The Strange Case Of Pauly

The Twin Cites is an unusual place. It is surrounded by water, so much so, roads have to go around rivers, lakes, streams and ponds in order for people to get to where they are going. It is so cold in the winter, you have to plug in your car to keep the engine warm enough to turn over the next morning. It is so Norwegian in one part that you have to love the smell of lutefisk cooking at the next door neighbor’s house and learn how to smile when waving to them, acknowledge friendliness and not the aroma. On the other it is so Catholic, hunting season is reason for a Mass to bless the international day-glo orange vested parishioners on opening day.

Then there is the ‘Purple’ thing.

In baseball, the tradition of the sport goes back a long way. It had the legendary Minneapolis Millers where the wonderful Willy Mays played. There was the St. Paul Saints, where they played at Lexington Park and won the American Association pennant 9 times. Today, the Saints are the legendary independent team that is not part of the new American Association, playing just 10 miles from the Major League Twins. What other town has a big time minor league franchise next door to a Major League team?

Baseball is part of the fabric of this unique community. Some of the biggest stars in the game have come from here. David Winfield, from St. Paul and a member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame, was so good, he was drafted professionally in baseball, basketball and football. He also played hockey. Paul Molitor, another native of St. Paul and a member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame, was a 7 time All-Star, 4 time Silver Slugger, 3 time batting champion and a member of MLB All-Time Team. Jack Morris, a native of Highland Park, was a 5 time All Star, 4 time World Series champion and the 1991 World Series MVP and threw a no hitter. Joe Mauer, an a native of St. Paul, still playing for the Twins, has a .328 lifetime batting average as a caters is it is the all-time mark. Kent Hrbek, a Bloomington native, All-Star and 2 time World Series champion, played for 14 years in the Show. But that isn’t all: Johnny Blanchard, Dan Johnson, Josh Johnson, Tom Johnson, Mike Mason, Walt Moryn, Robb Quinlan, Larry Rosenthal, Dick Siebert, Terry Steinbach, Brand Hand, Jack Hannahan, Pat Neshek, Glen Perkins among others.

This is a baseball community.

That is why it is so disconcerting about how they handled one of their very best. Paul Molitor, not only played for them, but has been their Manager for the past three seasons. In his first year, he took the Twins and won 83 games, a 13 game improvement over the preceding season and was in contention for an AL Wild Card until the last weekend of the 2015 season. Then in 2016, the team collapsed, with a horrible April and eventually lost 103 games. But this past season, the roared back with a 26 game improvement, the best in the Majors and won 85 games and the second AL Wild Card spot. In his three years, he has a 227-259 record. And now, after the season has ended, he did not have a contract to manage the team going forward.

He is ‘new school’ baseball. Upon his arrival in Minnesota, the team played a much more aggressive placement in defensive shifting. And this season, in Fort Myers spring training camp, he made sure his team would be at the top of their tame defensively. And he told them so. In other words, if you can play defense, you can’t play baseball. Defense makes every pitcher better. And that means, games are won, not lost. What Minnesota has now is a leader who not only understands the game more than most, he leads. And that is the main difference between his teams and the Twins of the past.

Former General Manager, Terry Ryan, hired Molitor but was fired last season after the disaster. Now Thad Levine, the present General Manager and the Chief Baseball Officer of the Twins, Derek Falvey, are thought to want to bring in someone they want. So their mediocre solution is to offer Molitor a one year contract. For Molitor, it put him in a no-win situation. If he accepted, he had to prove to the new controllers of the team he can do the job, year after year, and go on one year contracts forever. He is loyal to the Twin Cities. He is a native legend in the Twin Cities. Should he have said no and demand a multi-year contract, it would look as though he was not in step with the way Minnesotan’s do things. If he simply said ‘No’, then he would remain with all of the respect everyone in the Twin Cities believes he has.

