Back to Baseball

It’s Tuesday morning, and as I write this a replay of last night’s Brewers game is streaming behind me, a comforting companion to my morning. Like Bob Uecker himself – who’s announced Brewers games on the radio since I was three years old – my life’s accompaniment has always been baseball.

Except last year.

In a bit of bravado, on the heels of baseball’s moronic lockout that delayed the start to last season, I decided a year ago that I was done with baseball. And I was. After announcing in February, “Screw ‘em. I’m done,” I didn’t watch any baseball on TV except for a few game recaps, and I only attended five innings in person (at a White Sox game to hang out with my daughter and her partner).

This was a big change for me, and as I summarized last October, I didn’t really miss it. I found other things to do with my time, and I got lucky that the Brewers didn’t finish the season strong, sparing me the agony of having to watch my team miss the playoffs for the first time since 2017.  But I recognized that my baseball boycott might not continue.

A new season has started, and it only took four games for me to dive back in, purchasing the MLBTV package and following every Brewers game since in some form or another (a game recap, highlights, live or on-demand).

What led to this turnabout? Two things that I can think of:

1)      Major League Baseball, finally – FINALLY – enacted rule changes meant to speed up the game, something that should have been done a decade ago. It was a relief to check out box scores for the first few days of the season and see game times of 2:21, 2:32 and 2:57 (the latter for a high-scoring 9-5 game). This change was sorely needed. After enduring over a decade of watching showboating Ryan Braun step out of the batters box after each and every pitch to mess with his batting gloves, viewers are now treated to a streamlined game that transpires happily, neither rushed nor sluggish.

2)      Reviewing the box scores for those first four games was jolting for me because I recognized three names in the starting line-up. THREE! And I’d only been away for a year! I suddenly felt oddly disconnected from my hometown, no longer a native to Milwaukee, but an outsider. 

It was a combination of these factors, and the fact that the Brewers got off to a hot start, with three young rookies making an impact, that led me to spend $150 for MLBTV, eschewing the monthly bill that I could have opted for and cancelled at any time.  Nope, was all-in.

Two nights ago, I watched a spectacular 1-0 Brewers victory against the Padres, the only run being scored from a combination of a bunt single, a balk, a stolen base and a sacrifice fly in the second inning.  That was it for the night, and I sat on the edge of my seat as Wade Miley and Yu Darvish traded zeros through the seventh inning, and my heart raced as Brewers closer Devin Williams loaded the bases in the ninth and took Trent Grisham to a 3-2 count before obtaining a game-ending strikeout.

Baseball is back!

Life Without Baseball

There’s a running gag in the movie Airplane! in which Lloyd Bridge’s character, stressed out by an impending airline catastrophe, utters “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.” Throughout the film, he raises the ante, substituting “quit smoking” with “quit drinking” “quit amphetamines” “quit sniffing glue.” Fantastic.

At the beginning of the 2022 Major League Baseball season, I thought I might wind up in a similar state, as I had given up baseball despite the Milwaukee Brewers sprinting to a 32-18 start. 

Fear not, I thought. There’s still time.

And there was. In contrast to Lloyd Bridge’s character, it looks like I picked the right year to quit baseball.  After all, baseball quit on me and the rest of the nation in February and March, as spring training was postponed to accommodate whiny billionaire owners and whiny millionaire players while the rest of the country recovered from a hangover of COVID isolation, inflation, low-paid jobs, an attempted coup, disappearing lakes and rivers, and everything in between.

Good going, baseball! You are run by a bunch of morons.

In February, I wrote a blog called Baseball Digs its Own Grave and finished with the line, “Screw ‘em. I’m done,” uncertain if I would actually live up to the bravado of the sentiment. But I did. For the first time since I was a wee toddler, I didn’t watch any baseball except for a few game recaps and 5 innings of a White Sox game in early August solely to hang out with my daughter and partner who were looking for something to do on a balmy Chicago afternoon. I also checked out the box scores and standings a few times a week.

That’s it. Compare that to 2021, when I attended four games in Milwaukee (despite living 90 miles away) and watched upwards of 120 games via my now cancelled MLBTV subscription (after over a decade of loyal viewership).

In short, I followed baseball the way most sane people do: scanning a few headlines about the hottest teams and Aaron Judge’s historic home run pursuit.

