What Happens Next? Who Cares? The Brewers have Won the World Series

Sports can inspire and invigorate, and they can also break your heart. In August and September of 2007, I wrote the following lyrics for “Put You Away,” a song that I didn’t record until my 2018 album, The Great Divide.

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

Sure, I may have dramatized things a wee bit, but it was none other than the Milwaukee Brewers who inspired these words. In the margins of the sheet of line paper where I scribbled the first draft of the song, I wrote, “Brewers collapse.” That’s how much baseball meant to me: it could lead to the saddest lyric I’ve probably ever written!

Years later, after the baseball lockout of 2022, I boycotted the game entirely for a full year and concluded that in the unlikely scenario the Brewers win the World Series one day, it wouldn’t be the same because it’s been established time and time again that Major League Baseball doesn’t give one iota about its fans. All they care about is money. I wrote, “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.”

Well, maybe. I returned to baseball in 2023, I continued to attend a handful of games a year even though I live 90 miles away from my team’s ballpark. I paid for MLB.TV for a few more years before relying on radio broadcasts and highlight videos. I probably listened to parts of 120 games this year. I read every article I could about the team during the season, followed comments at the website Brew Crew Ball, and viewed countless videos. I watched every inning I could of this year’s playoffs. My stomach was in knots for many of those innings. I shouted at the TV a few times and jumped up a few times, nearly cracking my skull on my basement ceiling. I cheered with 31,000 fans at a viewing of Game 3 of the World Series, watched Game 4 in a crowded Milwaukee bar, and finally finished the run quietly at my buddy John’s house, the same guy with whom I attended Game 5 of the 1982 World Series all those years ago.

In other words, I was invested in this team this season.

But make no mistake, I wasn’t as invested as I used to be. I’m no longer fourteen when I had no responsibilities. It’s hard to be quite as passionate when greed prevented you from being able to afford a World Series ticket, and when you know that there will likely be a months-long lockout that shortens next season.

Still, it was still a thrilling ride. And now that I’ve witnessed two Packers Super Bowls, a Bucks Championship, three Badger Rose Bowls, a Badger men’s basketball trip the NCAA finals, and now the one championship that was always the most important to me – the Milwaukee Brewers winning the World Series – I think I can safely say that I don’t particularly care what happens next.

I got what I wanted. I’ll still enjoy baseball and I’ll still be a fan, but I’m a Midwestern boy at heart, and all I really needed was that one championship. If it ever happens again, it won’t come close the matching the jubilation of the first one. And if it doesn’t happen, 2026 is still in the books forever.

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

You bet your ass. It actually happened.

Rush, The Brewers, and Coming Full Circle

I first saw Rush on October 9, 1982, the day the Milwaukee Brewers tied the ALCS against the Angels. Singer/bassist Geddy Lee and drummer Neil Peart both came out sporting Brewers garb, and Geddy modified the lyrics to the opening song, “The Spirit of Radio,” to include the line, “One likes to believe in the freedom of baseball.” As an impressionable boy of fourteen enjoying the show from sensational floor seats at MECCA Arena, watching a great band with my older brother, this was one of those electrifying moments that’s stayed with me forever. What’s crazy is that this moment can now be streamed on YouTube, and I’ve done so at least a half a dozen times just to relive the thrill. The Brewers went on to beat the Angels the next day, earning their first World Series berth, which ended in heartbreaking fashion against the Cardinals.

Last Friday, I watched Rush perform for my eleventh and final time (really…this is my last one!), this time in Cincinnati with my son, daughter and son-in-law, and in a strange bit of kismet, just as Rush were beginning their show, the Milwaukee Brewers were starting their first inning of World Series baseball since 1982. Yes, my allegiances were torn, but I was determined to be present for what was in front of me: witnessing one of my favorite bands with my family well-represented. It was my daughter who couldn’t stop checking the score, and when she informed me early on that the Brewers had taken a 2-0 lead, it looked like this was going to be one of those perfect evenings.

