducing ‘Jack’s Rolling Pizzaman’ and challenge the sausages. After all, they were once a sponsor of the pregame Brewers broadcasts in the 80s. But it was decided that ‘Pizzaman’ would be too difficult to make in motion unless it could be done on a big wheel. In the search for the perfect penny farthing, the search for a rider in a pepperoni pizza suit simply could not be found. Jim, who ran Jack’s and didn’t want it named Jim’s, said: ‘No Dill!’

But in Waukesha, the chessemen at Milwaukee Cheese were not to be outdone. The Swiss owner felt they could have a wheel of cheddar challenge with a cheese race of their own in the Fifth Inning, rather than wait for the Seventh. Always looking for a way to one-up the competition when it came to shelf space in the grocery stores, the cheese czar felt Cheddar could challenge Swiss along with Jack (the cheese not the pizza) and Havarti and bring the crowd to its feet. Preparations were made but alas, Klement’s had a non-compete clause in its contract with the Brewers leading advertising station and the head of that, W.T.M. Steve, said ‘No Mold’ to the cheese king. That was grating.

Thus, and to this day, Klement’s has been putting on a show, so great, that even the Cubbies on the North Side of Chicago have called them in to entertain their crowd from time to time. That of course is considered almost sacrilegious and some of the sausages refused to go down to the Windy land of chewing gum, gaining career applause from the sauced-up crowd in Milwaukee (Secret Stadium Sauce). After all, they are the Cubs. Well done, link. Well done.

And here we are today. When you stand for that stretch and the sausages are announced, call out ‘Polish’ as your ons-ons bet. Chances are pretty good it will win by at least seven links.

Remember, and now for a moment of silence, all of this began with the legendary San Diego Chicken. RIP, Chicken. The kids of San Diego are sad today because they will never see the legend perform in what led to that ‘thing’ in Philadelphia and Milwaukee.

Play Ball!

P.S. The Presidents in DC are not included because their team is a traitor and are leading their division. But Teddy’s OK. The racing big heads in Phoenix are not included because they have arguably cheated because they thought everybody was doing it so why not for the team that is owned by the guy who owns all the baseball cards. As for the Mets, they are not included because they are associated with the Big Apple in Center Field and because of their nearness to ‘The Hair’, one and only, ‘The Donald’. The Twin City dude is not included because his team is only a couple of games out of the lead. We’re talking losers here, folks. Nuff said.

In Memoriam

In Grateful Memory Baseball Award goes to ‘Youppi!’, the mascot of the Montreal Expos, as it was the first mascot to be thrown out of a Major League Baseball game. On August 23, 1989, in the 11th inning, while atop the visitors’ dugout, Youppi! took a running leap, landing hard and noisily on its roof, and then sneaked into a front row seat. L.A. Dodgers manager, Tommy Lasorda, complained to the umpires and Youppi! was ejected. Come on, Tommy. What were you thinking? Youppi! was abandoned as a mascot after the Expos franchise moved to Washington in 2005, but was adopted by the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens team on September 16, 2005, as potentially the first sports mascot to switch their allegiance from one sport to another, while remaining in the same city. Go, You ol Youppi you.

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!