The Twins front office should not have made this an issue at all. They should have re-signed him by extending his contract before the season ended. This was an exciting team which was a true reflection of ‘The Ignitor’ throughout his career. He is the Hall of Famer…Falvey and Levine are not.

The deal finally got done last Monday and the frightful Twins management signed Pauly for three years at $4 million per.

What we need in this world is less tension, not more. And we need to honor those who do a great job. Paul Molitor did a great job.

Play Ball!

Everybody Is Even

Photo Credit: © Lance Hanish 2017 all rights reserved

All of the fresh bats are in the racks. The new gloves have been broken in with weeks of catching in Spring Training. Now the marathon known as a Major League Baseball season is upon us.

Six teams begin today. The New York Yankees visit Tampa Bay Rays; the San Francisco Giants meet the Arizona Diamondbacks and the World Champion Chicago Cubs begin their season visiting their biggest rival, the Saint Louis Cardinals.

This is probably one of the most exciting days of the year. All of the hopes of fans everywhere is at its highest.

There is only one thing to say….

The Milwaukee Brewers won’t win the pennant.

A fan favorite, Scooter Gennett has been let go to division rival Cincinnati. The National League home run leader in 2016, was let go. An All-Star catcher and his defensively skilled back-up were traded. While all of this happened, the Cream City Nine brought in two new first basemen; a new third baseman and a partridge in a pear tree.

But, they got younger.

Yet they still have, through no fault of their own, one of the finest baseball players to ever play the game, Ryan Braun.

He is an absolute gem.

While rival fans love to trash him for his past problems with PEDs and of course his lying about taking performance enhancing drugs, fans of Pigsville, love this guy. He has a regime like few in the game. He is the consummate professional. At the plate, he is rarely off-balance. And he can hit the ball out of the ballpark nearly everywhere in the strike zone. His fielding and arm are exemplary. He is the last of the players from the great teams of the early ‘00s. He is their only All-Star left.

After ten years, here is what he has done on the field:
He’s played in 1,354 games with 1,597 hits.
He has banged 317 doubles, 43 triples and 285 home runs.
He has driven in 937 RBI, stolen 181 bases, walked 473 times while striking out 1,070 times while compiling a .304 batting average with an OBP of .367; a slugging percentage of .544 and an OPS of .910. On defense, he has 225 assists and only 47 errors (26 of which were in his first season at 3B) in 10 years with a fielding percentage of .981.

He is a six (6) time All-Star and did you know that he actually was #23 in the MVP last season?

In the history of the game, he compares with Hack Wilson.

At the age of 32, he compares with Lance Berkman and Larry Walker in hitting.

Is he the greatest player in Milwaukee Brewer history?

There is Robin Yount. And Paul Molitor. Cecil Cooper. Prince Fielder.

All he has to do is play another ten years and perhaps he will have number 8 up on the ring at Miller Park.

Tomorrow he will hit the field. In the meantime, as we said, baseball is a marathon.

It’s April 2, 2017. Now it’s time to

Play Ball!

There Was Still A Chance.

The chance was still there and it was in their hands. But as the manager made the decision to insert a rookie in his first Major League start, brought up in the September call-up from Huntsville in AA ball, to play first, it seems as though it was not in their hands. On one of the easiest 5-4-3 double play opportunities, the newbie could not catch the very catchable throw from second. Error on the 1st baseman for dropping the ball. It was discovered that his glove did not work. Thus the reason he is called a minor leaguer. The door opened for the Cincinnati Reds to pull ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers in the fourth-to-last game of the season and they took a 3-2 lead which they never relinquished.

This was an important game.

In fact, it was one of the most important games of the year.

The manager again did something that has eluded him from past mistakes. When this team has more veteran first basemen than any other team, why start someone who isn’t even #5 on the depth chart? The manager continues to make moves to lose, not to win. But it isn’t just the manager and his coaching staff that are less than adequate.

The veteran second baseman committed yet another fielding error when he failed to field a pop up.

