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.

Life Without Beer

For so long, it was the most common gift I received for birthdays and Father’s Days: a six-pack of beer – something unusual, or perhaps a variety pack – or a bottle opener, a set of coasters or beer steins. From my freshman year in college, when my roommate Todd and I evolved (or devolved?) from our preferred drink of choice – Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers – to drinking piss-poor American lagers because, well, that’s what was provided at the jam-packed house party where two dollars would get you a red cup and the privilege to partake of the keg of Hamm’s housed in the kitchen, all the way to six months ago, beer had been a constant companion to my adult self.

Want to shoot the shit with a friend? Crack open a beer. Want to watch the Packers game? Crack open a beer. Want to find something to do in an unfamiliar city? Find a microbrewery. Want some attire that announces something to the world? Get a t-shirt from said brewery. Want a funny magnet, coaster or birthday card? Something having to do with beer would be a good call, especially one involving Homer Simpson.

I’ve been to a fantastic Chicagoland barbecue that employed a cicerone – the beer equivalent of a sommelier – to pair malt beverages with pulled pork or burnt ends. I’ve had friends who’ve introduced me to weird-ass flavored beers with marshmallow or cotton candy or pistachio overtones. I’ve learned the differences between porters and stouts, lagers and pilsners, and IPAs and American pale ales. I’ve even tried brewing my own beer with mixed results.

I’ve met new friends while drinking beer and a few girlfriends, though not for over 30 years. I’ve sang loudly to Jimmy Buffet and Buster Poindexter songs while consuming beer. I’ve written a few songs about drinking beer. I blew an opportunity to catch a home run hit by Eric Thames because I had a scorecard in one hand and a full beer in the other. I’ve had spirited debates over a beer, a few nasty arguments, and even one fistfight (I didn’t start it, and my participation wasn’t consequential, but I did take a punch and throw one of my own).

I went from spending $23 for a half barrel of Old Milwaukee to $12 for a case of Rolling Rock to $20 for a 12-pack of Dale’s Pale Ale. The amount of time, energy and money I’ve devoted to beer for close to four decades is staggering. I’ve fortunately never been a “drink-a-six-pack-a-day” kind of guy, but I still shudder to think about how much of my home could be filled with all the beer I’ve consumed in my lifetime, and I shake my head when I consider how much money I’ve spent on beer over the decades.

But no more.

Six months ago I had a gout flare-up – the kind of flare-up that puts the fear of God into you, that kills any thoughts of the future, because, well, if the future consists of this piercing pain, then it might be better to call it a day. Fortunately, I live in 2025, and four different medications helped to relieve me of the worst symptoms, and another has allowed me to slowly but surely return to modified normalcy. Modified, because I no longer drink beer, and I’ve refrained from red meat and most seafood since last April as well.

In hindsight, last April’s flareup wasn’t my first bout with gout. I’d been having a few mini flareups a year from as far back as 2019, when my toe pain was originally misdiagnosed by a surgery-happy podiatrist. And because neither of my parents had properly shared their health history with me, I didn’t know what gout was and that I should be on the lookout for its symptoms. Now I know.

So for now, beer is no longer on the menu. Last month I invited neighbors to come to my basement and consume what remained of my beer supply and take leftovers home. For a few months I didn’t really drink any alcohol at all, and I lost over ten pounds from my lanky frame that can ill-afford to lose any more mass. For the past few months, I’ve experimented with drinking gin, bourbon and an occasional wine, and this seems to be a recipe for success if I want to indulge a bit.

But now when I go to a backyard barbecue, I’m drinking a water or Diet Coke. When I meet friends at a brewery, I’m ordering a mocktail. And when my kids buy me a birthday or Father’s Day present, they’re going to have to dig a little deeper than buying a six-pack at the grocery store.

Brewers Cubs NLDS, 2025

We should have known it would come to this. When Craig Counsell departed Milwaukee two years ago in favor of a bigger paycheck 90 miles south, I voiced my hope that he would experience five of the worst seasons known to man and be banished from Chicago in humiliation. Unfortunately, it’s hard to lose when you’re part of a well-run organization that has a big, fat, payroll. Oh, and when you’re a good manager with good players.

So I haven’t exactly gotten my wish, but man, there’s something satisfying about the Brewers winning the NL Central in 2024 and 2025, with the Cubs not even making the playoffs last year and having to beat the Padres in 3 games this week to advance. I mean, that SHOULD NOT be happening. The Brewers have no business winning the division, much less having the best record in baseball. That’s something I never thought I’d see.

Wanna know something else I never thought I’d see? A World Series title for the Milwaukee Brewers. And I fear that will remain to be the case this year. We might not even see an NLCS appearance, not because they’re not a good team, but because they’re very young and their pitching has been absolutely decimated. From having a surplus of starting pitching just a few months ago, they are now down to two starters in Freddie Peralta and Quinn Priester, and their bullpen has taken a hit as well.

But that won’t stop me from hoping. I’ve got tickets to game 5 on October 11, and I’m praying that somehow the Crew can win it in three or four and spare me the stress of another deciding game. I was in attendance when the Brewers lost to the Mets last year in game 3, and I was in attendance when they lost to the Dodgers in game 7 of the 2018 NLCS. I know that feeling, and I could do without it.

So here’s hoping. It’s been an absolutely thrilling season - one that had me wishing I lived back in my home town instead of commiserating with Cubs fans (there really aren’t any White Sox fans at present) - and it’s been so much fun watching a bunch of young guys with no expectations other than playing good, sound baseball. That this translated into winning streaks of eight, eleven and fourteen games wasn’t something anyone could have imagined.