I wasn’t sure I could do it, but as happened to so many people during the bleakest months of COVID isolation, it became very clear what I could live without. Not only could live without, but could happily live without. I did not miss baseball in the slightest. My evenings were spent playing music or taking walks or chatting with neighbors, and my visits to Milwaukee included record shopping with a friend, attending a lakeside beer garden, and enjoying a backyard barbecue. No $20 parking. No $13 beers. No frustration watching an anemic offense. No tearing out my hair as my team collapsed and failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2017 despite uncharacteristically high expectations.

Sure, I was intrigued when general manager David Stearns traded Josh Hader away to the Padres, but this intrigue was squashed when a subsequent move to improve the woeful offense didn’t occur. And after reading this fine post about some of the boneheaded moves (or non-moves) of management this year, I’m thankful that I wasn’t subjected to such incompetence as a passionate participant. Instead, I was able to watch things from afar, with sensible detachment.

Now, I know that there’s a cost to detachment. I recall October of 2018, when I attended Game 1 of the NLDS and watched the Brewers edge out the Rockies as I maniacally cheered, waved my victory towel and downed beers. It was a great evening (less great was watching that same team lose twice to the Dodgers, once in Los Angeles, and once in Milwaukee for the decisive Game 7). I know that sports can lead to wonderful moments. And that’s what’s at stake here. The possibility of being elated. Of being overjoyed.  Of screaming up to the heavens when the Brewers finally, finally win a World Series. 

That overwhelming jubilation will be denied me even if the Brewers do finally win it all one day, because I will no longer be watching with the passion I once felt. I’m not saying that my baseball boycott will last forever. It might not even last more than one season. I don’t know. But I will no longer invest emotion into Major League Baseball. The most I’ll invest is a mild appreciation for the sport itself, and $100 or so to attend a game with all the fixings.

A couple of albums ago, I wrote a song called “Put You Away.” It’s a good one, and the lyrics perfectly capture how I’m feeling right now: 

I
I've got to put you away for a while
Someplace I'll one day say with a smile
Or maybe a tear
This is where I kept my heart from feeling
Cuz I
I can't bear to feel any more
This is so much worse than before

All those little heartbreaks when you're young
They don't compare to what feels like a ton
Of trouble taking me down
All my passions turn to sure disaster
And I
I've got to put you away in a drawer
And remember how it was before

How you opened up my soul
When all I wanted
Is to crawl back into a hole
You let my spirit soar towards a future
Paved in gold

I have visions in the night
It seems so close I almost toast the cup in victory
Could this be really happening?
Could this be really happening?

Oh, how you opened up my soul
When all I wanted
Is to crawl back into a hole
This hurts me more than words can say
And still I know no other way
Cuz this is really happening
Yes this is really happening to me

So long, baseball.  It was a good run.

Brewers 2021 Wrap-up

They say baseball is all about pitching, but the 2021 Milwaukee Brewers proved that offense is also a required component for a legitimate World Series contender, as they lost to the Atlanta Braves this week in four games while scoring a sum total of six runs, including two shutouts.

These four games were sadly reminiscent of the four games I attended in 2021, when the Crew scored a grand total of four runs, losing all four games. Three of these games took place after the acquisition of shortstop Willy Adames, whose presence gave the team a needed boost at the end of May.  I like a good pitchers duel now and then as much as the next guy, but the team I watched during those four games was not a fun team to watch.  The offense was anemic, the baserunning and defense sloppy, and the overall excitement generated was subpar.  And while the Brewers surged during the second half of season, their offensive numbers over the entire season were, well, terrible. 

Milwaukee ranked 26th in batting average, 24th in slugging percentage, and 20th in OPS.  Defense didn’t help either.  The Brewers ranked 9th in errors allowed, 28th in double plays, and 21st in fielding percentage.

It was this team that somehow – miraculously – managed to score enough runs throughout the season to lock down the NL Central in easy fashion.  Their pitching staff was so good – ranking 3rd in runs allowed per game – and the division in which they played so mediocre, that the Brewers ran away with their first division title in three years.  Even offensively, the Brewers managed to score the league-average number of runs per game, but I don’t know of any Brewers fans who felt confident entering the playoffs.  Four game later, our concerns have been unsatisfyingly validated.  The Brewers’ pitching staff once again had to be nearly perfect for the team to even have a chance of winning, and in the playoffs against a good-hitting Braves team, this was an awfully tall order. 