Again, the veteran second baseman committed his second error, and the team’s third in the game, by making a wild throw to second.

The second year shortstop who brought us so much hope before this year, stayed on the ground rather than rush to the ball to control the game. A mental error.

The season ended at Great American ballpark on the banks of the Ohio River.

The catcher was left in the game to see if he could hit some sort of record double, again leaving the backup catcher sitting on the bench. The catcher, who has been attempting to get this double for a week, would break an existing record of a catcher leading his league in doubles. Hasn’t been done for quite a while. Let’s go after some records rather than try to win a game that could keep you in the hunt.

The right fielder looked tired. For the first time in his career, his bat looked too long…too big for him to catch up to a 95+ mph heater. In a season which greeted him with catcalls throughout the games wherever the team went, he progressively broke down physically at first with a hand injury and a hammy, a this or that which a season is made of. But this season, in an effort to blow all of the negative thoughts out of his head, it became clear to his loyal fans, he no longer was the player he used to be. The center fielder, playing with more heart and soul than anyone on the team gave his all, that Go Go spirit, played hurt down the stretch, and just hit pop ups, no more slashing singles turning into doubles as he had early in the season to bring him All-Star status. Scooter just hit shallow pop flys. Rickie, at bat, hit. In the field, he was not such a hit.

Why all the concern over a baseball team? When one follows a team and a home town with a team for most of their lives, an attachment grows. It boils in the blood. It reaches the heart. It possesses the soul. There is a bond of escape filled with moments of joy and wonder that are the adrenaline of the spot. But if you are a Milwaukee Brewers fan, if you are one of the faithful of the Cream City Nine, it has been 57 years since the City was presented with a World Champion in baseball from its team. Two owners. Fifty-Seven years. In dog years, that’s more than four dog lifetimes. It is almost incomprehensible that a team, outside of those hapless loveable Northsiders of Chicago, can go through such a drought with players like Joe Torre, Tony Cloninger, Roy McMillan of the old Braves and Cecil Cooper, Jim Gantner, Paul Molitor, Don Money, Robin Yount, Ben Oglivie, Teddy Higuera, Gorman Thomas, Ted Simmons, Rollie Fingers, Ken Sanders, Jerry Augustine, Sal Bando, Dante Bichette, Chris Bosio, Jeremy Burnitz, Mike Caldwell, Jeff Cirillo, Craig Counsell, Rob Deer, Billy Hall, Darryl Hamilton, JJ Hardy, Tommy Harper, Cory Hart, Mike Hegan, Larry Hisle, Trevor Hoffman, Geoff Jenkins, Sixto Lezcano, Mike Methany, Davey May, Bob McClure, Charlie Moore, Jaime Navarro, Juan Nieves, Lyle Overbay, Dan Plesac, Darrell Porter, Francisco Rodriguez, George Scott, Richie Sexson, Gary Sheffield, BJ Surhoff, Fernando Vina, Pete Vuckovich, Greg Vaughn, Ben Sheets, CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Yovani Gallardo, Aarmis Ramirez, Carlos Gomez, Zach Greinke, Ryan Braun, Jonathon Lucroy and a host of other fine players. Perhaps Fred Haney was the only real manager this City ever had. Most of the rest were losers. OK. Even if Bambi and Harvey didn’t bring us the World Championship, they did bring us near the pinnacle once. Once! That’s it. One League Pennant which was brought home when Coop did a Jeter.

There can only be one conclusion. And it is one that rips at the heart of everyone who cherishes Cream City.

It’s the water.

To many that is a sacrilege. ‘Go to the confessional immediately.’ they say. ‘Blastphemer’, they can be heard yelling. ‘Step on his face and twist’, they shouted. ‘Don’t say that. You’re making our city look bad’, others murmured under their breath honoring the guiding word of Sister Ramegia.

But consider this. When the Milwaukee Braves won the World Championship in 1957, Schlitz was the #1 beer. Enough said.

