Watching Sports (Without My Father)

Folks, as most of you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, my father died last October at the age of 86. He was a huge sports fan, as am I, and I’ve been reflecting on how different it is to watch, listen, and read about sports without being able to talk with him about it.

Now, you might be wondering why this, in particular, is what I’m ruminating about. There are many things that people miss when someone they care about dies. But for my father and I, who were so different in many ways, talking about sports was our common denominator. We could discuss the various things like Brewers trades (he’d have not been happy about Corbin Burnes being traded to Baltimore recently, that’s for sure, no matter how good the two players are that we got for Burnes), Milwaukee Bucks basketball (Dad remembered watching the Minneapolis Lakers — yes, the LA Lakers were once in Minneapolis, folks — when George Mikan was playing, and after that he never stopped being a fan of pro basketball), the Green Bay Packers successes and failures over the years, and more.

See, Dad was up on current events, yes. But mostly he saw politicians failing to do their jobs. Or not representing the people they claimed to represent with any sort of humility, honesty, or integrity. Or just being huge buttheads for whatever reasons of their own…and none of that impressed him.

(Nor does it impress me. But I digress.)

And while professional sports has many things that are frustrating — the officiating, the huge salaries, the various strategies teams use when they want to move a team (such as the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas a few years ago, and the Oakland A’s wish to leave Oakland now for Las Vegas as well) — there are more hopeful stories there to watch, listen to, and ponder.

For example, in Milwaukee, Dad and I got to watch as Giannis Antetokounmpo was drafted as an all-but-unknown 18-year-old. He was raw, but very talented; we didn’t know it at the time, but he also was one of the bigger human success stories of the past thirty or forty years (at least when it comes to sports). Giannis grew up in poverty, and his family were undocumented immigrants living in Greece. They went there for the reason immigrants have gone to other countries forever: to live in peace, to strive for a better life, and to be able to raise their children in a more peaceful environment, too. But Giannis and his family had many struggles in attempting to become registered “aliens” (that is, known immigrants waiting to become citizens), including some struggles just to be able to leave Greece to be drafted by the Bucks in the first place. Giannis has said, fairly recently, that if he and his family had not been able to get visas, he wouldn’t have lasted a year in the NBA — not because he didn’t have the talent, but because his family means more to him than anything.

Anyway, Giannis has had the experience of playing for several excellent coaches, including Jason Kidd and Mike Budenholzer. Every coach who has dealt with him talks about Giannis’s work ethic, his values, and about how hard he works to master everything aspect. (He still needs work on his free-throw shooting, but he has improved somewhat in the past few years.)

Still. When he was drafted, no one knew much about him. We had no idea if this was just another of the Bucks’ overreaches, or straight-up draft busts…it wasn’t, and isn’t, and instead Giannis has become one of the best players in the NBA over the past ten years. He’s world-famous, and Greece, now, is delighted to claim him as a favorite son and citizen. Giannis has even played for Greece’s national team in international competition…talk about a huge change in circumstances, huh?

But this is only one of the stories the Bucks have had over the years, with the most recent story — happening before Dad died — being the replacement of Coach Budenholzer with rookie head coach Adrian Griffin. (I wrote about this at the time Coach Bud was fired, and felt it was unfair and unjust.) Dad didn’t know how Adrian Griffin was going to do, and he didn’t get a chance to watch or hear the Bucks in regular game-play. (I think he might’ve heard a few pre-season games on the radio, but pre-season can’t tell you very much when you’re dealing with a veteran team rounding into shape.)

Then, if you have followed the NBA at all, you know what else happened after my father passed away. (No, not ’cause of him dying, but still.) The Bucks replaced Coach Griffin, even though he had a sparkling record of something like 30-13, because the Bucks were not playing good defense. To be honest, the Bucks weren’t even playing average defense; they mostly were playing very, very poorly, and while they were still winning most of their games, they had to scrap and claw and fight at the end of the game to win too often for the front office’s liking. That’s why they brought in the next coach, well-traveled veteran coach Doc Rivers.

Now, Rivers played for Marquette, years ago. He was an excellent player, and his number was retired by Marquette (if memory serves). He enjoyed Milwaukee, and he said the only reason he decided to come to Milwaukee mid-season — doing something that’s almost unheard of — is because he really wanted to be here again.

Rivers, BTW, is going to be coaching in the All-Star game this weekend, something even he believes is bizarre and nonsensical. (He’s said so several times, too, mostly on the local broadcasts and in the papers and blogosphere.) He said he’s going because a) the coaching staff deserves it (all those assistant coaches get an additional paycheck, and of course they also get some more notice league-wide), and b) he believes Adrian Griffin deserves a paycheck. (I am guessing Rivers looked into whether he could bow out of this without adversely affecting the Bucks coaching staff, and wasn’t able to do it.) Rivers has said firmly that he does not deserve to be the coach of the All-Star game and I hope he does indeed send the paycheck to Adrian Griffin.

These are all things I wish I could’ve discussed with my father.

