Saying the Brewers and Cardinals don’t like each other is like saying, “The water is wet.”

Today’s blog post by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s regular baseball beat writer, Tom Haudricourt, states the obvious even to its title, which is: “Brewers, Cards don’t like each other.”  This is like saying, “The water is wet.” 

I’ve been discussing this for months now, with my most recent post about the Brewers-Cardinals animosity being this one regarding Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Nyjer Morgan’s “spitting incident” at Saint Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter after Carpenter swore at Morgan.  This is why Haudricourt’s blog post shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.  But Haudricourt’s blog is still quite insightful due to getting a number of revealing quotes.

First, Haudricourt started with Brewers pitcher Zack Greinke, who will start Game 1 of the National League Championship Series tomorrow at 2:30 PM CST at Miller Park in Milwaukee.  Greinke said, after being asked whether the Cardinals and Brewers truly have animosity toward the other team, this:

“Maybe now,” he said. “I think no one really likes (Chris) Carpenter. Besides that, I think (the Brewers) respect mostly everyone on their team.”

Greinke referred to the Cardinals’ ace, whose 1-0 shutout of favored Philadelphia in Game 5 of the National League Division Series propelled wild-card St. Louis into the confrontation of NL Central rivals. That comment drew an immediate and expected response from St. Louis manager Tony La Russa.

Here, Greinke may be referring to the way Carpenter acted at the end of the concluding game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals in their National League Division Series.  The Phillies’ big first baseman, Ryan Howard, tore his Achilles tendon on the last play of the game and was writhing along the first base line as he never made it to the first base bag while the Cardinals piled into the now-traditional dogpile in celebration elsewhere on the field.  Then, Carpenter was interviewed, and he either didn’t know that Howard had to be helped off the field (and could put no weight on his leg or tendon) or he didn’t care. 

None of this looked classy on the part of the Cardinals, though the media for the most part left it alone.

Back to Haudricourt’s blog, where the next person quoted was Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa.   However, because LaRussa is a very good friend of former Brewers manager Ned Yost (who was unjustly fired with only twelve games or so remaining in 2008), that might somehow impact upon what LaRussa thinks and feels.  You need to keep this in mind as you read the following:

“Very disappointed that Greinke would say that,” said La Russa. “I don’t know him a lot but I always thought he was a high character, classy guy. That’s a bad comment to make unless you know Chris Carpenter.

“Our attitude is we look at ourselves and we grade ourselves. And even if we don’t like what’s happening on the other side, it’s not our business unless somebody crosses the line.

“So, I think the Brewers should take care of their players and their comments and not be concerned about other players and comments. But, like I said at the beginning, if they had Chris Carpenter they would be cheering for him and believing in him and they would not allow somebody that was a teammate to make a crack like that.”

Haudricourt’s blog is full of information about why the Cardinals dislike Morgan in particular; it goes back to when Morgan was a member of the Washington Nationals, long before Morgan ever became a Brewer.  Morgan is a hard-nosed, gritty player with attitude and ebullience, and he isn’t shy about sharing what he thinks and feels, either (see the two “f-bombs” he let loose with in the TBS coverage during the game 5 coverage that I talked about here).  Morgan also is known for being a player whose behavior is right on the edge of what’s considered acceptable, as Tim Brown pointed out in this article from Yahoo Sports, dated September 8, 2011.

So perhaps it’s not too surprising that one Cardinals player, veteran Lance Berkman, opened up and actually discussed with Haudricourt (quoted in Haudricourt’s blog) what Berkman thinks about the Brewers in general and Morgan in particular.  

Berkman, however, was more truthful about the lingering tension between the clubs.

“It doesn’t just go away; it’s always under the surface,” said Berkman. “So, we’ll see what happens. It is what it is. I hate that phrase but that’s as good as I can come up with to describe it.

“I don’t want to create something that’s not there. We all respect the Brewers and think they have a great team. Taken individually, I think they’ve got some great guys. Sometimes, when you’re competing collectively, there are things that rub you the wrong way or incidents that happen.”