At one time the water in Milwaukee was great. Grandma would say, ‘Just drink from the tap. Its that good.’ City fathers would point with pride to their many beers brewed with the great water. There was Fox Head 400, Blatz, the city’s favorite (‘Blatz is Milwaukee’s finest beer.’), Pabst Blue Ribbon, Gettelman, Miller and many, many more.

But one should not forget what the native Potowatami’s called this special place, remembering that the Milwaukee area was originally inhabited by the Fox, Mascouten, Potawatomi, and Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) native American tribes. The name “Milwaukee” comes from an Algonquian word ‘Millioke’, meaning “Good”, “Beautiful” and “Pleasant Land”. That’s what many natives believe and they all follow the Chamber of Commerce pledge: ‘Never give St. Louis the opportunity to hold one over on us. They make rice beer…pretend beer.’

Yet there is a rumor, buried along side of Jacob Best in the Forest Home Cemetery that there is a piece of paper which says that when he talked to a native in Juneautown when he began to brew his first frothy drink, that the name ‘Millioke’ meant: land of stinking water.

Come on. Monks made beer because the water was bad. Boiled water with some wheat, barley and hops purified the drink. Have no idea what rice does to it. Never drank that stuff from the Mississippi River.

So kids, take heart. The former Brewers who make up a good number of the Kansas City Royals, escaped the plight of Cream City and are now in the playoffs. Congratulations to Nori Aoki, one of the best right fielders we ever had is tied for the second best hitter on the Royals. Congratulations to Alcides Escobar, one of the best young shortstops we ever had, is tied for the second best hitter on the Royals. Congratulations to Lorenzo Cain, one of the best outfield prospects we every had and is the best hitter on the Royals and the third best base stealer on the Royals. Congratulations to Dale Sveum, the Royals hitting coach, former Brewer and the best manager the Brewers ever had. Congratulations to Nedly Yost, a former player and manager of the Crew who almost did it, guiding the Crew to two winning seasons, their first in 11 years, before being relieved of his duties 16 games above .500. Sixteen games ABOVE .500. Oh, Mike Jirschele, the Royals third base coach, is from Clintonville. Doug Henry, the Royals bullpen coach, a former Brewer, lives in Hartland. They no longer have to drink the water. They are in the playoffs. The Brewers aren’t.

Play Ball.

But not in Milwaukee this post-season.

Fast Max

Dee Gordon was a joy to watch on Friday as Jimmy Nelson tried in vein to stop him from stealing second base. Not once but twice as he scored both times he was on base. In an interview, he credits Davey Lopes for assisting him in this extraordinary art of grabbing an extra base and forcing the opposing team to shift into another zone while he is on base. You could see him cheat toward second on each pitch attempt which forced Nelson to try to catch him off base time and time again. In one span Nelson threw more pitches to first than to home. When Gordon got to the grass cut approximately six feet off first base, everyone in Dodger Stadium knew that he was about to light out. And boom. He was gone. He had stolen on the pitcher Nelson who probably had never seen anyone like Gordon on first before. Wait until he gets to Cincinnati and meet Billy Hamilton (not to be confused with Billy Hamilton of the Boston Braves who ranks #3 on the all-time stolen base list).

In the annuals of ‘The Show’, there are all kinds of base stealers. Certainly one is ‘The Rickie’ Henderson as he stole everything in sight. But back in the day, there were a couple of other guys who flashed spikes better than most.

The guy who get much of the early century attention is Ty Cobb. He was just mean. Going into a base, he would flash his spikes like a knife wielder at a butchers stand. More than one took the cuts Cobb delivered as he slashed his way into the Hall of Fame.

No one every mentions Max Carey. Ty Cobb was, in the early days of the game, regarded as the greatest base-runner of all time and yet Max Carey (born Maximilian George Carnarios) had a better base-stealing record than Cobb. Carey stole 738 bases in 18 years of major league competition, an average of 41 per game. Cobb stole 892 bases in 24 years in the big leafs, an average of 37 per season.

