No comments on Speech of the year
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Today in 1953, Victor Borge’s “Comedy in Music” opened on Broadway, closing 849 performances later. (Pop.)
Today in 1960, Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs released “Stay,” which would become the shortest number one single of all time:
The number one single today in 1965:
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The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales:
After leading the National League Central by five games on Sept. 3, the Cubs’ season has been reduced to a win-or-go-home scenario.
The Brewers applied a blend of timely hitting and dominant pitching Monday to beat the Cubs 3-1 in the division tiebreaker before 38,450 fans at Wrigley Field.
By virtue of their victory, the Brewers earned the NL Central title and won’t play until Thursday, when they host the first of two games of the best-of-five NL Division Series.
The Cubs, whose two-year reign as NL Central champions was snapped, will play host to the loser of the NL West tiebreaker between the Rockies and Dodgers on Tuesday in the NL wild-card game.
The winner will face the Brewers.
Orlando Arcia collected the first four-hit game of his career and scored the go-ahead run during a two-run eighth.
The Cubs were held to three hits, scoring their lone run on a game-tying home run by Anthony Rizzo in the fifth. …
The Cubs’ failure to solve Orlando Arcia reached a new low when Arcia hit a curve on an 0-2 pitch off left-hander Justin Wilson for a single.
Domingo Santana followed with a double down the left field line, forcing Cubs manager Joe Maddon to pull Wilson in favor of Steve Cishek, making his 80th appearance.
But Lorenzo Cain smacked a 3-2 pitch up the middle and yelled vigorously at his teammates while running to first base as Arcia scored to give the Brewers a 2-1 lead.
Left-hander Randy Rosario struck out Christian Yelich, but Brandon Kintzler allowed an RBI single to Ryan Braun to the delight of several thousand Brewers fans.
The Brewers scored twice in the top of the eighth inning, thus allowing manager Craig Counsell to go to his strength – the back end of his bullpen.
Left-hander Josh Hader struck out Jason Heyward on a slider, induced pinch-hitter Albert Almora Jr. to line out to second and whiffed Willson Contreras on a 98 mph fastball to end the eighth.
The Chicago Sun–Times’ Steve Greenberg:
The Cubs gave it a shot. The best team in the National League wasn’t having any of it.
So much for a third straight NL Central title for a Cubs team that had the best record in the league for long enough that, at times, home-field advantage in the playoffs seemed like a foregone conclusion.
The Brewers came to Wrigley Field and ripped the title away with a 3-1 victory in a Game 163 tiebreaker. And they did it with rock-solid pitching, locked-in hitting and loud, proud fans in the Wrigley Field stands — a not-so-subtle payback for all those mass migrations of Cubs fans to Miller Park.
Not a rivalry? Please. …
For the Cubs, it’s a gut-punch. Jon Lester could steady the ship Tuesday with an outing worthy of an ace, but this team, with its already compromised bullpen, wasn’t well prepared for an audible the size of this one. The Brewers simply refused to yield, however, winning seven straight — and 27 of 37 — heading into the tiebreaker.
The Brewers earned this one. The Cubs can’t be called unlucky, let alone the better team. …
The Cubs burned through six different relievers, something that should make it hard for manager Joe Maddon to get a decent night’s sleep. This was the least desirable of all potential scenarios. Jesse Chavez put in a hard day’s work. Justin Wilson could be close to spent. Steve Cishek appears to be running on fumes. Randy Rosario, Brandon Kintzler and Jaime Garcia all pitched.
How long can Lester go on Tuesday? Will he come through in the playoffs yet again? Or will a Cubs team making its fourth straight postseason appearance turn out — just like that — to be toast?
The Trib’s Steve Rosenbloom:
Jose Quintana, your patsy was ready.
The Brewers were in town, and hot or not, MVP candidate or no, they were the exact team the Cubs needed to see with Quintana ready to go on regular rest.
In fact, they were the one team for whom the Cubs would send a fleet of limos. Quintana might not be the consistent arm the Cubs had anticipated when they acquired him from the White Sox last season, but he had consistently owned the Brewers.
