A fellow former member of the UW Marching Band had a perfect three-word description for this past weekend: “Fear the beer!”

Indeed, it’s hard to imagine this past weekend could have gone any better for Wisconsin sports fans. The Brewers took a 2–0 National League Division Series lead by beating Arizona 4–1 Saturday and 9–4 Sunday. The Brewers can clinch their first National League Championship Series berth in their history by winning one of the next three NLDS games.

This was apparently Offense Weekend for the Badgers and Packers, given UW’s 48–17 corn-squeezing of Nebraska and Green Bay’s 49–23 corralling of Denver. I haven’t checked, but Saturday and Sunday’s combined 97 points might be the record for most combined points by the Badgers and Packers in the same weekend.

First, though, the Brewers. I listened to parts of both Brewers games on the radio. On a couple of instances, it sounded as if 76-year-old Brewers announcer Bob Uecker was going to expire on the air due to overexcitement. Uecker is concluding his 40th season calling Brewers games, and those 40 seasons have included far more bad baseball than today. So I’m particularly pleased that Mr. Baseball is getting to work in October, which is the point of baseball’s first six months. His 40 years of quality work (even if he doesn’t announce the score as often as he should) have earned him the right to announce the Brewers as long as he wants.

Announcing bad teams is not as fun as announcing good teams. (Duh.) Ripon High School’s season is ending in two weeks; in fact, the Tigers have yet to win a game this season. There have been just two running-clock games (and ironically both lasted at least as long as regular games, one due to the lights going out and one due to a lengthy delay waiting for an out-of-town ambulance to arrive for an injured player), and Friday’s was a good game, a 13–6 loss to 40-year-long rival Winneconne.

But bad high school football seasons are just nine games, and bad high school basketball seasons are 23 games (22 regular-season games plus, most likely, one playoff game). A bad baseball season is 162 regular-season games — at least 1,400 innings — plus however many exhibition games the network decides to broadcast. When the All-Star Game arrives and your team is already out of the race, the end of the season must look a long way away, particularly if, as with Uecker, you announce only baseball — no weekend getaways to do football.

But at Miller Park, who’s thinking of football? Well, truth be told, there is divided attention, since baseball scheduled game 2 at the same approximate time as the Broncos–Packers game. (In 1982, when the Brewers went to the World Series, the Packers weren’t playing because of the NFL strike, and in 2008, when the Brewers were last in the playoffs, the Packers were not very good.) So there was manic channel-flipping in Ripon between channel 5 0r 9 (CBS, which carried the game) and channel 35 (TBS).

(That situation, by the way, demonstrates how poorly run Major League Baseball remains in media. Almost half of Americans cannot watch any Division Series or the National League Championship Series because they are on TBS and not on broadcast TV. NFL games on ESPN or the NFL Network are required to be carried on local TV in the participants’ home markets. Major League Baseball has no such contract stipulation, so Brewers fans without cable or satellite TV will get to see the Brewers only if they reach the World Series.)

Anyway, the Brewers had quality pitching Saturday (something exceedingly rare in the history of that franchise) and big hitting Sunday, with a five-run sixth inning ignited by, of all things, a suicide squeeze, something to gladden the hearts of those who believe the Brewers are incapable of fundamental baseball. While comebacks are fun (such as in 1982, when the Brewers dropped the first two games of the American League Championship Series in California only to win the last three in Milwaukee), it is better to make the other team try to come back, regardless of sport.

And Saturday night’s Camp Randall stomping (my favorite headline: “Forlorn Corn”) was a come-from-behind 48–17 win, a thrashing so embarrassing to Nebraska coach Bo Pelini that he actually apologized to Cornhusker fans. There is a certain arrogance in assuming you should roll to victory against a fundamentally sound team in what has become one of the most hostile places to play in college football. And it looked good early for the Cornhuskers until quarterback Taylor Martinez did his best Jay Cutler impression (as in three interception), which the Badgers compounded by scoring touchdowns on each. So 21 points of the 31-point margin started in Martinez’s right hand.