Mind you, Dad did not in general feel that the All-Star game was very important. He mostly didn’t want anyone to get hurt in a meaningless game, as he did worry about such things. (Too many Brewers, Bucks, and Packers over the years have been injured in meaningless games, whether in the pre-season or in the All-Star Game/Pro Bowl, for Dad to think otherwise. I agreed with him, too.) But this All-Star game probably would’ve been different, at least regarding Adrian Griffin’s situation.

Finally, one of the biggest sports stories since Dad died in October was when former Brewers manager Craig Counsell decided to become the manager of the Chicago Cubs instead. Counsell was the Brewers manager until the end of the season, and had said he would make up his mind after the season ended. We fans had been led to believe that Counsell would give the Brewers the opportunity to match any salary quoted to him by any other team, but that doesn’t appear to have happened.

Dad didn’t think Counsell would go anywhere. First off, Counsell was a home-grown player who had partly become a manager in the first place because the Brewers had seen his potential during Counsell’s last few playing years (spent with the Brewers). Second, Counsell had an almost unparalleled status in Wisconsin as someone everyone liked — they might not always like his managing, but they liked him. Plus, Dad felt that if Counsell did go elsewhere, he’d pick an American League team that didn’t play the Brewers very much, just out of common courtesy.

None of that happened. Counsell went to the Cubs, a team that’s just down the road; the National League Team closest to the Brewers, rather than a team further away that we’d not see much. Counsell also is getting paid a reported $8M a year to manage, which almost doubles his salary from last year with the Brewers. (Note that the top-paid manager last year was Terry Francona of Cleveland, and he made, I think, $5.5M. No one was even close to Francona; Counsell was probably as close as it got, else.)

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Counsell made a video for the Cubs — and no, I’m not going to link to it — that says something to the effect about how he was “born a Cub.”

That’s just wrong, you know? That’s wrong. That treats the Brewers fans like we don’t matter, like everything we did wasn’t enough, and it’s astonishing to think that a Wisconsin-grown man can do and say something that’s so tremendously classless.

I’m sure this is how my father would’ve felt about it, too. He’d probably have called Counsell a “Benedict Arnold,” and have been upset that a man who has worked in baseball all his adult life, who’s made an excellent living and has an even better retirement ahead of him no matter what else he does, would choose to spit in the face of the Brewers fans and the state of Wisconsin as a whole just for the sake of $3.5M a year.

Counsell is not a guy who’s going to lose his earning potential anytime soon, either. So this is not a “swing for the fences, this is the only time I’ll even get a chance at making $8M in my life” sort of deal. Instead, this was meant to try to raise the salaries of managers overall — Counsell had said something like this, a few years ago, and it’s been dwelled upon in the Milwaukee radio market somewhat. (It’s also as good a reason as any for Counsell to do this, but I digress.)

I’m all for raising the salaries of managers. They are underpaid, compared to the players. So are the rest of the coaching staff.

But I am not for treating fans as dismissively as has Craig Counsell. Nor was my father.

So, as time goes on, I’ll probably think of more things I want to talk with Dad about. Players will get traded, released, injured (though we never wanted to see that, and I still don’t), all that…new, young players will make impacts (such as Brewers rookie OF Jackson Chourio, one of the most highly-touted Brewers rookies in the last twenty years), too. Coaches and managers will change, as we’ve seen three times in a year with the Milwaukee Bucks, and also with the Brewers when Counsell went to take the job with Chicago. (BTW, the Brewers elevated bench coach Pat Murphy, an extremely sensible choice. Murphy has a sense of humor, too, which will be a nice change from Counsell’s laconic, stoic game summaries.) Other things, stuff I hadn’t ever considered possible, no doubt will happen, too.

Now, my whole family is doing its best to watch the Bucks, Packers, and Brewers’ various situations, as we all know Dad can’t anymore. (I’d do it anyway, at least to a point. Especially when it comes to baseball, my favorite sport.) I think this is our way of saying that Dad mattered to us — or, at least, that it’s my way.

At this point, I just hope my way makes some sense.

Dad Died Yesterday, Aged 86

Folks, this is a very tough blog to write. But I think I should. So here we are.

My father Roger was 86 and a bit — he would’ve been 87 in November on his next birthday — and was a huge sports fan his entire life. He loved the Milwaukee Brewers, the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Green Bay Packers, and going to the 1982 World Series with us kids between the Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals at old Milwaukee County Stadium was a highlight he’d talked about for years. (One kid would go with one parent for each home game, so all three of us got to see a World Series game in person when we were young. I think Mom went to two home games and Dad one; it was a long time ago, but Dad insisted he’d gone and he usually was right about such things.)

I had to start off with that, because unless you understood at least some of my father’s passions, you didn’t know him at all.

Dad also played the drums. He did not consider himself a percussionist because he didn’t read music so much as read rhythms. He did play cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, field drum, castanets, maracas, and anything that was needed when he was a member of the Racine Concert Band. (Yes, my family has had a strong interest in the RCB for a very long time, and Dad was a member for over ten years in the percussion section.) He loved music of all sorts, but was most partial to musicals, Doris Day, Kristen Chenoweth, big band jazz from the 1930s, 1940s, and a bit into the 1950s (bebop was taking over from the older big band style; think the difference between Benny Goodman and his orchestra and/or Duke Ellington and his orchestra versus Charlie Parker and/or Dizzy Gillespie.)

