Why Brewers Fans should be Encouraged

As a lifelong Brewers fan, I admit that watching the Kansas City Royals battle for their first World Series title in twenty-nine years gives me just a twinge of discomfort.  After all, three of the Royals’ starters are former Brewers who Milwaukee dealt in trades (Escobar, Aoki and Cain) and two are players the Royals acquired as a result of the Brewers dealing Jake Odorizzi to KC in the Zack Greinke trade (Shields and Davis).  The Aoki trade – one that upset me at the time – paid dividends as Will Smith stymied hitters consistently before Brewer manager Ron Roenicke overused him, resulting in a tired arm, but there’s no arguing that the Greinke deal was instrumental in propelling the Crew into the playoffs in 2011, when they fell just two games short of their first World Series in twenty-nine years.  Still, a little part of me wonders what might have been had Milwaukee played its cards differently.

But overall, Brewer fans should be encouraged by what the Royals have accomplished: not only a World Series appearance, but a miraculous 8-0 run before losing game one of the Series.  Kansas City, long the doormat of the American League, has finally achieved some success despite it playing in the second smallest market in the MLB (Milwaukee is now the smallest) and competing in the same division as Detroit and Chicago.  Other small markets – Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay – have also achieved some success, though Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are still trying to get to their first World Series since 1979 and 1990, respectively.  The St. Louis Cardinals are perennial playoff participants despite playing in the sixth-smallest market in Major League Baseball. 

In short: it can be done.  Maybe not every year, but every once in a while a small market team can in fact make a run at a World Series ring.  And Milwaukee has no excuse despite it playing in the smallest market.  Milwaukee’s attendance continues to impress, drawing more fans relative to the size of their metropolitan market than any other team in baseball.  In 2014, Milwaukee drew 2.8 million fans, good for eighth out of thirty teams.  Not too shabby.  (By contrast, Kansas City drew 1.9 millions, good for twenty-eighth.)  And as the success of Cain and Escobar shows – not to mention Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder and numerous others – Milwaukee’s farm system has in fact produced some quality players. 

It can be done.  Kansas City has proven it.  Win or lose, I am happy as heck for Royals fans everywhere.  But I’m even happier that maybe – just maybe – I’ll get to witness the Brewers in a World Series before the bottom of my ninth inning.

World Series Start Times: MLB's Shortsighted Gamble

Woe to the child sports fan who has the misfortune of living in the Eastern Time Zone.  The 2013 World Series is only two games old, and I doubt there’s a kid on the East Coast under the age of 16 who’s watched beyond the 8^th inning of either game.  Both games began at 8:07PM EST and lasted in excess of 3 hours.  These start times are slightly earlier than the 2008 series, when games didn’t start until 8:29 and 8:37, but the MLB and FOX ought to look at more dramatic changes if the health of baseball is to be considered over immediate financial gains.

In 2009, Bud Selig said, “Our goal is to schedule games to allow the largest number of people to watch.”  With a country as vast as the U.S., this goal is unquestionably a tricky balancing act.

The approximate makeup of the United States by time zone is as follows:

Eastern.......................47.0%

Central........................32.9%

Mountain.......................5.4%

Pacific.........................14.1%

Alaska and Hawaii........0.6 %

Assuming children are distributed in the same proportions as the overall population, this means that 80 percent of kids would have had to stay up after 10PM to finish games one and two of this year’s World Series, with nearly half having to stay up after 11PM.  Couple this with the fact that this year’s representative cities are located in the Central and Eastern time zones, and it’s easy to see that the goal of scheduling “games to allow the largest number of people to watch” probably isn’t being achieved, especially among young fans.

All this is in light of recent evidence that baseball’s popularity is decreasing among our youth.  Google the phrase “popularity of baseball kids decreasing” and see what comes up.  It’s doubtful that a child who doesn’t care about baseball today is going to start investing time and money into the sport as an adult, so why not make it easier for kids to actually watch the games right now?

