Brewers and Mariners: A Tale of Two Championship Losers

With the Seattle Mariners losing last night in heart-breaking fashion, fans are denied the coveted Brewers-Mariners battle between two teams who’ve never won a World Series. That perfect pairing will have to wait. I was fourteen when the Brewers last made the World Series, and I’m prepared to keep waiting. I’m just running out of time!

The ALCS and NLCS couldn’t have been more different: the former was a 7-game, back and forth affair between two teams playing at a high level, with alternating stellar pitching and offensive punch; the NLCS was a 4-game snoozefest, with the Brewers breaking records for the worst batting average and OPS in playoff history for a series of more than 3 games. They scored a whopping four runs in four games. Only game 4 provided fans with an indelible memory, as the world’s greatest player had arguably the greatest playoff game in history.

I didn’t see it.

I was traveling in New York, and when I peaked at my phone and saw that the Crew was already down 4-0, I decided to go to bed, prepared to wake up to the realization that Milwaukee’s season was over.

The next day my mom and I drove two and a half hours to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame, one of my favorite places on the planet. When I handed the attendant my tickets, he noticed the Brewers hat on my head and commented, “Man, how about Ohtani?” I sheepishly admitted I hadn’t watched the game. “Three home runs! And 6 innings pitched with 10 strikeouts.”

Wow!

I’m glad I missed it. I’m reminded of a Brewers-Twins matchup I attended in Minneapolis in 1994, when Twins pitcher Scott Erickson cruised through 8 2/3rds innings of no-hit ball. I found myself surrounded by Brewers fans who were actually cheering for the guy to finish the job. Hell no! Greg Vaughn was at the plate and I was praying – PRAYING – for a home run to not only ruin the no-hitter, but to kill the shutout and complete game as well. I didn’t get my wish, and I was pissed. I don’t mind watching history, as long as it’s not against my team.

Anyhow, all of this begs the question: is it better to lose a hard-fought battle in heartbreaking fashion like Seattle, or to lose in such an anemic fashion like Milwaukee? I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’ve been to two deciding playoff games in which the Brewers lost. It wasn’t fun, but at least the series provided moments of joy. This year’s NLCS against the Dodgers provided nothing for Brewers fans to hang their hats on. It wasn’t any fun. To go from winning a deciding game against the Cubs on Saturday to being eliminated by the following Friday….that’s a different sort of heartbreak.

Seattle fans, the three-run home run in the 7th was a brutal way to lose. Brutal. But try to embrace the season, the amazing 15-inning victory to clinch the ALDS, and the terrific battle against the Blue Jays. You had a hell of run.

So did the Brewers, until they didn’t.

I guess any way you lose, you end up in the same place.

Post-Playoff Hangover

It would be disingenuous to say that the Brewers loss in Game 7 of the NLCS on Saturday night wasn’t disappointing, but at the same time, it can hardly be categorized as heartbreaking.  As my friend said to me in the middle of September when the Brewers were embarking on a great run toward the playoffs, “We’re playing with house money.”  No one expected the Brewers to play as well as they did in September, and few thought that a division title and advancing to the World Series was within the Crew’s grasp.  It’s hard to be too upset when the team so overwhelmingly defied expectations.

And the playoffs led to such great times, too.  I got to see a game with my old buddy from way back in grade school, I flew to California to attend one game with my daughter, drove up to Milwaukee to attend another with my son, and my wife and I gathered at my friend’s house for an evening of drinks, snacks and baseball on glorious high def.  I got to hang out with my sister’s family several times, and I even got to see Christian Yelich hit for his second cycle in September with a couple of buddies.  Not too shabby.  

But all of this has led to a bit of a post-playoff hangover for me.  Baseball had become such a glorious time-suck, that now suddenly, after weeks of having every bit of free time filled, the onus is on me to fill my time productively.  No more evenings watching the game on TV, mornings reading about the same game on-line, and afternoons texting like-minded friends about strategy and predictions.  No more restless nights with visions of the first World Series appearance in thirty-six years.  No more games to look forward to.  Now, instead of relying on others to entertain me, I have to entertain myself, which means tackling a basement project that I started last spring just as the 2018 baseball season was budding.  It’s back to reality, and it’s not necessarily a reality I want to face.

Still, I have another baseball season to look forward to, when I’ll once again set aside my personal aspirations in favor of the aspirations of others, and go along for the ride.  As disheartening as the end of this year’s playoffs was for the Brewers – being literally one good bullpen outing and one hit away from actually sweeping the Dodgers in four games – less disheartening is the core of players that are sure to return next year, and how that core might evolve.  Brewers owner Mark Attanasio commented on Saturday that the end of 2018 feels different than in 2011, when the Brewers lost the NLCS in six games.  That year felt like the end of something, where this year feels like it’s just the beginning.

My unmotivated self can’t wait.

The Tale of Two Fan Bases

The tale of two fan bases: my daughter purchased tickets for Game 4 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium for $78 - for actual seats, not standing room only.  By contrast, tickets for Game 1 of the NLCS at Miller Park are going for $120 for standing room only.  The population of metropolitan Los Angeles is 13 million.  The population for metropolitan Milwaukee is 1.5 million.  And while total MLB attendance dropped by 4% this year, the Brewers attendance increased by just shy of 8%, drawing the tenth largest attendance in the league, at 2,850,875.  Not too shabby for the smallest market of thirty MLB teams.  To be fair, the Dodgers have the highest attendance in the entire league, but this is due not only to the size of the city, but to the size of Dodger Stadium (56,000 vs. 42,000 for Miller Park).

But regarding demand for playoff games, the larger issue is undoubtedly past success. 

It was fun last week listening to Cubs fans complain about losing the division tie-breaker and instead making the playoffs as a lowly wild card, when just four short years ago they would have been thrilled to have been in the hunt.  Now that Cubs fans have tasted success, nothing short of domination is deemed acceptable.  I’ve experienced similar feelings with the Packers.  After winning Super Bowl XLV, it was assumed that Green Bay would be back the next year and the year after that.  No such luck; the subsequent years ended in bitter disappointment.  Only Patriots fans know the boredom that comes with continuous success.

Brewer fans have no such worries.  In nearly fifty years as a franchise, 2018 is only the Brewers’ third league championship.  For many Brewer fans, no matter what happens in the NLCS, this year has been a success, a terrific run, unexpected and a total blast.

But you would think Dodger fans would have similar feelings.  Sure, they were in the World Series last year, but they haven’t won it all since 1988, and they came oh so achingly close to winning it all last year, falling just one game short, that you would think fans would be chomping at the bit, desperate to witness their first world championship in thirty years. 

No doubt, each playoff game from here on out will be a tough ticket, whether basking in the sun of Los Angeles or getting ready for winter in Milwaukee.  But as a Brewers fan, it’s hard not to be thrilled not only with the team’s performance, but with the fans who are making my attempts to buy tickets a royal pain in the ass (and a jolt to my bank account).

I couldn’t be prouder.