Another of Dad’s passions was old movies. His favorite movie of all time was “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” a story about an unlikely man who inherits a fortune, the newspaperwoman who writes about him (incognito), and about the efforts to strip his fortune by unscrupulous members of his family. Why did they try? Well, Mr. Deeds was an eccentric. He played the tuba, he liked to dance down the street and sing a bit (Mr. Deeds didn’t have much of a voice, I’m afraid; his tuba, however, did), and he was a nonconformist for the times. That was enough to get a hearing before a judge, to prove competency or the lack of it.

Anyway, Dad loved that movie, and I know I watched with him several times over the last few years because it’s a highly entertaining movie (what with the tuba playing and all). Jean Arthur was the female lead, and Dad admired her for Arthur’s beauty and brains and grace under pressure, as he saw Arthur in several other movies (including one of Dad’s other favorite movies, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”). He loved comedies like “Easter Parade” and “Calamity Jane” and “State Fair,” and of course he knew all the words to favorite musicals such as “The Music Man” and “The Sound of Music.”

Dad also was a man of principle. One of his favorite sayings was that government doesn’t work if the able don’t serve. He also pointed out what Samuel Gompers said, about how it’s better to be party to a principle rather than a principal to a party, though the actual quote is more like this according to a quick Google search: “It is not the party for whom we vote that counts, but our loyalty to the principles for which that party stands.”

Anyway, my father lived a good long life. He believed in family and cared about others, but couldn’t always show it as he was a guy from a time where men were admired if they were the strong, silent type. (Dad would admit he wasn’t that type, sometimes, but the Stoic nature of it all certainly was something he admired.) Dad was a member of the Lutheran Church, believed firmly in Heaven and in God (to him, God was most definitely male, though he’d not had a problem with me seeing the Deity in other ways as far as I could tell), and was mentally alert pretty much until the hour of his death.

In our last conversation, which was mostly about sports, Dad told me he didn’t think Jordan Love is the answer for the Green Bay Packers and that he wished Aaron Rodgers had stayed in Green Bay as Rodgers probably wouldn’t have been injured here (as the Achilles’ tear Rodgers suffered was worse due to happening on artificial turf). He was looking forward to the Milwaukee Bucks basketball season (starting tonight), though he didn’t like the trade of Jrue Holliday for Damian Lillard; he liked Lillard, but he’d rather have had Holliday and Lillard, and if he could only have one, he’d have kept Holliday. (That this apparently caused Giannis Antetokounmpo to sign a maximum-amount three-year extension didn’t really please my father. He liked to say that the Bucks needed five people on the team, not just one guy, and that compared to Wilt Chamberlain or even Michael Jordan, two guys who could and did win games practically single-handedly, Giannis wasn’t in that league. Of course, he also admitted that Giannis had come a long way and would certainly make the basketball hall of fame some day, too.) And he worried that the Milwaukee Brewers would trade their ace, Corbin Burnes, over the winter; while he didn’t think Burnes was as good this year as last (or the Cy Young year before that), he still felt Burnes was an ace-level pitcher and was needed, desperately, for the Brewers to be a competitive team next year.

So, on Sunday night, we had that good conversation. I didn’t see him Monday except once; he was not well, and I asked him if he wanted to be taken to the ER or if he wanted me to call the rescue squad. He said he didn’t want that. I abided by his wishes, went to bed, got up on Tuesday to go to a doctor appointment, and when I got back home, Dad had passed away.

Dad always wanted to die at home. I know that. But I still feel terrible about it anyway.

I also have to say this: Dad wanted everyone to know that he wasn’t a saint, just a man; he hated the idea of everyone being lauded as the most wonderful person who’d ever lived after they died (if you already thought that before the person’s death, that was another story entirely), and would rather that we remember his humanity along with the good times, the bad times, and the in-between times.

At any rate, I thought that I’d be prepared for this day, when it came, and I’m not.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

My Take on the Josh Hader Trade (One Week Later)

Last week, the Milwaukee Brewers traded their best player, relief pitcher/closer Josh Hader, to the San Diego Padres for four other players: pitcher Dinelson Lamet, relief pitcher/closer Taylor Rogers, OF prospect Esteury Ruiz, and pitching prospect Robert Gasser. This was an extremely surprising thing to do, because the Brewers were atop the National League Central division.

In other words, teams make trades like that — trades of their best player — when they don’t think they can make the playoffs.

That, of course, is not what the Brewers front office has said about it. Their take is, “We’re a small-market team, and we need to plan for the future, not just now.”

But the thing is, the players know this is wrong, for the reason I gave above.

Now, what do I think about the players the Brewers got in return? Well, Rogers is a good pitcher, but we’ll only have him until the end of the year, when he’ll be a free agent. (Rogers is not as good as Hader, mind. But he is good.) Lamet has already been waived; the Colorado Rockies picked him up. The other two, well, time will tell, as they’re both in the minor leagues.