In six starts against them this season, Quintana posted a 2.17 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP. In 10 lifetime starts against Milwaukee, Quintana was even better — a 1.60 ERA and 0.82 WHIP. The Brewers were the only team against whom Quintana had a WHIP below 1.0. Yes, this was his patsy. This was his start. This was his chance to give the fatigued Cubs a couple days off before the NL Division Series and home-field advantage as long as they survive the league’s postseason.
But no. Didn’t happen. The Brewers won the NL Central in Wrigley Field, though you can’t blame Quintana. You can blame the Cubs offense and bullpen, and maybe the manager for going to the bullpen so early.
Quintana wasn’t dominant. He was barreled up at times. But he gave the Cubs a chance to win, as much as he was allowed to while throwing just 64 pitches, giving up one run in five-plus innings.
Then it became a bullpen game, which would set off the much-discussed weirdness that wove through the day and the game, one of two tiebreakers to decide NL division titles and wild-card combatants, the first in Wrigley the other in Dodger Stadium.
It wasn’t win-or-walk for the Cubs, Brewers, Dodgers or Rockies, but it was the next-closest thing when you consider the fear every team has of the coin flip that is the one-game wild card.
For the Cubs and Brewers, the importance was more acute because they would hold home-field advantage for as long as they stayed alive in the NL bracket.
That led to the big pregame question of whether the managers empty the bullpen only with a lead to avoid being forced to play Tuesday, knowing if they won Monday’s game, then they would have a couple days to let their arms recover.
With neither starter completing the sixth, we got an answer. The bullpen battle turned into a parade of high-leverage relievers in a game tied at 1. Tuesday didn’t appear to matter. Maddon used four relievers in the eighth inning, and unfortunately one was the Justin Wilson from 2017 that made your eyes bleed and another was this week’s Steve Cishek that made everyone tired and yet another was mid-season acquisition Brandon Kintzler who might as well have stayed in Washington.
Like that, the Brewers led 3-1 lead and their bullpen played to asphyxiating form. White Sox closer Joakim Soria fanned Javier Baez to end the sixth, then came Corey Knebel in the seventh and Josh Hader in the eighth and ninth. The Cubs still haven’t touched that bullpen and might not if you’d given them all night.
As they have done all season, the Cubs hitters proved mystifyingly inconsistent. After blowing up against the Cardinals on Sunday, the Cubs flat-lined Monday, managing just two hits other than Anthony Rizzo’s massive solo blast. That’s how you blow a great opportunity to sail into the postseason.
To think, a month ago the Cubs held a five-game lead over the Brewers and looked set to roll to their third straight division title. The Brewers caught them, and now have passed them.
Tuesday’s crapshoot game awaits. Win, and the Cubs advance to the NL Division Series on Thursday against these same Brewers. Quick, someone tell the Cubs offense that hitting in October is not optional.
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Polls, both public and private, indicate that Governor Scott Walker, Senate Candidate Leah Vukmir, and many Republican legislative seats are in real danger this November. The body language from candidates and campaigns tells a similar story.
At Republican events, the crowd sizes are down (that maybe changing with outrage over Kavanaugh) and people stand there with a blank look, in total disbelief. “How can we be losing? I don’t believe it. Things are going so well.”
On TV, every other commercial is attacking Vukmir, with no response, so most Wisconsinites now believe that Vukmir, who’s a nurse, wants people with pre existing conditions to just go away and die.
Nationally things don’t look much better. The House looks lost, the Senate is in play, and the Liberal Establishment is on the verge of destroying a good and decent man in Brett Kavanaugh.
My question to my fellow Wisconsinites is, “What the hell are we doing?!”
Do we forget that in 2010 our state was running a $3.8 billion budget deficit? Democrats had just illegally raided the Transportation Fund, the Patients Compensation Fund, and massively cut state aid to public schools. Our unemployment rate was pushing 10 percent and we were a high-taxed state seen as anti-business.
In 2011, that changed!
Today, our unemployment rate is below 3 percent and has been for nearly a year. Wisconsin is now running budget surpluses and has for several years. Walker and the Republicans have cut income taxes, property taxes, and invested more money than ever before into our public schools. We’ve gotten Concealed Carry, Voter ID, defunded Planned Parenthood, and cancelled the foolish train from Milwaukee to Madison. They’ve repaid the Patients Compensation Fund, the Transportation Fund, and settled deadbeat Doyle’s reciprocity payment to Minnesota.