The pitching wasn’t perfect, but it was solid.  What was embarrassingly bad was the offense.  During the playoff series against a good-pitching Braves team, the Brewers swung and missed at more pitches outside the strike zone than any playoff team has a right to.  This is best encapsulated by Avisail Garcia’s third at-bat in game four.  After swinging and missing at two sliders down and away, Garcia swung at the next pitch – also a slider – in the exact same location.  What made Garcia think that pitcher Huascar Ynoa – after having adequately demonstrated that he needn’t pitch in the zone to get a strike – was actually going to throw in the zone for his third pitch is mind-boggling.

This one at-bat sort of sums up a lot of the Brewers at-bats this season, and it highlights the concerns for next years’ Brewers team (and begs the question: will batting coach Andy Haines be returning next season?).  On paper, the Brewers’ pitching and infield seem to be in relatively good shape for 2022, with nearly every player returning.  These were the strengths of the team in 2021 (tough first base is still a concern).  But the Brewers’ outfield is currently bloated with highly-paid players who are performing absolutely terribly.  Garcia was the lone bright spot (though not always), but he likely won’t be returning to the Brewers next season.  Instead, the Brewers have returning Jackie Bradley, Jr., who just completed one of the worst offensive seasons in Major League history), an injury-prone and past-his-prime Lorenzo Cain, and Christian Yelich, who’s not even a shadow of his former self, garnering a shocking 1.3 WAR in 2021. 

How will the Brewers fortify the outfield with some offensive numbers?  There’s only one way that I can think of given that the team salary is already stretched, and that’s to make a deal to trade some of their stellar pitchers on the staff.  With the luxury of having three aces in Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta, very capable 4th and 5th starters in Adrian Houser and Eric Lauer, and excellent relievers in Devin Williams (albeit a very, very stupid Devin Williams, who used his pitching hand to punch a wall at the end of the regular season) and Josh Hader, I would not be surprised some of these guys were traded to bolster the offense for 2022.  We shall see what David Stearns and company decide to do during what will certainly be a volatile off-season, as players and owners hash out a new collective bargaining agreement.

A Devil's Baseball Bargain

I’ve proposed the following scenario to a few Milwaukee Brewers fans, but you could just as easily apply it to fans of the Seattle Mariners or Texas Rangers, the Jacksonville Jaguars, Denver Nuggets or Buffalo Sabres, or any other sports team without a championship. 

A person or entity of some kind approaches you, and – knowing your lifetime loyalty to the Milwaukee Brewers (or some other ill-fated sports team) – says, “I can guarantee that the Brewers will win a World Series sometime in the next five years, but here’s the deal: your team will spend the subsequent twenty years in last place.”

You don’t know how or why, but you know this person is telling the truth.  Do you take the bargain?

I’ve offered this question to a couple of friends of mine and have been dumbfounded that each of them quickly and unequivocally said no; they’d rather have a fun, competitive team for many years than to hit the pinnacle for one year and spend two decades in the cellar.

Me?  I would take the deal in a heartbeat.

I wouldn’t have when I was fourteen years-old and the Brewers had just lost the World Series in seven games to the St. Louis Cardinals.  After all, they’d surely be back a year later to avenge their disappointing loss, right?  Right???

Nearly forty years later, I realize just how fleeting successes are, and how you can root for a team – even good teams – and never make it to the finish line.  Think the Utah Jazz, the Tampa Rays or the Buffalo Bills.  Or how about the Atlanta Falcons, who let the Super Bowl slip away when it was in the bag?  Brutal stuff.  Tell me a Falcon fan wouldn’t change the outcome of that game for twenty years in the doldrums.

The Packers have won two more Super Bowls than I ever expected them to win when I was following them through the awful 70s and 80s.  But now?  It’s all icing, baby.  They’ve done it.  Twice in my lifetime!  If they spend the next decade in last place, hey, that’s okay.

The Milwaukee Bucks just won their first championship since I was three years old.  I was thrilled.  I traveled up to Milwaukee and hung out with my sister and brother-in-law, walked amongst Bucks fans of all genders, races and sizes, and I loved it.  But I couldn’t express unadulterated jubilation, because I didn’t earn it.  I don’t think much of pro basketball as a sport, and while I was very happy for the city of Milwaukee, the fans who’ve slogged through season after hapless season and the players who seem genuinely grateful for having won a championship in a small-market city, I couldn’t revel in the victory as much as the next guy.  After all, the Bucks game I attended earlier this year was my first NBA game in twenty years.