By the time Rush completed their show, game one of the World Series was nearly over, with the Brewers clinging to a 3-1 lead. We four exited the arena and quickly made our way to a nearby bar with TVs hanging outdoors along the sidewalk, and from this vantage point we were able to witness the thrilling, stressful conclusion to the game, with the Brewers winning 3 – 2. After high fives and hugs, it came to me: I said to my kids: “That was the first Brewers World Series victory since I attended game 5 in 1982 with my buddy John.”

In a few days, I’ll once again watch a World Series game with my buddy John, this time from a bar rather than the last row of the left field bleachers of County Stadium.

For life to circle back this way: the teenager now a post-middle-aged husband and father of three; the power trio in its prime now a duo with hired hands; the young, electric future hall-of-famers Yount and Molitor now throwing out the first pitch for the new and improved young, electric Brewers, well…dang. I don’t think I could dream up a script as good as this one.

The Brewers Make the World Series

When you’re fourteen, the future seems limitless, both in time and possibility. After my buddy John and I watched the Brewers take a three-games-to-two lead over the Cardinals in Game 5 of the 1982 World Series, we were certain that we’d be celebrating a championship in a few days’ time. It was not to be. But at a school assembly later that year, Bud Selig himself assured us that the Brewers would return better than ever the following season.

Forty-four years and many life lessons later, I know that the future isn’t limitless and life rarely unfolds as imagined, in baseball or otherwise. There will be gut-punches, heartbreaks and disappointments along the way. You’ll learn to manage, adapt, reframe things and make the best of it. Every so often, usually with a sad song playing on the stereo and a bourbon in hand, you’ll look back on your youth, when everything seemed possible. When that wrong turn hadn’t yet been taken. When you hadn’t yet failed to live up to your potential. And when your baseball team whose radio broadcasts captivated you from a young age hadn’t yet fallen short in heart-breaking fashion, again and again.

I think of all the games I took my kids to. Those hapless teams of the early 2000s, when my daughters fell in love with Brady Clark, Ben Sheets, Scott Podsednik, Geoff Jenkins and Bill Hall. So many losses. So many trips up to Milwaukee without the luxury of a fun post-victory broadcast to listen to. And then there are the playoff losses we attended: Game 2 of the 2011 NLCS, followed by two in 2018 – Game 4 in Los Angeles with my daughter and Game 7 in Milwaukee with my son – and finally a 2025 loss in Milwaukee against those same Dodgers.

Yes, I loved baseball as a game and the Brewers as a team, but dang, it had been a rough ride. Sports can be so exhilarating, so inspiring and fun, but often they merely echo the hard life lessons of having to endure hardship and disappointment. And honestly, who needs that reminder? Isn’t life hard enough?

But then last night, when the Brewers completed their sweep of the Dodgers, all of those disappointments were excised. Even some of the personal ones.

The future isn’t limitless, but man, it sure has potential.

40 Years Later - We're Still Here

John Lennon was all of 24 years-old when he wrote the following:

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all

Brilliant stuff, but goodness, to be in one’s mid-20s waxing nostalgia, it’s hard not to conclude that he hadn’t lived long enough at that point to have earned the sentimentality for the past.

At fifty-eight, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic myself, having just attended my 40th high school reunion with around 100 of my former classmates, some of whom I hadn’t seen since the day I graduated.

What I especially loved about the reunion is that none of the nonsense that occupied our adolescence matters anymore. No one cares who was popular or not, who played sports or who played in band, who dated or didn’t date or broke up with whom, who got into trouble with teachers, who was a loudmouth and who was reticent, who did drugs or who abstained. None of that stuff matters. All that matters is we’re still here, as at least a dozen former classmates are not.

But you’ve survived. I’ve survived. Sure, we’ve been kicked around some, maybe more than some, but we’re still here. We’re single or married or divorced or remarried and maybe divorced a second time. We’ve had children or not, and they’re doing amazing or they’re having difficulties, and we’re best friends with them or we’re estranged, or maybe they’re living with us or close by or in a different state or country. We don’t have grandkids yet or maybe we watch them a few days a week. We have a wonderful job or we’re cobbling together a career to make ends meet. We’ve retired or we’ve been laid off by our most recent employer. We’ve purchased a home – maybe two homes – or we’re renting or living with our ailing mother. Our parents are alive or dead or suffering from dementia or perhaps they’re still having the time of their lives. We live near the city and still attend rock concerts, or we live a secluded life in the boonies. We travel around the world or we haven’t left our home state in decades. We remember high school fondly, with dread, or not at all. We’re as healthy as can be or we’re working through our latest bout of cancer or some other challenge.