Martinez’s counterpart, Russell Wilson, continues to amaze. My favorite play was his touchdown run that started with a fake handoff to the right side, with Wilson rolling out to the left side. After the faked handoff, Wilson slowed down as if he had handed off the ball so his work was done, only to take off with the ball. Pelini had a long sideline conversation afterward with the poor Nebraska defender whom Wilson faked out of his compression shorts.

Wilson might be the best quarterback Wisconsin has ever had, and the hyperbole in a comment about someone who has played exactly four games is starting to fade. No UW quarterback in memory has had the combination of running ability and throwing ability that Wilson has. (You’d have to put together two or three recent quarterbacks to equal Wilson’s skills.) Opponents are forced to pick their poison — defend against UW’s vaunted run game and have Wilson pick them apart, or defend against the pass and have UW run them over like a road grader flattens asphalt.

Meanwhile, Wilson’s Packer counterpart, Aaron Rodgers, now appears able to throw a touchdown pass whenever he wants, and to whomever he wants. On Sunday, Rodgers’ four touchdown passes were to four different receivers. And none were of the methodical carve-up-the-defense variety. Flick, zip, cue up “Bang the Drum All Day.” As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tyler Dunne put it, “This regular-season game quickly resembled a 7-on-7 tournament with Rodgers needling passes into every window of the offense.”

This season, of course, featured no between-season minicamps and hastily assembled training camps due to the NFL lockout. This season has also featured high-scoring and fun games to watch. Perhaps the NFL and the NFL Players Association can arrange future lockouts.

This season is starting to look like the 1996, 1997 and 2010 seasons in one aspect: The Nemesis. In 1996, the Packers had to fight off the Vikings to win the NFC Central before their march to New Orleans. The next year, the Packers had to beat up-and-coming Tampa Bay three times to return to the Super Bowl. And in 2010, the Packers had to get past Da Bears twice to get to Super Bowl XLV. This year’s Nemesis is Detroit, which improbably came back to defeat Dallas and remain as undefeated as the Packers. And they meet twice in the last part of the season, starting on Thanksgiving Day.

Long-time Wisconsin sports fans know that sports success is not our usual lot in life. While rooting for the Packers, Badgers or Brewers hasn’t been the exercise in futility rooting for the Cubs is, history says a season where each team is winning is rare. The more normal circumstance has been, say, 1986, when the Badgers were 3–9, the Packers were 4–12 and the Brewers were 77–84. There have been other years where one team was good but the other two weren’t, and there have been years where two were good but the third wasn’t. Before, it seems, this year, the best season may have been 1982, when the Brewers made the World Series, the Badgers won their first bowl game, and the Packers reached the second round of the playoffs. But now, we have, thanks to someone on Facebook:

I can say unequivocally, though, that this weekend will not be repeated next weekend.

The Badgers are off.

Some enterprising individual designed a logo for this weekend and possibly longer:

It seems like Wisconsinites are being blessed by big sports weekends more and more these days.

Our sports cornucopia begins with the Brewers’ second appearance in the National League Division Series in four years, after their first division title since their American League East title in 1982. That season, of course, went farther than 2008, when the Brewers lost their first playoff series:

The 2008 Brewers’ postseason was disappointing as are all that don’t end in a World Series win. But the 2008 Brewers seemed on the cusp of big things, even though they didn’t play like that in September and had to win their playoff berth on the last day of the season.

This postseason seems as if it’s the Brewers’ last, best hope for a title. The round mound of pound, Prince Fielder, seems to be on his way out to an American League team where he can be their designated hitter, with no obvious replacement on the roster. The Brewers traded away most of their minor-league prospects to dramatically improve their pitching. And they did improve their pitching, so it’s ironic that their best starter (Yovani Gallardo, who starts game 1 against Arizona Saturday afternoon) and closer (John Axford) are homegrown products. (Sort of, in Axford’s case; he was in the Reds’ and Yankees’ minor leagues, but never pitched in the majors before signing with the Brewers in 2008 and arriving in Milwaukee barely a year later.)

One thing the Brewers haven’t improved is their defense, which statistically isn’t very good. Baseball experts scowled earlier this year that the Brewers were trying to win with poor defense. And the Brewers finished 24th out of 30 in fielding percentage, though their Defense Efficiency Package was 16th. One could wonder how important defense is, however, given that there are as many teams in the playoffs that finished in the top eight in fielding (Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and Arizona) as in the bottom eight (St. Louis, Milwaukee and Texas).