But that’s not the entirety of what I think.

See, I view this as a slap in the face to the fans, as well as to the team as a whole. The fans want the team to do well; more to the point, they want to root for people they recognize. (A major trade like this, of a team’s best player, usually happens in the off-season, not in the middle of the season like this one.)

Josh Hader pitched for the Brewers for several years. In that span, he won three NL Reliever of the Year awards. He’s also a four-time All Star (meaning he’s been selected to go to the All Star Game), and as I said above, he’s arguably their best player.

So, the fans hate this move.

The players also hate this move, probably because it shows them that the Brewers will trade anyone — doesn’t matter how good they are — if the price is right.

Two players, pitcher Brandon Woodruff, and relief pitcher Devin Williams, said things like this a day after the Hader trade (best paraphrase from watching two Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel videos):

Williams: “Some things just don’t make any sense.”

Woodruff: “The first thing I thought, when I heard about the trade, was this: ‘Is this a joke?'”

That speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

Also, during last night’s edition of Brewers Extra-Innings (a radio talk show that happens after every Brewers game on WTMJ-AM 620 in Milwaukee), sportscaster Greg Matzek said that the entire team was still unhappy regarding the Hader trade.

(Considering the Brewers have now lost five of the last six games since the trade of Hader, that seems to be a reasonable assumption.)

So, my view boils down to this:

Ruiz had best be the second coming of Hank Aaron, for this trade to ultimately pan out. Otherwise, there is no point to this trade beyond a salary dump (as Hader was making the most of any pitcher on the staff at about $11 million dollars).

And if that’s the case, that’s flat-out disgraceful.

A Sunday Roundup: Cain DFA’d, Car Oddities, and Some Writing Achieved

Folks, I thought long and hard as to whether I wanted to write one bigger blog, or three short blogs. As I’m pressed for time, I decided to go with the longer blog…so, here we go.

The Milwaukee Brewers, my favorite baseball team, designated CF Lorenzo Cain for assignment yesterday (or DFA’d for short). Cain was an outstanding offensive and defensive player before Covid-19 hit; he sat out 2020 (the truncated first Covid year), came back last year and dealt with injuries but still showed flashes of his old form, and then this year he never quite got on track.

Personally, I blame the owners’ lockout for that. Any athlete has his routine to go through, and Spring Training is as much about routine as anything. When Spring Training got disrupted by the owners’ lockout, that meant spring games were not played; at-bats were not taken; players were not able to do anywhere near what they’d usually do for several weeks until the owners and players finally came to an agreement, and the owners’ lockout ended.

Why does that matter? Well, an older athlete — and Cain is now thirty-six, ancient for a baseball player — needs more time to get in the groove. (Maybe some don’t when it comes to defensive play, but most do when it comes to hitting, pitching, and fielding.) It seemed to me that Cain was doing as well as anyone in Spring Training pre-lockout…but after, he wasn’t quite right.

Cain was hitting only .179 when the Brewers designated him for assignment. Considering his lifetime batting average is .283, that’s a significant drop-off.

Cain’s defense was still sharp, for the most part. He was still an exceptionally fast runner, as outfielders tend to be (they need to, in order to cover so much ground). He was taking extra batting practice, and doing everything he could to get his hitting in gear…but it just didn’t work.

Both Cain and the Brewers were classy about this. Cain said it was “a mutual decision” according to what I heard on TV and via radio. The Brewers waited until Cain had ten full years of major-league service time (that day being yesterday) to designate Cain for assignment, making sure that Cain was fully-vested with regards to MLB’s pensions for retired players down the line.

As WTMJ-AM announcer Brian Dee said on the “Brewers Extra Innings” program after the Brewers game yesterday, “The Brewers did Cain a solid.” I agree.

I will miss Lorenzo Cain. His energy was infectious. He had a huge smile, and obviously loved to play (even in the last few weeks, where it seemed like he couldn’t buy a hit). He was smart, savvy, and did everything right, even when he wasn’t hitting. (He said he wished things were going better, making no excuses for himself.)

I think it’s likely Cain will retire. But if he does continue to play, I hope he’ll find his hitting stroke again and enjoy baseball as much as he ever has.

Anyway, now we’re on to the “car oddities” part of the blog. And it really is an odd story…so, here I go with that.

I was parked in one of the lots at the apartment complex where my Mom lives. That lot is dark after 8:30 p.m. in the summer (and no better in the winter, either; in fact, in the winter it is hard to see probably after 4:30 or 5:00 p.m.), which matters. And when I parked, I was the only person in the lot with a 2010 Hyundai Accent Blue. (Yes, this matters, too.)

When I walked out to leave, there was an identical car parked next to me. I only realized it once I got in the wrong car, realizing that I didn’t have an air freshener (this car did), that the car was far too neat to be mine, and the seat was also in the wrong position.

So, I got out of the car, and automatically locked the driver’s door and the passenger side door behind me (as I always do), after I got my hand-cart out of the back seat.