We just had a back-to-school sales tax holiday, a child tax credit, and the governor is proposing more tax credits for child care. This is welcome news as those of us with small kids know how expensive they are.
More people are working now than ever before and family supporting jobs are being created across our great state. From Komatsu Mining’s new $285 million facility in Milwaukee to the additions to Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac, and now Foxconn’s $10 billion investment making Wisconsin the capital of high-tech manufacturing, Wisconsin is Open for Business!
And speaking of Foxconn, the largest economic development project in the history of America, the company is investing in communities all across Wisconsin. From Racine to Eau Clare, from Wausau to Green Bay, not to mention their recent $100 million grant to the University of Wisconsin, Foxconn is investing in Wisconsin!
Wisconsin has never been doing better!
And Tony Evers?
He opposes all of it. He fought the governor in 2011 and 2012 as Walker cleaned up the mess he inherited. Evers went so far as to even sign and support the recall of Scott Walker. Evers opposed Act 10, opposed the tax cuts, opposed the child credits, opposes Concealed Carry, opposes your Second Amendment Rights, opposes Voter ID, and he’s opposed the deal to bring Foxconn to Wisconsin. Evers is proposing all sorts of new spending, without specifics to pay for it, which means only one thing: higher taxes!
So I ask you, fellow Wisconsinites, why are we on the verge of firing the leadership team that’s made Wisconsin a national leader in favor of electing the same tired old bureaucrats that screwed it all up?
Why are we willing to just defecate on all this good news?
I know many of you don’t like President Donald Trump and/or his style. I get it. I know many of you are angry government employees who can’t let Act 10 go. I kinda get that, too.
But you have to acknowledge Wisconsin is in a much better place than it was in 2010. Walker deserves your support, as do his Republican allies like Vukmir. Vukmir stood with Walker during the protests and recalls, and she’ll stand with Wisconsin in the US Senate.
The most frustrating aspect of the Senate campaign is that while Vukmir’s a nurse, it was Sen. Tammy Baldwin who ignored the opioid crisis at the Tomah VA. It is Baldwin who is complacent in the smear of Kavanaugh, and it is Baldwin whose far-left voting record means the Madison isthmus is well represented on Capitol Hill. But the rest of us? Not so much.
So Wisconsin, are we really going to reward the Democrats and their resist movement, the walk outs, protests, recalls, and slanders?
I say no!
A vote for Democrats Nov. 6 means that the wrong people will be in chsrge to do the eronh things come January.
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I present the number one single today in 1977 to demonstrate that popularity and quality are not always synonymous:
The number one single today in 1983:
Today in 2004, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne officially opened AC/DC Lane, named for the band, to the bagpipes from …
Birthdays begin with actor Richard Harris, who “sang” …
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All of baseball has the first pitch in the 2:05-2:20 p.m. time slot Sunday, a chance to make scoreboard watching a mandatory act on the final day of the regular season.
That means everyone at Wrigley Field will be watching with great interest as the numbers of the Brewers-Tigers game get posted in the innings windows of the old center-field scoreboard.
It may be outdated, anachronistic and lacking the kind of between-innings information demanded by modern-day attention spans, but on Sunday that clunky, old board that has served as the backdrop of a billion selfies finally gets its star turn.
The Cubs made sure of that Saturday, losing 2-1 to the Cardinals on a quiet afternoon at Wrigley to ensure Sunday’s games would have relevance.
Yes, the Cubs and Brewers race is good to the last drop, just the way you guessed.
After the Brewers’ 6-5 victory over the Tigers on Saturday night at Miller Park, the teams were tied for first place in the National League Central with identical 94-67 records heading into the final day of the regular season. Both teams play at home, where they both are 50-30.
It’s great for baseball, though perhaps a bit nerve-wracking for the Cubs, who have had a number of chances to put some space between them and their nearest rival in the second half, only to fail to land a knockout punch.
Now the Cubs could play the Brewers in a division tiebreaker game Monday at Wrigley Field, or in the NL Division Series which starts Thursday. Or they could lose the wild-card game and end their season with a grandiose thud.