H.G. Salsinger, in his ‘The Umpire’ column in The Detroit News August 12,1951, noted ‘While attending Concordia College, he adopted the name Max Carey when he played his first professional baseball game in order to retain his amateur status. The name would stick his entire career.’

He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1910 until 1926. He played his final three and a half years with the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers) before retiring in 1929. He managed the Dodgers from 1932 to 1933. He was also the manager of the Milwaukee Chicks and the Fort Wayne Daisies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. He entered Baseball’sHall of Fame in 1961.

Carey led the NL in base stealing for 10 seasons while Cobb led the American league for only six. Carey set an all-time record in 1922 when he stole 51 bases in 53 attempts. He still leads in the stealing of home plate.

The customers packed the ball parks to watch Cobb run bases but who ever paid money to see Carey run? And who ever mentions Carey’s name when base-stealing is discussed?

Milwaukee Brewer fans haven’t seen too many stolen bases since the days of Molitor. Pauly still holds the Brewer record with 412. Maury Wills less the Dodgers as he stole 490 in his career. Dee Gordon ranks #692 in all time stolen base history in baseball. It’s a long way to Max Carey’s rank on the list. But unlike Carey, people do pay to see him play and steal that base.

Play Ball!

A View Up Close

On of the delights of baseball is the ability of fans to get up close and personal with the players of the game.  During the years one can become fascinated with how a player not only performs on the field but how he presents himself, when seemingly nothing is happening and no one is watching.

Then just when you think you have seen a player being perfect, he picks his nose, spits baccy juice on the floor of the dugout and on his perfectly clean uniform. There are always the crotch grabbers and fixer uppers. There is an unnamed infield that always blew his nose in the right arm short sleeve of his uniform. Well it was a traveling uniform and not the home ‘whites’.

But there is one guy who honestly is above all of that. I first saw him when he came up. I’ve seen him in only two stadiums in my life. One was in old Milwaukee County Stadium and the other at BankOne/The Chase in Phoenix.

Derek Jeter appears to be perfect. He simply responds to things in a way you would think the Captain of the New York Yankees should perform. He avoids most confrontations. He smiles. He hits in the clutch. Rarely shows excessiveness. He comes back from injury by slapping a ball right up the middle. He is stoic in nearly every thing he does on the field. He is a gentleman off of the field. He has proven he is a champion. He is, in short, a hero.

That is the set up.

For many of baseball’s great players, we have placed them on the Jeter pedestal, one which places the player above any wrong doing. He smiles as though he is only smiling at you. He stairs at disbelief as no other. He responds to a strike out as if he has let not only the team down, by you the fans in the stands, and the fans over the YES Network and throughout the world via radio, down. And we all feel his pain. But as he walks back to the dugout, we feel empowered to cheer for him harder so he can make that pitcher pay the next time he steps up to the plate. You can literally see Derek Jeter transform from a mortal ballplayer into a champion whom we all know will be the real ‘Mighty Casey’ the next time at the plate or the wonderful fielder on defense. Remember, the play at the plate? You don’t even have to qualify that play. You already know it in your heart.

This past week, the Hall of Fame elected three great players. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas. Saw all three in their best days. Tremendous performers. Maddux was so good he could even convinced the plate itself that it was a strike that he had just thrown. Glavine followed Maddux. Thomas was as close to Babe Ruth in our era as we will ever see. He was big. He was powerful. And he was clean.

Why did we have to bring that up? He was clean? The other day when the  election was announced, most of the discussions centered around those who were not elected. Many have been placed into the PED barrel, either through admittance or through innuendo. It was at that time I read one of the most interesting articles I have ever read on the subject. It was written by Bryan Curtis. And if you are a fan of the game, this is a must read. (http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10261642/mlb-hall-fame-voting-steroid-era)

In the field of those who will be honored at Cooperstown this summer and receiving the sports highest honor will be one former manager of a couple of teams which won pennants. Nearly all of them were won with  a player or players who were heavy PED users. After you read the article above, if you are a fan of his and have held him on that pedestal, you all can say it is a lie. If not, you can ask yourself, ‘Why are we honoring this guy?’. Of course he may not show because he is rumored to be the next skipper of the Seattle Mariners. Suddenly, the Mariners have more money than a game developer.