Anyway, I then realized I did not have my purse. I had left it in the wrong car!

Fortunately, the passenger side doors were open (as the driver’s side ones had been, too). I reached in, got my purse, and got the Hell out of there.

However…I left my cane in that car, and I didn’t realize it until I was all the way home.

My brother is visiting right now and saw my agitation over it all. (I hate being stupid, and I really felt stupid with this.) He drove me back to the lot, exclaimed about how dark that lot is, and said anyone could’ve made that mistake with two cars, identical makes and models, in almost no lighting. And yes, he opened up the passenger side door (which fortunately I hadn’t locked), and indeed, my cane was in that wrong car.

I don’t know what the owner of that car is going to think when they go back out to their car, mind you. (I have no idea who this is. Until now, I had no idea that anyone in the complex or among the people who regularly visit had a car identical to mine.) The seat is in the wrong position for them, as I pushed it all the way back. The driver’s side doors are locked, while the other two are not, and they’d left them all unlocked.

I considered leaving a note, but I had no idea what to say.

My brother said that I should leave well enough alone. If I figure out who that person is, I’ll apologize; otherwise, he said I should leave it be as it was an honest mistake.

He drove me back home, where my father wasn’t too happy over the whole affair. (Dad has never seen that lot at night. Jim tried to tell him, but Dad still didn’t understand how this could happen. At all.)

Now that I know there is another car with the same paint job (light blue), the same make and model, the same wheels, all that, I will look at the license plate before I get into the car. (Other distinguishing features of my car were unable to be seen in that light.)

As it was, my brother had to park the car in such a way — half in and half out of the spot — and shine his headlights on the wrong car (as I had driven my own car back and left it at home) before he could see well enough to figure out if the cane was in the car. (His phone has a flashlight. My phone with a flashlight was back at home, of course. But even his flashlight app couldn’t tell him whether the cane was in there or out, and he didn’t want to open the car door unless he was sure the cane was in there.)

I don’t know if anyone else has ever had this happen before — two cars, both identical in dim light, same make, same model, same paint job, and all — but it is truly strange. (Thus, “car oddities.”)

Finally, after I’d gotten back home again, and talked this out with a few friends who live overseas in different time zones (as my good friends who live here were all asleep, as they should’ve been), I managed to write one thousand words into a new Elfyverse short story. I’d wanted to write all week long, and the time got away from me…but I figured that as I was back, and was too scattered to edit, I should do something creative in the hopes that it would help me calm myself a little.

It worked.

At any rate, I will try to schedule time to write over the next few days and see how it goes.

What’s going on with you? Anything new this Sunday? How is your writing going, for the writers out there? Let me know in the comments…especially about the car oddity.

2021 Baseball Oddities, or, The Baseball Curmudgeon’s Rant

Folks, it’s no secret that I am a huge baseball fan.

I have followed the Brewers almost since their inception in 1970. (I was quite young, but I remember Hank Aaron’s final games as a Brewer in 1976.) They have never won the World Series, but they have played in one (in 1982); they have come close, since switching to the National League, to getting to the World Series again, but have not actually gotten there. I say all this to explain why I am so irritated with 2021’s version of Major League Baseball (MLB).

First, there are the rules changes that happened last year during the height of the Covid-19 crisis. These are meant to shorten games, which made sense then — but doesn’t, now, considering there is a vaccine — and they are profoundly vexing.

What are they, and why do they frustrate me so much? Simple.

It used to be, in extra innings, that no one started on base to start the inning. This made sense. An extra inning was just like every other inning, and of course no one should be on base when they haven’t gotten a hit or taken a walk or gotten hit by a pitch, or any number of other legal baseball plays that would put them on base in a normal fashion.

But now, there’s a rule that starting in the tenth inning in normal games that the last person who made an out in the ninth inning gets to stand on second base. If that person scores. it’s an unearned run against the pitcher.

That rule reminds me of Little League.

Remember, these are MLB players. They are used to the grind of a 162-game season. They do not need to start on second base to shave off time from a game now that there is a vaccine.

But that’s not the worst rule.

The worst rule is that if a doubleheader is now played, the game will only be seven innings long.

Yep. You saw that right. Only seven innings.

That means that the eighth inning is when that stupid rule about putting someone on second base who doesn’t belong there and shouldn’t be there happens in a doubleheader. It also means that someone can pitch a complete game (which up until now was defined as a full, nine-inning game unless shortened by weather or other problems) and only go seven innings.

This reminds me of preschool ball, before the kids even get to Little League.

Again, these are pro players we’re talking about, used to the grind of a full season of baseball. They don’t need games to be shortened to only seven innings, and they definitely don’t need to start putting people on second base if they’re going to insist on that stupid rule until the tenth inning.

As a fan, these things irritate me quite a bit, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. But I have one, final piece of news to impart that’s even more infuriating than that.

I walk with a cane. I say this because I am considered to be a disabled person.

How does this relate, you ask? Well, in 2020, major league baseball decided to change the name of the list of players who can’t play from the disabled list (DL) to the injured list (IL).