World Series games used to be held in the daytime, also not an ideal scenario for kids since many of these games were played during school hours.  But in the 70s and early 80s, there seemed to be a nice balance: weekday games took place during the evening (albeit a little too late at times), and weekend games were often played during the day. 

In 1982, when the Milwaukee Brewers made the series, I was fourteen years-old, and I watched every game in its entirety, even attending game five (without parents!).  Start times were as follows (all times CST)

Game 1, Tuesday, 7:30

Game 2, Wednesday, 7:20

Game 3, Friday, 7:30

Game 4, Saturday, 12:20

Game 5, Sunday, 3:45

Game 6, Tuesday, 7:20

Game 7, Wednesday, 7:20

Push the weekday start times to 7PM CST for the East Coast fans, and I’d say that’s a pretty perfect schedule.  As it was, both teams were from the Central Time Zone, so the start times were ideal for the most interested fans.  Unfortunately, short-term greed changed things, and the last day game played in a World Series was game 6 of 1987.

In light of the recent downturn in popularity, Major League Baseball should consider the following:

1)      Incorporate flexibility in the schedule so that start times can be adjusted based on who’s playing in the series.  In 2008, two East Coast teams played each other, and games didn’t start until around 8:30 EST – absolutely ridiculous.  Games could easily have started an hour to an hour and a half earlier while still attracting the primary audience.  Last year’s series between San Francisco and Detroit was perhaps best served with the 8:00 EST.

2)      If flexibility is impossible, schedule start times that favor the Central and Eastern time zones, since these zones not only comprise 80% of the country’s population, but 73% of Major League Baseball teams.  It’s true that a West Coast series like in 1989 could make things challenging.  But I argue that even a 7:30 EST start time wouldn’t be catastrophic for this scenario.   Networks would still get to attract most of the country’s population, and a 4:30 local start time in the West isn’t as debilitating as it might have been years ago.  Internet access could allow working people to follow the games for the first few innings before returning home, kids would already be out of school, and most working adults could tune in live by the third inning or so.  TiVo and the like could be employed as well, and although fast-forwarding through commercials isn’t what Fox wants, it’s probably better than losing the East Coast entirely.

3)      Start weekend games earlier.  Why not take a cue from football and start the games at 6:30 EST like in recent Super Bowls?  True, the World Series isn’t the event that the Super Bowl is, but starting games an hour and half later certainly isn’t going to help turn it into one.

Folks who disagree with me will likely talk demographics, and how advertising dollars need to target the right audience.  I get this.  But will there even be an audience in 15 years if today’s children haven’t the ability to watch the games?

Sometimes a short-term loss is a long-term gain.

MLB and NFL Parity

As the MLB playoffs roll on with the usual suspects, I’ve pondered what has often been passed for conventional wisdom when comparing professional baseball to professional football.  For years, the argument went like this: parity in NFL football allows for more teams to have a chance to win a Super Bowl, therefore generating greater fan interest, while MLB baseball has too many teams that are eliminated from a World Series hunt before the first ball is pitched in April.  I remember spouting this argument myself in the 1990s as my lowly Brewers were relegated to a perennial loser.  But a review of the champions and runners up of baseball and football since 1966 – the season of the first Super Bowl – tells a different story. 

Out of 30 MLB teams, 10 haven’t won a World Series since 1966, and of those, six are franchises that weren’t around that year (though all have been in existence for at least fifteen years):

Washington (1969, formerly called the Montreal Expos)

San Diego (1969)

Milwaukee (1969, formerly called the Seattle Pilots)

Seattle (1977)

Colorado (1993)

Tampa Bay (1998)

The other four teams are the Chicago Cubs, Cleveland, Houston and Texas.

Although some recent teams haven’t yet won a World Series, many winners since 1966 have been from franchises that started after that year:  Kansas City in 1985, Florida in 1997 and 2003, Toronto in 1992 and 1993, and Arizona in 2001.

Of the ten teams who’ve not won a World Series since 1966, 7 have at least appeared in an October Classic.  The only three teams that have been excluded entirely from the World Series are the Chicago Cubs, Seattle and the Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos franchise.