Now you see the problem that was created by the nomination to the Hall of Fame. Very few words in this article are addressing the wonderful accomplishments of the three elected. Maddux painted the corners of a plate that at times got so big, his reputation became that of Picasso on the Mound. His brush was his imagination and an arm that could put the ball where he wanted it. Glavine followed Maddux. Thomas was a huge man who absolutely everyone in the third base section of the stands always began to drink coffee two innings before he came to bat for fear that a foul ball would be heading their way at over 100 mph. Thus one of the reasons why the best place to see baseball is from the first base side, behind the dugout, right down the first to second line (see above).

Derek Jeter. The Captain. The Yankee of this Era.
All Photos On This Page: © Lance Hanish.

Which brings us all the back to the Captain. As Ed Bradley, the famed CBS reporter told us back in 2005, as a child, Jeter’s parents made him sign a contract every year that set acceptable and unacceptable forms of behavior. Yankees scout Dick Groch, convinced the Yankees to draft him #6 in the first round selling them on the idea by saying “the only place Derek Jeter’s going is to Cooperstown”. Today, he may finish #5 on the hits list all-time. He has a chance of moving ahead of Paul Monitor, Carl Yastrzemski and Honus Wagner with a mediocre year. If he has a Jeter year, he will move into the fourth spot, ahead of Tris Speaker. He need 199 hits to do that.

Six years from now, when one Derek Jeter is eligible to enter the Hall of Fame, let’s not waste time talking about the injustice of why a guy who bet on baseball was not elected into the Hall. Let’s not waste time discussing why the ‘bloated one’ who pounded the ball over the fence as if he was filled with helium, wasn’t elected, yet again.

Wait! That’s it. They were all on helium. That’s why their muscles exploded overnight. That’s why the ball looked like a ping-pong ball. It was all about helium. Why didn’t the Commish think about this before.

Here’s to helium.

And to Jeter, getting into the Hall and having all of us talk about one of the greatest players who ever played the game and retelling others why he was placed on that pedestal,  deserves all of our recognition. Real heroes are like that. They have earned our admiration.

Play ball!

GM Needs New Glasses

Texas Rangers trade for Prince Fielder, one of the great hitters in the game. Ken Sanders once said, ‘He has the fastest hands with the bat I have ever seen. It doesn’t matter how big he gets.”

Seattle Mariners sign Robinson Cano for $240 million, a ten year contract, lifetime subscription to the Nintendo News and a good chunk of Jim C’s ad budget. Sorry, Big Mariner.

Curtis Granderson signs with the cross town rival, New York Mets. He gets $60 million.

Boston Red Sox sign A.J. Pierzynski, an aging catcher but fans feel he looks like Carlton Fisk.

Yankees, in anticipation of losing probable PED offender, Alex Rodriguez, signed Jacoby Ellsbury for $153 million to play centerfield from the hated Red Sox. Yankees hope to save approximately $14 million this year, but not on under the counter drugs. They also signed Brian McCann from Atlanta for $85 million. Yet, they still have no third baseman.

St. Louis signs Jhonny Peraltta, a former suspended PED offender. Unusual move by this squeaky clean franchise with a holier-than-thou image. Of course, this is the home of the ‘Gashouse Gang’.

Detroit signed Joe Nathan, pitcher for the Texas Ranger, for $20 million over 2 years. Now they have the best reliever in baseball to go along with the major’s best starting pitching staff.

Baltimore is thinking about signing John Axford.