Did they really think I can’t tell the difference between me, a truly disabled person, and someone who went on the DL?

To my mind, changing it was the height of political correctness. And it did not need to be done, at all.

So, to reiterate: we now have three different changes in MLB since last year. None of them make any sense in 2021. I definitely do not like any of them. And I wish they’d change them back.

P.S. The other night, I was frustrated when the Brewers lost, 6-1, in 11 innings to the St. Louis Cardinals. My mother and I had watched the game in its entirety together. The announcers, who were fill-ins from the usual pair of Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder, didn’t seem to understand that we and other fans had actually watched the whole game, and reiterated that the Cards had scored five runs in the top of the 11th several times before we even got to the bottom of the 11th.

I actually wrote in to the Brewers Facebook page to say how upsetting this was to both me and my mother.

I mean, I can count to five. Can’t everyone?

Remembering Henry Aaron

Last Friday morning, baseball Hall of Fame great Henry “Hank” Aaron passed away in his sleep. Aaron was many things in his lifetime: a phenomenal player, a good husband, a wonderful father, a great friend, and possibly most of all a humanitarian.

I never met Aaron, personally, but I remember going to one of his last games when I was quite young. This was in 1976. Aaron was 42 years old and a designated hitter for my hometown Milwaukee Brewers team, and it was cold, a bit rainy, and windy…when Aaron hit the ball over the fence, no one was sure if he had hit it fair or foul. To me, where I was, it looked fair. (No instant replay in the stadiums, back then.) But the umpire called it foul (no way to challenge that, back then, either), and that was that.

Aaron already had 755 home runs at that point, making him at that time the greatest home-run hitter in Major League Baseball history. But that near-miss home run is what sticks with me, mostly because Aaron didn’t complain. He didn’t yell at the umpire. He may have shaken his head a little, but he went back into the batter’s box and finished up his at-bat. (I think he struck out.)

Put simply, Henry Aaron was a class act.

Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote an article today about a service held in Atlanta earlier today, where many different people spoke. (Some spoke by Zoom, some by recorded messages, and a few in person, as is proper during a pandemic.) Here’s one of the salient quotes from that article from Atlanta Braves chairman Terry McGuirk:

“He will always be known as our home run king,” McGuirk said. “For our organization, Hank was much more than those stats, much more than the greatest ballplayer of all time. He helped guide our organization ever since his playing days ended.

“Doing things the right way was one of his mantras. The saying on the front of today’s program, which is also on one of the pillars here, reads, ‘What you do with your life and how you do it, is not only a reflection on you, but on your family and all those institutions that have helped make you who you are.’”

I think that quote sums up what most of us are trying to understand in this lifetime. Think about it a little bit: “What you do with your life and how you do it is not only a reflection on you, but on your family and all those institutions that have helped make you who you are.” This, in one pithy saying, gets to the heart of the matter: we are who we are because of what we’ve learned, because of the people we’ve come into contact with, and because of our own efforts (the phrase “have helped make you who you are” is key in that).

Henry Aaron was 86, and lived a good, long, honorable life. He was a tremendous player — even in 1976, his final year as a player, it was obvious that everyone on the field had great respect for him. The stats can’t possibly show his value and worth as a human being, though…only those who knew him, and of his philanthropic nature, and of his wish to lift others up as he, himself, had been lifted along the way, can fully know that.

But what I know is this: We lost a wonderful person when Henry Aaron passed away.

We truly did.

Now, all we can do is remember his mantra (as stated, above, by McGuirk) and live every day the best way we can. (Or, to go back to my blog about the John Wesley saying, “Do all the good you can, for as long as you can, for as many you can.” That’s my paraphrase, but I hope it works.)

And if you’re able, do one small thing every day to better someone else’s life…just ’cause it’s the right thing to do. I think Henry Aaron would approve of that — and I, myself, definitely do.

When Life Is Like Baseball

Folks, if you’ve read my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I am a baseball fan. (My Milwaukee Brewers jersey, worn in the picture I put in the “About” section, kind of gives it away.) And while I haven’t written much about baseball in recent years, that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped watching it.

Or learning from it, either.

Yesterday evening, the Brewers played the Washington Nationals in the National League Wild-Card play-in game. This is a one-game playoff, and whichever team wins the game advances.

My Brewers did not advance.

Now, they were ahead until the bottom of the 8th inning. (One inning away from winning the game, if you’re not a baseball fan.) But at that time, three pivotal events happened:

1. Home plate ump called a hit-by-pitch instead of a batted ball when the ball clearly hit the knob of the bat of the hitter rather than any part of the hitter’s hand. And when the Brewers complained, and asked for a replay, the umps doing replay didn’t fix the call.