Compare that to the NFL.  Of thirty current NFL teams, 14 have never won a Super Bowl.  Of those, six weren’t around in 1966, though all are now at least eleven years old:

Carolina (1995)

Cincinnati (1968)

Houston (2002)

Jacksonville (1995)

Seattle (1976)

Cleveland (1999) – note: for the purposes of this analysis, I’m considering Cleveland an expansion team from 1999 even though they kept the franchise statistics from the Browns team that moved to Baltimore in 1996.

The other teams are Minnesota, Detroit, Atlanta, Arizona (formerly the St. Louis Cardinals), Philadelphia, Buffalo, Tennessee (formerly the Houston Oilers) and San Diego.

Only one team that didn’t exist in 1966 has won a Super Bowl – the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003.  Again, I’m not including the Ravens’ victories of 2000 and 2013 since they inherited the players from the Cleveland Browns in 1996, and therefore aren’t a true expansion team.

Of the fourteen teams who’ve not won a Super Bowl since 1966, all but four have at least appeared in a Super Bowl.  Those that have been excluded entirely are Cleveland, Jacksonville, Detroit, and the Houston Texans.  It should be noted that three of those four teams are relatively recent introductions in the NFL if you include Cleveland as an expansion team in 1999.

The following summarizes the above statistics:

SINCE 1966
	MLB	NFL
% of teams not winning a championship	33%	47%
% of teams not appearing in a championship	10%	13%

Couple these stats with the fact that new franchises are more likely to win a World Series than a Super Bowl, and it might be tempting to disagree with the usual argument about parity between the leagues.  The World Series has actually been more inclusive than the Super Bowl.

What if we focus on the last 20 years?  After all, profit sharing and free agency changed dramatically since 1966, potentially affecting championships.  Let’s look at the same statistics for 1995 to 2012 (I’m choosing these years since there was no World Series in 1994.  Also, revenue sharing was first introduced to baseball in 1996).

SINCE 1995
	MLB	NFL
% of teams not winning a championship	67%	60%
% of teams not appearing in a championship	40%	30%

Counter-intuitively, here the stats change to favor the NFL, though not dramatically.  If we shorten the timeline further and take into account only the past decade, which also coincides with the 2002 baseball negotiations when revenue sharing was fine-tuned, the MLB has 7 different winners plus an additional 5 who've appeared in a World Series  – a total of 12 teams out of a potential 20.  The NFL has 7 different winners plus an additional 6 teams who've appeared in a Super Bowl  –  a total of 13 out of a potential 20.

What conclusions can be drawn from this?  Perhaps nothing definitive, as you could continue to crunch numbers that help fine-tune or perhaps even contradict some of what the above reveals, but I think you can say that under current rules, parity within the leagues is about the same in the MLB as it is in the NFL.  What was surprising to me is how historically the MLB wasn’t as lopsidedly in favor of the big market teams as I originally thought, even before revenue sharing and playoff expansion.  Outside of the Yankees’ run in the 90s, there has been a good deal of turnover in the World Series, and expansion teams have had success, sometimes fairly quickly.

The Ryan Braun Debacle on 89.7 WUWM

My essay on Ryan Braun aired on Milwaukee's NPR station, 89.7 WUWM, on September 11th.  

The Ryan Braun Debacle

As a lifetime Brewer fan and – until recently – a defender of Ryan Braun’s (yes, I was taken in by the ferocity of his public statement in February of 2012 .  Call me an idiot, or, in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “What a gull-a-bull.  What a nin-cow-poop.”), I feel compelled to comment on the unfortunate situation the smallest metropolitan market in Major League Baseball now has to endure.

In early 2004, after Paul Molitor was elected to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame, and as the Brewers were limping along to win about 67 games a season, a friend of mine wrote: “THE BREWERS WILL NEVER HAVE MORE THAN 2 PLAYERS IN THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME! EVER! THAT SUCKS!”  And it was hard to argue with this sentiment.  The Crew as a franchise was pathetic.  They hadn’t finished above .500 since 1992, the year after which – by the way – the let said future hall-of-famer Molitor flee to the Blue Jays by offering him – get this – a pay cut of $900,000 (in pure stupidity, Sal Bando’s legacy in Milwaukee exceeds that of even Ernie Grunfeld, who let Ray Allen get away from the Bucks in 2003).