Whatever the case, you’re here. I’m here. I’m delighted that we’ve both survived. Let’s hope we can do it again in ten years.

Sara Bareilles at the Chicago Theatre

When pressed last winter to choose an artist to represent the letter B for my desert island A to Z Music Challenge, I didn’t pick The Beatles. I went with Sara Bareilles, one of those musicians who I admire and envy in equal parts, her talent so off the charts that it almost seems unfair. My wife and I attended her performance last night at the Chicago Theatre for her Good Grief tour, and just like the two previous times I watched her perform, Bareilles showed why she’s one of the most gifted singers and songwriters of this century.

Focusing primarily on selections from her new album, she explored grief and all its messy implications while still managing to be funny, relatable and uplifting between songs. Unlike some performers, Bareilles comes off as the genuine article: sincere, appreciative, funny and self-deprecating, and she enjoyed playing off an audience that included many young girls in attendance. That didn’t stop her from dropping a few F-bombs along the way, but I doubt there were many parents who minded. When it comes to strong female role models for young girls, you couldn’t do much better than Bareilles, who’s been champion women’s empowerment for decades now.

Even by the time I took my then-15-year-old daughters to see Bareilles in 2013, it felt like she had played an important part in their upbringing. Our little family musical group had already performed “Love Song” and “King of Anything” at a couple of block parties, and I admired that her songs presented a strong, independent woman who’s unwilling to accept putdowns and mansplaining from her partners, while also expressing vulnerability when it comes to navigating the uncertainties of life and the desire for real connection. These threads continue to appear in her work – perhaps with more urgency given our country’s current climate – and you might not find a more important lyric for a young girl than those from her new song, “Hands Off My Body.”

Still, I don’t love Bareilles’s new album, Good Grief. As brave and ambitious as she is lyrically, she plays it very safe musically. There isn’t a chord on the album that I couldn’t have predicted moments before, and I’d be hard-pressed to recall a melody from any of the songs, many of which resemble those of other artists: “Capsize Me” sounds too much like Sheryl Crows’s “Leaving Las Vegas,” and “Idiot Heart” summons Air Supply’s “Lost In Love.”  Still, there’s no denying the performances on the album, and I’m genuinely moved by the storytelling that so deftly captures the sundry emotions tied to the grieving process, from heartbreak and anger to acceptance and gratitude. Good Grief isn’t a bad effort at all – it’s just not as impactful as it could have been.

For last night’s concert, each member of Bareilles’s exceptional 6-piece backing band occupied different landings of a stage that was framed by what looked like the outline of a house, with rudimentary walls and rafters that lit up at various points throughout the show. Prior to the performance, the entire stage was draped with a light, white fabric that lifted just as the opening song “Home” began, the first track from Bareilles’s first studio album since 2019. This fabric was draped in various ways throughout the show, hovering above the stage and rippling with texture, allowing it to take on whatever color shone on it. It was a very basic but effective stage design, both spartan and visually appealing.

And Sara’s voice – well, dang. If someone had any inkling of doubt about her vocal prowess beforehand, they certainly don’t now. She is so skilled at doing whatever she chooses to do with her voice that what might be considered risky for some singers comes off as effortless. Every tool in her vocal arsenal was executed to perfection, with the lone exception of briefly forgetting a few lyrics, including one from the lone cover of the evening, Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

Beyond that, most of the concert was made up of the Good Grief album, interspersed with just a few of her older tracks, including “Armor” and “Many the Miles,” before ending the concert with five of her mainstay tracks. I was hoping to hear “Chasing the Sun” and “Satellite Call,” but hey – you can’t have it all.

Though when it comes to musical chops and on-stage charisma, Sara Bareilles might lead you to think otherwise.