   Had that call been a batted ball (inadvertent, but still), that runner would’ve been out. Instead, the runner was awarded first base, and that ultimately mattered because…

   2. Josh Hader, the Brewers bullpen ace (and “closer,” meaning he finishes games and usually shuts down opposing hitters cold), did not have his best stuff. He was missing the locations catcher Yasmani Grandal was asking for that Hader normally would’ve hit…and Hader was clearly rattled by the ump’s bad call, too. And that led to the bases being loaded, which led to…

   3. Hader gives up a single to Juan Soto of the Nationals. Soto’s ball went to right field, where Brewers OF Trent Grisham waited. However, the ball got past Grisham (somehow), meaning three runs scored rather than one, or two. (Probably two runs would’ve scored there no matter what, but for the sake of argument, you could say it was possible that had Grisham fielded the ball properly, he could’ve thrown out the second runner at home.)

   This error was costly.

   Check that. Beyond costly.

And after all that happened, instead of the Brewers leading, 3-1, as they had at the beginning of the inning, they now trailed, 4-3. And they weren’t able to muster a rally in the ninth and climactic inning, though OF Lorenzo Cain singled with one out. (This meant the tying run was aboard, but was unable to score.)

Game over.

But that doesn’t mean the season was a waste. Far, far from it.

The Brewers season was good this year. They had ups and downs. They could be streaky. They lost their best player, NL MVP Christian Yelich, at the beginning of September. Several of their other best players, such as former NL MVP Ryan Braun, Lo Cain, Keston Hiura, and Mike Moustakas, were battling through injuries. And they still kept going, and made an improbable run in September (going 20-7) to get to the Wild-Card Game at all.

Persistence, grit, and heart in action. It was fun to watch them overcome so much adversity in September.

That said, this was a disappointing loss. It hurt, as a fan, to watch it. And I’m sure the players didn’t enjoy it either, most especially not Grisham and Hader.

Now, the title of this blog is, “When Life Is Like Baseball.” So you might be wondering, “Barb, what on Earth are you going on about, nattering about the Brewers game? They lost. So what?”

Well, life is like this, too. You try, and try, and try again, and sometimes you make errors. Sometimes you get bad calls, where you did everything right, but the person in charge feels you still did it wrong…and sometimes, your best play (or player) is going to let you down, because that’s what the law of averages is all about.

No one wants to make a critical error in a one-and-done situation like Grisham did, mind. And no one wants to blow a save at the worst possible time, as Hader did.

Sometimes, you are going to make your best effort, and still lose. This doesn’t mean that you should stop trying, but it does mean you have to learn from your mistakes.

You have to keep going, though. Despite disappointment. Despite adversity. Despite setbacks.

You have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and sometimes you have to wait a long time to “get a bit of your own back.” (Or better yet, just live well and let that be the best revenge. Or in the Brewers case, play well.)

But you can do it. No matter what the adversity, setback, or disappointment, you can do it if you learn from your mistakes, you keep on trying, and you make your best effort every day.

I firmly believe that. And I hope you do, too.

Former Brewers Coach, Broadcaster Davey Nelson dies at 73

Earlier today, I found out that former Brewers coach and broadcaster Davey Nelson died on Sunday at age 73. And that made me feel awful.

Why?

Well, even though I never met Davey Nelson in person — and yes, he was always “Davey,” with the -y ending — he was an extremely positive person who lit up the room anywhere he went. And he could seemingly find the silver lining even to the worst game, even if it was just “no one got injured today.”

(That’s my quote, not his. Davey would’ve undoubtedly put it a much different way.)

There are some people who transcend sports because they have huge hearts and make a positive difference in as many ways as possible. Davey Nelson was one of those people without a shadow of a doubt. Adam McCalvy’s article (Brewers beat writer for MLB.com) quoted Brewers Chief Operations Officer Rick Schlesinger as saying, “Davey took every opportunity to turn a casual introduction into a lifelong relationship, and his legacy will live on in the positive impact he had on the lives of so many people. Davey’s love of life and commitment to helping those in need were second to none, and we are so grateful for the time that we had with him. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and all of those who loved him.”

I wish I had met Davey Nelson in person, mind. He was known for encouraging people. And even when he must’ve suffered setbacks — as I seem to recall him saying once, during a rain delay years ago, that he wished he could’ve played longer (though he was happy with what he did while he was there — see his stats, and you’ll know why) — he found a way to make you feel better.

That was one of his main talents.

Player after player have made statements on Twitter and elsewhere stating how influential, positive, and just plain good a person Davey Nelson was. And how much he will be missed.

As have broadcasters. And well-known sportswriters.

Still, what I will remember about Davey Nelson was his very strong belief that people matter. Not just in baseball, either…people, period.

That’s why he got involved with Open Arms for Children in South Africa. And was friends with the director of that organization for over twenty-five years. And met numerous children, whom he inspired…and who helped to inspire him as well.

And at the end of his life, as Adam McCalvy pointed out in his article, Davey’s TV and baseball family stepped up.

That, too, is a wonderful tribute, though I’m sure all those folks don’t see it that way now — and may not, ever.

All I know is, I will miss Davey Nelson. He was a very good man. He made other people around him feel better, and encouraged them to be their best selves.

There aren’t many people like that in this world.

Tough Day to be a Brewers Fan…Lucroy, Jeffress, Smith Traded

Some days, it’s harder than others to be a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers.