But sometimes what we imagine is dwarfed by what’s possible. Maybe they’ll surprise us again.

Saying Goodbye to Robert Redford

How’s this for an eerie coincidence: on Monday, September 15, I stayed up late to watch The Natural, my vote for the best baseball movie ever, inching out Field of Dreams, A League of Their Own, and The Bad News Bears (and maybe Eight Men Out – it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that one).  Just a few hours after I finished the film and went to bed, Robert Redford, the star of The Natural, died at 89 years old.

My mom wrote to me after learning about his death: “All of the great ones are gone.” I don’t subscribe to that view, but I understand that if you’re in your 80s and have seen Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant and Paul Newman come and go, you might be inclined to think that the best is behind us.

It was my mother who introduced me to Redford, the actor, through movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, but it was Redford, the director, who may have made the biggest impact on me. After my parents split up in ’79, my mother took me to films that she thought would shed a light on grown-up topics, including divorce and general family discord. There was The China Syndrome, then Kramer vs. Kramer, and then Redford’s Oscar-winning Ordinary People. These latter two movies were interesting choices, because the mothers aren’t portrayed in a particularly positive light, and goodness knows my mother blamed my father for their marriage’s demise. But these films dramatized troubled families and the subsequent fallout on the children, and that may have been the point: to see that others experienced difficulties similar to my own, and in the case of Ordinary People – far worse.

I grew to watch other Redford-directed films like The Milagro Beanfield War and Quiz Show, and filled in some of the gaps from his acting career, like The Electric Horseman, All the President’s Men and Barefoot in the Park.

But it’s The Natural I love the most. Hell, Randy Newman’s score alone does it for me.

Gene Siskel placed The Natural at number 10 in his list of favorite films of the year, saying, “I loved every corny bit of it.”  Ebert wasn’t so kind, giving it 2 stars, and writing, “Why did a perfectly good story, filled with interesting people, have to be made into one man’s ascension to the godlike, especially when no effort is made to give that ascension meaning?” He’s not wrong. The movie is flawed. It’s cheesy. It’s shallow. It’s a fable, pure and simple. But, like Siskel, I loved every corny bit of it.

And now I can say that I loved every corny bit of it while Redford was breathing his last.

All of the great ones are not gone. But we lost another one this week.

Saying Goodbye to Rick Davies of Supertramp

I wrote about Supertramp’s Breakfast in America eleven years ago and later included it in my list of all-time favorites, along with the band’s album, Crisis? What Crisis?  In my summary of those two inclusions, I wrote:

I can’t overstate how important this band was to the young version of me, insecure and creative, the youngest child of separated parents. Hodgson’s lyrics were the empathetic voice I craved, though I can’t say for sure that I understood them all at the time. Listening to Supertramp nearly forty years on, the band’s output still holds up. I’ve always loved the juxtaposition of Davies’s and Hodgson’s respective oeuvres, one cynical and cranky, one spiritual and nurturing, and together they were greater than the sum of their parts. 

Rick Davies died a few days ago, and as important as some of Hodgson’s lyrics were to me as a youth, it was Davies’s piano skills that attracted much of my attention, as I moved beyond the Michael Aaron piano books I’d been trudging through for years and started to explore playing songs that I loved. When I was twelve, I purchased the manuscript book of Crime of the Century, and I studied those songs with curiosity, amazement and confusion, unable to play some of the licks to my satisfaction. Easiest among the lot was the title track, and for a brief period I played the song in the living room of classmates Jon and Scott Wittkopf, who added drums and guitar to the mix. It was my first foray into playing with a group, and it jumpstarted my excitement to be in a band as I dreamed of music stardom.  

My brother soon encouraged me to learn “Another Man’s Woman,” a piano tour-de-force that begins with a terrific percussive groove and culminates with an equally terrific solo, and I managed to do a fair job of replicating it by ear rather than a manuscript. Soon to follow were songs like “Asylum,” “Just Another Nervous Wreck,” and “From Now On.” This band was inspiring!

But for any pianist, it was “Bloody Well Right” that set the standard, with Davies’s extended blues-based Wurlizer solo instantly recognizable. I must say that I fumbled through it as a child, only kinda-sorta achieving the spirit of the solo if not the actual notes. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I finally sat down and transcribed the solo note for note, slowing the tune down to identify some of the faster runs, and even today it’s an intro that break out from time to time.

Beyond the obvious piano chops of Rick Davies, his sonically-edged compositions helped to compensate for Hodgson’s sweeter side. Davies basically played Lennon to Hodgson’s McCartney, or Amy Ray to Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls, offering a bit of cynicism and realism to the philosophical Hodgson. I thought that Davies really hit his stride on Breakfast in America and Famous Last Words…, the final Supertramp albums before Hodgson left the band. I loved songs like “Gone Hollywood,” “Oh Darling,” “Just Another Nervous Wreck,” “Put on Your Old Brown Shoes,” and “Waiting So Long.” They may not have been hits, but they helped elevate the Supertramp releases into satisfying listening experiences, making them “complete” albums, and not just some filler songs amongst a few of Hodgson’s hits.

I got to see Rick Davies twice: once at Alpine Valley in 1983, and then two years later at MECCA in Milwaukee. For the latter show, I was excited that Davies would have more of a chance to shine as the only songwriter left in the band. Unfortunately, the setlist was lacking, as was Davies’ ability to hold an audience. It was decent, but it was clear that Supertramp missed Hodgson. Unfortunately, they would never play together again.

It was just two weeks ago that Hodgson lost a publishing royalty appeal between him and the rest of the band. A sad way to end the legacy of a great band.