This team compares mostly favorably to the 1982 Brewers in terms of team color. The ’82 Brewers had Robin Yount; the ’11 Brewers have Ryan Braun. The ’82 Brewers had Rollie Fingers and his handlebar mustache until his late-season injury; the ’11 Brewers have John Axford and his Zappa mustache. (Read here for facial hair definitions.) The out-there personality of Nyjer Morgan (loved by his teammates, close to hated by their opposition) lacks a match in ’82,  but the ’11 Brewers have no one as, well, ugly as Gorman Thomas and Pete Vuckovich. (A book about the ’82 Brewers chronicled an insult contest between Thomas and Vuckovich with one claiming the other’s face looked as if it had lost an acid fight.)

The ’82 Brewers’ power (216 home runs) was better distributed than the ’11 Brewers (185 home runs), whose biggest sticks (not to mention providers of the most majestic home runs you’ll ever see, homers where drinks should be served after the Fasten Seat Belt lights go out) are Braun and Fielder. Then again, few teams today have a 6-foot-6 leadoff hitter with some power (26 home runs) and a second baseman who hit his share of home runs before his ankle injury (20). Yuniesky Betancourt appeared to be the worst shortstop in baseball to begin the season, but he became at least serviceable by the end.

The ’82 Brewers were a veteran team, and the ’11 Brewers are still relatively young. This year’s team is slightly more home-grown:
1982 starters: 3B Paul Molitor (Brewers), SS Robin Yount (Brewers), 1B Cecil Cooper (traded from the Red Sox), C Ted Simmons (traded from the Cardinals), LF Ben Oglivie (formerly with the Tigers), CF Gorman Thomas (traded from and to the Brewers), DHs Don Money (Brewers) and Roy Howell (formerly with the Blue Jays), RF Charlie Moore (Brewers) and 2B Jim Gantner (Brewers).
1982 pitchers: Starters Mike Caldwell (formerly with the Reds), Don Sutton (formerly with the Astros and Dodgers), Pete Vuckovich (traded from the Cardinals) and Moose  Haas (Brewers); reliever/starter Jim Slaton (traded to and from the Tigers), closer Rollie Fingers (free agent formerly with the Athletics and Padres).
2011 starters: RF Corey Hart (Brewers), CFs Nyjer Morgan (traded from the Nationals) and Carlos Gomez (traded from the Twins), LF Ryan Braun (Brewers), 1B Prince Fielder (Brewers), 2B Rickie Weeks (Brewers), SS Yuniesky Betancourt (traded from the Royals) and C Jonathan Lucroy (Brewers).
2011 pitchers: Starters Yovani Gallardo (Brewers), Zack Greinke (traded from the Royals), Randy Wolf (in order, Phillies, Dodgers, Padres, Astros and Dodgers again) and Shawn Marcum (Blue Jays); eighth-inning pitcher Francisco Rodriguez (started with the Angels, traded from the Mets), and closer John Axford (Brewers after getting cut by the Reds and Yankees).

The 1982 approach was the brainchild of general manager Harry Dalton, who traded for or signed as free agents Cooper, Simmons, Oglivie, Thomas, Caldwell, Sutton, Vuckovich and Fingers. The 1977 Brewers weren’t very good, but after Dalton arrived, the ’78 through ’83 Brewers were suddenly contenders every season. In an era when salaries weren’t so insane, Dalton found the small core  of his team and augmented it with trades that nearly always benefited the Brewers more. (Only Brewers fans probably remember that they gave up outfielder Sixto Lezcano, pitcher Lary Sorenson, a pitcher and a prospect to get Simmons, Vuckovich and Fingers, or that they traded first baseman George Scott to get Cooper.)

The 2011 approach was the brainchild of general manager Doug Melvin, who developed more position players than Dalton, but who put together a pitching staff largely by acquisition.

The NLDS starts Saturday at 1 p.m. Six hours later on the other end of Interstate 94, the undefeated Badgers host Nebraska in the Cornhuskers’ first game in the 12-team Big Ten Conference.