But I’ve earned my heartache with the Milwaukee Brewers, and I will have earned the euphoria should they ever manage to win a World Series.  They’ve come close to getting there – in 2011 and 2018 – and those were fun rides to be sure, but they were not the finish line.  I want what true Bucks fans got last week.  I want it all.  I want to be in the stands when the Brewers complete a World Series victory.

I’d be willing to spend a lot of awful seasons for that Golden Moment.  Hell, I’ve lived through enough awful seasons without that golden moment.  What’s a few more?

The 2021 Brewers

It’s that time of the year again!  Opening day of Major League Baseball is upon us.  I couldn’t be happier that a full season is – if not guaranteed – at least a possibility.  Rewind a year ago and things were looking mighty bleak.  This year, I fully expect to attend a few games up in Milwaukee once I receive my second vaccination and give it a few weeks to do its magic.  Can’t wait.

A week or two before the 2020 baseball season was called, I predicted 74 wins for the Milwaukee Brewers, good enough for fourth place in the NL Central.  They ended the abridged season at 29-31, the equivalent of a 78-win season, and they did indeed finish in fourth place, earning a playoff spot due to the expanded format and losing to the Dodgers in the first round.  Making the playoffs – even with a sub .500 record – was a minor miracle given the dreadful team batting average of .223.  Even Christian Yelich couldn’t put wood on the ball, batting .205.  I gotta believe that this year’s team, while not expected to be an offensive juggernaut, will perform better this season.  If they can, the Brewers have a chance to contend for the NL Central division title.

General manager David Stearns only made a few moves this off-season, most notably the signing of second-baseman Kolten Wong, which moves the poor-fielding Keston Hiura to first base.  This is a huge step up for the Crew, both offensively and defensively, though Brewers fans will likely cringe each time a potential double-play ground ball is hit toward Keston.  Brace yourselves for a few errant throws into the outfield.

The other pickup is outfielder Jackie Bradley, a signing that was likely influenced by the question mark surrounding Lorenzo Cain’s return to center field after a year off.  Bradley is a career .239 hitter, so I wasn’t exactly wowed by the signing, but the former Red Sox player is terrific defensively and helps provide insurance and flexibility.  He also bats lefty (as does Kolten Wong), allowing manager Craig Counsell some latitude with late-inning matchups. 

Stearns tried to sign Justin Turner at the hot corner, and this would have been quite a thrill, but for now Travis Shaw returns after a year in Toronto.  His batting average went up a bit last year, so perhaps he’ll return to 2017-2018 form, when he provided significant pop from the left side before struggling mightily in 2019, when his average plummeted to .157 over 230 at-bats.  Overall, this looks to be the weakest position in the Brewer lineup.

Otherwise, Milwaukee’s lineup is adequate. Orlando Arcia and Luis Urias will likely share shortstop duties, Manny Pina and Omar Narvaez will man behind the plate, and Yelich, Cain and Avisail Garcia will join Bradley in the outfield.  If a few Brewers manage to have career seasons, it could be a decent lineup, but outside of Yelich, it’s certainly not an intimidating offense.

The pitching also has some concerns, but again, if a few of the starters can have career years and if the staff can stay healthy, they could be effective, if not dominate.  Last year the team ERA stood at 4.16, good for sixth in the national league (but a full run behind the Dodgers).  Incidentally, the seven best NL ERAs all made the playoffs, while five of the six worst run-producing teams made the playoffs.  Pitching matters!  Luckily for the Crew, all of last year’s starters – led by Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes – are returning, though for now Freddy Peralta and Josh Lindblom have swapped starter/reliever roles, and last year’s core of effective relievers return as well. 

One pitching question mark is last year’s NL rookie-of-the-year, reliever Devin Williams, who posted a phenomenal 0.33 ERA as a setup up man for closer Josh Hader, and who’s returning after sitting out the playoffs last October due to a shoulder injury.  We shall see if he can stay healthy for a full season and achieve some degree of success.  Hader’s dominance of 2017-2018 has taken a few modest hits, but he’s still a hell of a good closer, and if he manages to make his changeup a more significant part of his repertoire – as he claims he will – watch out.

All in all, this should be a Brewers team that’s entertaining and competitive, though not awe-inspiring, and with Craig Counsell at the helm and a lot of match-up opportunities, I think it’ll be an exciting season that ends with the Brewers in the hunt for a playoff spot.  Give them 84 wins, perhaps enough for a wild card.

One final note: 2021 will be the first Brewers season without Ryan Braun in the lineup since 2006.  I could not be happier about his absence.