Miami signed catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia for $21 million over three years from the World Champion Boston Red Sox. The team also signed Rafael Furcal, shortstop from the National League Champion St. Louis Cardinals for $3 million.

Houston signs Scot Feldman, a right handed pitcher for 3 years and $30 million.

Washington got a new manager, Matt Williams, perhaps the best third base coach in the game.

The Angels got Don Baylor as their batting coach, perhaps the best batting coach in the game.

The D’Backs lost both Williams and Baylor. They are stuck with one of the best managers in the game, the overwhelming talented first baseman and a solid starting pitcher and a gold glove right fielder.

The Rockies got Justin Morneau for 2 years for a total of $13 million.

Kansas City got the best left handed hitter of left handed pitching in baseball in Nori Aoki. Gives them a tremendous leadoff man who wears opposing pitchers out, often taking them 8-12 pitches into the count and rarely striking out, only 40 times in 2013 out of some 600+ at bats.

Milwaukee got a … pitching reject. Oh, they also are thinking about re-signing Cory Hart who has not played in a year and one-half.

Yet they still have the worst third base coach in the major leagues, a so-so starting rotation, a non-improved bullpen, an aging third baseman, poor throwing catcher, a hopeful prospect in left field, a center fielder who probably had the best season of his career, a GM who inherited a waffle full of young talent when he came into his job (Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, Braun, Hart and Vonnie) but has seen the team fade into another dream sequence of Brewer seasons past, and an owner who allows all of this to happen.

The fans in Milwaukee and Wisconsin are resilient and beyond loyal. They bleed Green & Gold, Cardinal Red & White, Green & Growing and True Blue Brew Crew. They drink beer, eat bratwursts and cheese, send their kids to school and provide plenty of milk, work hard at their jobs, go to Church on Sunday and root for the home teams like no one else. They hate the Bears, White Sox, Cardinals, the carpetbagging Braves, Ohio State and dislike those lovable Cubs. They also dislike Thanksgiving in Detroit. That’s why St. Vincent Lombardi stopped playing the Lions on that day decades ago.

These fans have heroes like few others. Johnny Blood, Don Hutson, Curly Lambeau, Bart Starr, Paul Horning, Jim Taylor, Jerry Kramer, Willie Davis, St. Vincent Lombardi, Reggie White, Bret Favre, Aaron Rodgers, Alan Ameche, Elroy Crazylegs Hirsch, Pat Richter, Barry Alveraz and Ron Dayne in football; Jon McGlocklin, Oscar Robinson, Karem Adbul Jabbar, Larry Costello, Al McGuire, Dean the Dream, Doc Rivers and Bo Ryan in basketball; Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, Billy Bruton, Johnny Logan,Del Crandall, Henry Aaron, Ken Sanders, Augie Doggie, Bernie Brewer, Jim Gaintner, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Rollie Fingers, Vuch, Stormin Gorman, Sixto, Benji, Coop, Ben Sheets, Prince, Nori,  Rickie, Vonnie, Braunschweiger, Jean and Go-Go in baseball.

Just 50 guys who the burgers of Cream City adored in sports, 20 of whom are part of yesterday and today’s Brew Crew. Yet only the last four mentioned are hopefully at the top of their game out of a line-up of 25. Another, Nori Aoki, who only played two years in Milwaukee after years in Japan, became a fan favorite, not because he hit home runs, but because he could hit and stay in the lineup with gripping plays and excitement that reminded more than a few that he was like the ‘Igniter’ of days gone by. He was the best left handed hitter of left handed pitching in baseball. And, he wore opposing pitchers out at the plate. He was just let go for some guy who the GM has had his eye on for a couple of years.

The GM needs a new set of glasses.

Play Ball!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Braunschweigered Aaron to profess his innocence.

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

“Lies are never innocent.”

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

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

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

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

We haven’t. We won’t.

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

Play Ball!

A Pall Falls On The City

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The pall is over the City once again.

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

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

Play Ball!

Sixto Fingers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Play Ball!

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