The last time the Badgers played the Cornhuskers was in 1974, when a late touchdown pass from Eau Claire native Gregg Bohlig to wide receiver Jeff Mack (whose son later played for the Badgers) beat the mighty Cornhuskers 21–20, a win sealed by a late interception by safety Steve Wagner of Green Bay. My grandfather, a longtime Badgers season-ticket-holder, invited his sister, an ardent Cornhuskers fan from Lincoln. Great Aunt Mildred was, I’m told, mortified at the postgame conduct of the uncouth Badger fans.

And of those still-uncouth Badger fans, one commentor at HuskerExtra says:

Madtown is a great place for a game…festive atmosphere. However, if you’re going, be prepared for some interesting fan traditions. Besides the “Jump Around”, there is the cheer when an opposing player gets hurt, “Shoot him like a horse!” That is one of the nicer cheers. There are others that wouldn’t make it through the LITR profanity filter. Having sat in the student section at Memorial Stadium in recent years, it makes me realize how true it is, “There’s no place like Nebraska.” Stay classy Husker fans.

Another has a traditional view of the Badgers that omits their scintillating new quarterback:

The nature of our offense is ‘the big play’. We run 65 plays, and 58 of them are ‘duds’. No big deal. We still score 4 touchdowns and 3 field goals.

The Badgers are boring, like Nebraska used to be back when they won consistently.

New age technology offense vs. old school.

Nebraska: 37
Badgers: 21

This game will look like an intersquad game (the “scarlet” and “cream” Cornhuskers and the “cardinal” and white  Badgers), and not just because of their uniforms and white helmets, reports the Lincoln Journal Star:

Barry Alvarez can’t wait to show off to his Nebraska football friends what he’s helped build at Wisconsin.

They’ll certainly notice similarities to what they’ve become accustomed to in Lincoln. Not just the fan support and electric gameday atmosphere, but also the big, burly linemen in red jerseys, some of whom joined the program as walk-ons.

That’s how they did it at Nebraska, where Alvarez played linebacker from 1965 to 1967, and it’s the model Alvarez followed to pull Badger football out of the doldrums. …

“We were able to build a program and sustain it,” Alvarez said.

Much like Bob Devaney did at Nebraska. Alvarez played for Devaney, who also took a lethargic program and turned it into a consistent winner.

Would Alvarez consider himself the Bob Devaney of Wisconsin football?

“I would be flattered if anybody would consider that,” Alvarez said. “We did some very similar things here that Bob did.

“I felt fortunate to play for a great coach in Bob Devaney. He had a tremendous staff. As far as fundamentals, physical play, sound play, all those things are things I took with me and took to this program.”

Alvarez, who began his career as an assistant coach at Lincoln Northeast and head coach at Lexington, said he “stole” the walk-on program from Nebraska.

Wisconsin, like Nebraska, is the only NCAA Division I football school in the state.

“I really felt there were a lot of players that were borderline — guys that you’re not quite ready to pull the trigger on that we would actively recruit,” Alvarez said.

“Quite frankly, they’ve been our savior. I call them our erasers. They make up for any mistakes you make in recruiting.”

The least important game in the scheme of things is the Packers’ game against Denver Sunday during NLDS Game 2 (or vice versa). That’s because it’s an interconference game, which, as we learned last year, counts less in getting a playoff berth than, in order, overall record, divisional record and record in your conference.

Nevertheless, the Packers and Broncos have an interesting history, independent of the abomination that is Super Bowl XXXII. One of the Packers’ most impressive wins in their Super Bowl XXXI season was their 41–3 win over Denver, a game that looked like a Super Bowl preview given that the Packers and Broncos ended up as their conference’s number one seeds. (The Broncos’ path to Super Bowl XXXI was rudely interrupted by a home playoff loss to Jacksonville. We won’t mention what happened the next season.)

In the 2003 season, the Packers needed to beat Denver and, more unlikely, to have the Vikings lose to the Cardinals to clinch the NFC North title; had either of those not happened, the Packers would have missed the playoffs. The Packers handled Denver easily, and then during Lambeau Field’s two-minute warning:

And then in 2007 in Denver:

This weekend once again is why TV remote controls were invented.