As for Morgan’s antics, Berkman said, “He’s obviously a passionate guy and intense competitor. That being said, sometimes that exuberance can spill over into a realm that I don’t feel is appropriate. But I’m not the czar of baseball, either.”

All of this is why the Brewers-Cardinals will definitely be “must-see TV” in my household, even if I weren’t such a big Brewers fan.

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** Note:  You also might want to take a look at Jeff Passan’s column at Yahoo! Sports, which discusses the Cardinals and Brewers in great depth with the understanding of the whole “Brewers are ‘new school,’ Cardinals are ‘old school'” dynamic that the national media is doing its best to portray.  (Me, I see the Cardinals, and their ace P Carpenter, the same way Greinke does, quoted above from Haudricourt’s blog.)

Odds and Ends: WI Voter ID Law Problem, Writing, and Nyjer Morgan

Today’s one of those days it’s easier to write about a whole bunch of things, so let’s get to it.

First, it was big news yesterday when a top aide to the Wisconsin state transportation department told the staff at the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles not to give out free IDs, which are supposed to be given out due to our new voter ID law, unless people ask for them.   State Senator Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, made sure to make this public as soon as he found out about it, and stated on MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation” with Al Sharpton today (Friday, September 9, 2011 to be exact) that he found this extremely distressing news and would be meeting with the appropriate people next week to get to the bottom of this.  I also know from my friends and fellow Wisconsin political activists that this will not be taken lying down; no matter what Governor Walker’s hand-appointed aide says, those IDs are supposed to be given out for free or that law should be called what it is: a newfangled version of the older “poll tax.”

That said, we also have a problem here with the Milwaukee Brewers, and it’s not how poorly they’ve been playing (though that’s not been pleasant, either, as this article points out).  Brewers OF Nyjer Morgan had a dust-up with St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter on Wednesday evening.  After Carpenter swore at Morgan (which he now admits to doing), Morgan spit tobacco and swore at Carpenter before getting ejected.  After that, Morgan took to Twitter in his alternate “Tony Plush” persona and poked fun at Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, calling Pujols a “she” and “Alberta” in the process — the reason for this apparently, is because Pujols immediately came to his pitcher’s defense and instituted a base-clearing incident that came whisker-close to becoming a brawl.

For now, Morgan is mum about it, which makes sense.  (See the most recent JSOnline article about it for details.)  All he’s willing to say is that he’s “glad it’s over” and that he doesn’t lie (the last in reference to Carpenter admitting he swore at Morgan), which is a good thing because what’s important overall for the Brewers is the entirety of the team, not just one player. 

Mind you, I like Morgan because he plays hard, he seems like an interesting character, and he isn’t “muzzled” as so many of today’s baseball players are.  He speaks his mind and I find that refreshing; I also don’t blame him for getting upset with any of the St. Louis players because there’s been some bad blood between the Brewers and Cardinals for years.  I don’t condone it, but I do understand why in the heat of competition someone like Morgan might go overboard.

Here’s hoping Morgan can do what Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports suggested yesterday in this article:

Those guys in the clubhouse who love T-Plush and love Nyjer Morgan more, it’s maybe a good time to think of them. They haven’t come this far to blow an Achilles’ trying to keep Alberta Pujols from tearing off their center fielder’s limbs.

(from further down in same article)

. . .  Morgan isn’t alone anymore. He has a franchise to consider. He has teammates who need him, as much as he needs them. He has a season to play out and a World Series championship to play for.

All of that is true and I hope that Morgan will listen.

And last, but certainly not least, I wrote 2300 words in a new paranormal romance story that has re-started after a nine-year lull because I finally figured out how to get it done — take it from a different character’s perspective, and this character just so happens to be an angel.  Before, this particular story was stalled because I didn’t have an older, wiser viewpoint in it; now I do, and it’s one I hadn’t expected.

As this is the first fiction writing I’ve been able to do in the last two or three weeks, I’m very well pleased.  Let’s hope I’ll be able to do more later this evening, and that the editing I’m about to get started on won’t shut off whatever it is that lets me write.