My Summer of Baseball

How Cool is This?

In a Bloomberg article from Friday, Attanasio talked about helping make sure fans can still enjoy baseball despite the economy...

"While the Brewers will raise ticket prices next season, Attanasio said the cost of a bleacher seat will remain $10, the same price when he bought the team three years ago. In addition, Attanasio said his preference is to drive revenue with sponsors, not ticket holders, especially in a challenging economic climate.

"'We know that people are feeling the pinch and we want to make sure that we can get families to come out to the ballpark who are otherwise hurting a little bit,' Attanasio said. 'We feel it's a bit of a social responsibility to do that.'"

Oh, yeah, also cool news: We beat the Phillies today.

Oh, YEAH. Game 83, here we come.

What a Game, What a Win

WILD CARD!

There's just no way I can describe the feeling in the park today. 

The closest I can come to summarizing the excitement is to say it's 10:24 p.m. and we just drove BACK to the ballpark because they said on the news that the store had more Wild Card hats. (It didn't.)

But the fact that the store was still open - and was full of people - proves everyone in Milwaukee is just as excited as we are.

Since I can't do it justice, I'll just give you the win in Pete's pictures from the day...

 
The Crew turns the winning double play, and the team storms the field.

 
The fans go wild. The team goes even wilder.

 
Somehow it's even more joyful when it's a win against the Cubs!

 
The party begins even as we wait for the Mets score.

 
And when the Marlins prevail, the streamers and confetti explode.

Happy Birthday, Mark Attanasio. Happy Playoffs, Brewers.

How will we wait for Saturday!?!

A Grand Night

Tonight's game was incredible. Nail-bitingly painful, and then absolutely astounding.

I've never heard Miller Park as loud as when Ryan Braun banged that game-winning grand slam.

The first walk-off home run of his major league career.
The first grand slam of his major league career.
The first grand slam at all in the Brewers' 2008 season.

Incredible.

Pete was so excited, he was hysterically jumping up and down, and banging me against him in a rib-cracking hug. The only problem being, of course, that I already HAVE a cracked rib.

But even that was a hurts-so-good kind of agony.

Way to go Brewers. Way to go.

Go Yo, Go Cubs

I can't believe I just wrote "go Cubs."

Especially after I swore to a friend from Illinois that it didn't matter what happened, I couldn't, wouldn't, would never, ever root for the Cubs.

Go figure. They turn out to be keyto our success. And last night I actually spent much of the Brewer game watching the scorebord for our friends from Illinois.

How does that saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Next thing you know we'll be inviting Zambrano over to borrow our mound. Oh, wait, we already did that.

Anyway, speaking of the mound, I'm looking forward to seeing Yovani on it today. A little worried, too...he's just got to be rusty, and I hope everyone won't leap to judgment if he is. But it's great to have him back.

So go Yo, go Cubs. Can't wait for the games.

We Still Believe

In the middle of tonight's game, the jumbotron camera focused on a woman holding up a sign that said: "We Still Believe."

I'm not sure who was coming up to bat, but I remember that I looked down at him, and watched him look up at the screen.

Maybe he got a little inspiration from that sign? I wish it had registered more clearly in my mind...who it was and what happened next.

But it doesn't really matter except that it was about hope.

That's one of the many things I've loved this season: No matter how bad it looks, no matter how painful the last loss -- there is always another inning, or another game, or another season.

Or tonight, another at-bat and a hope (fulfilled) for a walk-off home run.

True, if my hope has to stretch itself thin over the next seven months to carry me to the possibility of 2009, it won't feel good.

But it won't make me stop believing, either. Not completely.

Ask any Cubs fan and they'll tell you from 100 years of experience: Hope is what keeps the ball in play. 

Hallelujah

It's about damn time. Boy did they need that. We all did. 

Can't say I enjoyed the bottom of the 9th. But I survived it. We all did.

Not a Win, But Not Terrible

Okay, I'm back. Or, at least as "back" as the Brewers are, which is to say certainly not at 100 percent, but maybe doing a little better.

Where should I start on tonight's game?
- Hate that the Mets are holding our wild card.
- Love seeing Fielder smashing the ball again.
- Hate seeing Sabathia get his first Brewers loss.
- Love seeing solid small ball from various members of the Crew.
- Have to say that overall, I don't hate seeing Sveum in the manager's spot.
- I sure love seeing Yount there in the dugout with him.
- Hate that we didn't win.
- Love that unlike many games of late, I didn't have to spend this one covering my eyes and cringing.
- And yes, I still hate the Cubs.

I'm going to go do what I hope the Brewers will do - get some sleep and try to be even closer to 100 percent tomorrow.

Curt Was Right...

...And I was wrong. There. I said it.

My friend Curt predicted that Torres was going to crack under the late season pressure. I raced to defend Torres. He stepped up when Gagne was falling down, I said. He's had some great games!

But...yeesh.

Yesterday we got totally routed, but somehow it didn't feel as bad as tonight. There was the thrill of the potential perfect game, even if it wasn't ours. There was the appetite to catch up. And there was NOT the humiliation of spending the whole game thinking we'd win, and then giving it way.

Torres gets the credit for that. That wasn't just a blown save, it was an obliterated, demolished, annihilated save. 

But Fielder, Braun and Hart have to take some knocks too. They sure could have helped...and didn't. I've stopped counting how many strike outs and pop ups we've had. I love Jason Kendall, but when we're counting on him for our home runs, the post season doesn't look promising.

We're only three games ahead of the Phillies now. Can we really play like this and hang on? Not likely.

Chasing History

Well yesterday was thrilling, but today's game was pretty painful. Getting pounded 10-1 ain't pretty...especially when it's because our pitching, fielding and batting all added up to a perfect storm of bad baseball.

That said, watching Chris Young was very cool.

I guess it might not be a popular opinion, but I love to watch somebody chasing history no matter what team they're on. Once it was clear a Brewers win wouldn't happen, I was rooting for Young.

He would have pitched just the 18th perfect game in baseball history. Now, clearly you don't want other teams making records at your own park. But how cool to see a perfect game.

And I was so totally proud of Milwaukee.

When Young finished the 8th, after Kapler's home run had killed the perfect game, Milwaukee fans jumped up and gave Young a standing ovation.

Young said in this JSonline article:

“That was really cool to see that, especially on the road...It shows what a great fan base they have here in Milwaukee. It was special. It gave me chills. . . . It shows the appreciation they have for good baseball.”

We sure do. Now if we can just have some of our OWN good baseball to watch...

It's Getting Pretty Trying Around Here

Am I the only one who notices the Attanasio-Suppan issue? When the owner's in the house, the Soup's not on.

Is everyone else disgruntled that we once again left so many guys on base tonight...and what's more, we haven't had a September win yet?

And, can we all agree that Yost needs to go throw some bats into the shower room and tell these guys they're lolligaggers?

As Hardricourt said on the JSonline blog during the fifth: "Guess they figured it was no use getting anyone on base because they don't drive them in. Why bother?"

Sarcasm aside, I'm worried. I don't think batting practice or pep talks is going to help at this stage. It's clear these guys are just trying too hard.

They need to chill out or they're going to try themselves right out of the post season.