In short, there was little reason to be optimistic for baseball in Milwaukee.

And then…

In 2005, a 21 year-old who was blasted in Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball two years earlier, took his first at-bat as a major-leaguer.  Prince Fielder started making waves, and not just on his sizable gut.  This kid could hit.  Two years later, Ryan Braun entered the picture, and suddenly, the idea of the Brewers having a winning season and – dare we jump the gun just a bit too quickly – a future hall-of-famer – didn’t seem so farfetched.

Fielder played six spectacular seasons for the Brewers and – baring a complete collapse of his skills – is a shoo-in at Cooperstown.  But if that day ever comes, he’ll likely go in as a Tiger, not as a Brewer.  Oh well.  It was still fun while it lasted (and honestly, the Brewers may have the last laugh when the Tigers pay a 36 year-old Fielder $24 million in 2020).   Fielder helped propel the Brewers into the playoffs in 2008 and 2011, and though he rejected a long-term contract with Milwaukee, fans can look back on his stint with fondness.

Braun did something no one expected.  He decided to be The Man, the franchise players on a small-market team, taking less money than he could make elsewhere.  In 2011 he signed a five-year extension on his contract, keeping him in Milwaukee through the 2020 season.  It was a dream come true for Brewer fans.  Finally, FINALLY, someone decided to take the high road.  After enduring a host of other players rejecting long-term offers from the Crew, Milwaukee fans found someone who actually chose to stay with the Brewers.  Sure, he’d make a little less money than he would with the Yankees or the Red Sox, but he’d be the biggest guy in town – something impossible on a large-market team.  He’d open a few restaurants with another franchise player from a small-market team, Aaron Rogers, and life would be great.

Which is why the recent scandal is so monstrously unfair.  Finally a small market team reels in the perfect player with the perfect contract, only to find out that they were sold a bill of goods.  In 2011, just eighteen games into the season, Braun said, "I truly believe I can get much better as a player.  These first 18 games are probably the best baseball I've played in my career and I really believe that's a sign of things to come."

Well, sure.  He was cheating!  Of course it was a sign of things to come.  Why contracts don’t have a clause that immediately makes them null and void if a player gets suspended is mind-boggling to me.  But there you have it.  Now the Brewers are stuck with a pathetic human being, and – very possibly – a mediocre ball-player for the next seven seasons, an eternity in baseball.  The Brewers will have to pay Braun a total of $117 million.  This for a team whose total payroll in 2012 was $88 million.

What’s worse is that Milwaukee fans, who’ve had so little to celebrate these past thirty years, will no longer be able to look back on 2011 with any pride.  The Brewers’ first division title in 29 years was a lie.  The Brewers’ first MVP in 29 years was a lie.  Braun hit .500 in the NLDS.  If I were a Diamondback fan, I’d be fuming (Arizona manager Kirk Gibson is, and I don’t blame him).

Of course, Matt Kemp has a few reasons to be ticked off as well, having lost the MVP ballot to a cheater.

And not just a cheater, but a liar.  A man willing to hurt other people’s reputations to further his own career.  No one is perfect, but not everyone stoops to such inordinate lows as Braun has.  And to play the Jew Card – accussing urine-collector Dino Laurenzi Jr of anti-Semitism (if the report is true) – is lower than the depths of any athlete I can think of, including A-Rod. 

New York fans may be used to this sort of thing, but Milwaukee fans won’t be quick to forgive.  Many may not even return to Miller Park until Braun is gone.  If there’s a team willing to take on $117 million of tarnished goods, I’m sure Brewer GM Doug Melvin is all ears.  Perhaps Braun can take part in this year’s High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  After all, he won’t be playing baseball, so he has no excuse not to participate in beginning the long, hard, arduous journey of contrition and, ultimately – if he’s very lucky – redemption.