My team has never, in its forty-six year history, won the World Series. It’s won only one league championship, back in 1982 — when the team was still in the American League. It’s competed only a handful of times in the postseason, including 1981, 1982, and 1983 (banner years, truly), 2008, and 2011.

That’s been about it, for me as a Brewers fan.

So I’m used to futility. I’m used to frustration. And I’m used to the best players I’ve come to know and appreciate ending up on better teams around the league, as only a few players these days play their entire careers in Milwaukee or anywhere else.

Still, today is a worse day than many, because the Brewers have done something teams rarely do — on August 1, 2016, Milwaukee traded their starting catcher, Jonathan Lucroy, their closer, Jeremy Jeffress, and one of their best bullpen arms in Will Smith away to two different teams. Lucroy and Jeffress went to the Texas Rangers, while Smith went to the San Francisco Giants. And what did the Brewers get back? Prospects…with one exception. (And that one exception, former Giant catcher Andrew Susac, has played fewer than 100 games in the major leagues.)

Up until now, the Brewers have been better than expected. While not a world-beating team by any means, they haven’t been embarrassing, either. They’re currently five games over .500 while home at Miller Park, and their overall record is 47-56.

In fact, a few weeks ago, my father asked me, “How many more games do you think the Brewers can win?” My answer was between thirty-five and forty, as they’d been improving lately…providing Jonathan Lucroy and Ryan Braun were not traded. (I would’ve included Jeremy Jeffress in that, but trading a closer at the deadline that’s still extremely productive is almost rarer than trading a starting catcher, so I have to admit it never crossed my mind that this would happen.)

This year has had some good surprises — pitcher Junior Guerra being one of those. So it’s obvious that David Stearns, the Brewers GM, can find talent…but so far, he doesn’t seem cognizant of the fact that fans have to have something on the field to root for.

I expected this to be a bad year, mind. I expected this to be a year where top prospect, shortstop Orlando Arcia, gained time in Triple-A, and where we’d have a shuttle going back and forth from Triple-A affiliate Colorado Springs and Milwaukee — and we have.

I did not expect this to be the year the Brewers traded away two impact players, literally minutes before the trade deadline, and then expect fans to be happy about it.

I’m sorry. I’m not into pain, so of course I’m unhappy with this move.

Do I understand it rationally? Sure.

Do I appreciate it emotionally? Oh, Hell no.

And will I watch games? Yes, but quite frankly, I won’t expect very much…especially with the new closer almost certainly to be Tyler Thornburg. (I like him, but is he closer material?) And with the new starting catcher being defensive whiz Martin Maldonado…

All I can say is this: Dammit. (In lieu of a blue streak of profanity that none of you need to hear, or see, or that I need to say.)

And, of course, I need to add this, specifically to Lucroy, Jeffress, and Smith: Good luck to all three of you. May your teams go to the playoffs, and may you enjoy excellent careers. And someday, remember the fans in Milwaukee, still waiting for our day in the sun…and that we remain in your corner.

 

Milwaukee Brewers 2016: Opening Day Thoughts

Folks, as most of you know, I am a huge fan of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team. I’ve watched them for years, through good years and bad…and this year is shaping up to be unpredictable at best, and downright awful at worst.

Why do I say this? It’s simple.

The Brewers have seven guys who’ve never been on an Opening Day roster before. Their best pitcher is Wily Peralta. And their leadoff hitter is likely to be rookie OF Domingo Santana, a high-risk, high-reward type player.

Or, to put it another way — “Who are these (flippin’) guys?” — quote from the movie Major League, 1989.

There are only a few players on this roster I recognize, including Ryan Braun, returning Brewers pitcher Chris Capuano (now a reliever), and Jonathan Lucroy — providing he isn’t traded anytime too soon.  Much of the roster is made up of guys like Jonathan Villar (before he came to the Brewers, I’d never heard his name before), Yadiel Rivera (good-field, little-hit IF prospect), Keon Broxton, and Ramon Flores.

So, with a team that I barely recognize, it’s almost impossible for me to say what the 2016 “new look” Brewers will do. But I can tell you what it’s unlikely they’ll do — and that’s win over 70 games.

Of course, the young Brewers are going to play with chips on their shoulder. And in a week or two, I’ll know these guys better and their capabilities/weaknesses/upsides, too.

Still. The Brewers play in the toughest division in Major League Baseball. They’re likely to be beaten regularly by the St. Louis Cardinals, the Chicago Cubs, and the Pittsburgh Pirates, all division rivals with legitimate postseason chances. That alone makes their quest for a seventy-win season nearly impossible.

The 2016 Brewers will probably be fun to watch. They’ll give it their all, their fundamentals will be sound, they’ll steal bases and at least a few of ’em (like Santana, Braun, and new first baseman Chris Carter) will hit beaucoup home runs. And at least one pitcher will have a good-to-great year (perhaps hoping to pitch himself onto a contenting team at the All-Star break).

So, the 2016 Brewers are likely to have an entertaining team, but not a good one.

What do you think? (Give me a shout in the comments.)