No one really can guess what will happen thanks to the Cubs’ incredibly shrinking offense, which comes and goes like an L train through a slow zone. You almost expect a CTA-like announcement periodically informing fans: “This offense will resume service momentarily.”
There’s no safety net now. This Brewers bunch has been on the Cubs’ tails for two years running, and has refused to fade away in September.
Kris Bryant admitted last weekend he had started scoreboard watching for the first time in his big-league career.
“Yeah, that didn’t go very good,” Bryant said with a laugh.
The East Coast media honchos have ignored the Brewers as they have force-fed the Yankees, Red Sox and, yes, the Cubs, down America’s throats. But the Cubs know better that to overlook them.
This is no Cinderella story. The Brewers are a team that was on the cusp in 2017 and went for it in the offseason.
“I like a lot of their players. They have character, they’re kind of interesting,” manager Joe Maddon said. “Even the addition of (Mike) Moustakas was a great move on their part.
“I’ve liked this group for two years now — ‘Citizen Cain’ in center field. They have a nice group that provides a lot of good energy. I don’t know why (they’re overlooked). Like you’re saying, maybe (being a) small market has something to do with it.”
Bryant lauded their offseason moves, when the Brewers changed the future of the franchise on one January day with the signing of Lorenzo Cain and the trade for the Marlins’ Christian Yelich, the current MVP favorite.
“They really nailed it with Yelich and Cain, and the emergence of some of the guys in their bullpen has really helped them out,” Bryant said before the Cubs’ loss. “It’s going to be a nice battle these two games, and maybe even into the playoffs.”
Letting the Brewers hang around all year has proven to be a big mistake, which is why the Cubs need to pay close attention Sunday to the 81-year-old scoreboard.
“Obviously they’re right behind us, so it’s natural to glance at the scoreboard and see what’s going on,” Bryant said.
“But it really does no good. We have to go out there and win. That’s why I said (Friday) I’m not going to go home and watch (the Brewers) game. That’s not going to change the way we play.
“We just have to win these games, regardless of what they do.”
On Aug. 14, the Cubs began a two-game series with the Brewers at Wrigley, owning a three-game lead in the National League Central. Jose Quintana, who basically has owned the Brewers since arriving on the North Side, was on the mound, and the Cubs were coming off the natural high of the “Bote Game” — the walk-off grand slam of rookie David Bote against the Nationals.
But Cain opened with a leadoff home run, and longtime Cubs-killer Ryan Braun added a two-run shot later in the first. The Brewers wound up with a 7-0 victory, limiting the Cubs to only three hits.
“It was pretty close to a must-win,” Braun said afterward. “If you want to stay in the division race, you had to win one of two. Ideally you have to win both.”
The Cubs had a few more opportunities to put their foot on the Brewers’ neck, but lost four of six games to them in September, including the excruciating Labor Day loss at Miller Park when Bryant unsuccessfully tried to pull off a 5-3 double play on a Yelich grounder as the winning run scored from third.
If the Cubs and Brewers do play a tiebreaker game Monday, that Brewers comeback victory will be a big reason why.
When I asked him Saturday morning, Bryant wasn’t sure he would watch the Brewers game that night.
“I might be more compelled to watch because it puts us in a better position (if they lose),” he said. “But I don’t know. It kind of puts you in a weird mindset as a baseball player that you hardly ever find yourself in.
“So why go there?”
The weird part is that if the Brewers and Cubs match what the other does, the playoff Monday afternoon will send the winner to the Division Series Thursday and the loser to the wild card playoff Tuesday. That would be unprecedented, but the same thing could happen in the NL West.
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The number eight song today in 1958:
Today in 1967, the Beatles mixed “I Am the Walrus,” which combined three songs John Lennon had been writing. The song includes the sounds of a radio going up and down the dial, ending at a BBC presentation of William Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” Lennon had read that a teacher at his primary school was having his students analyze Beatles lyrics, Lennon reportedly added one nonsensical verse, although arguably none of the verses make much sense:
The number 71 …
… number 51 …
… number 27 …
… number 20 …
… number eight …
… number six …
… number three …
… and number one singles today in 1973:
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The three greatest quarterbacks in Packers history in the Super Bowl era are Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, arguably followed by Lynn Dickey.
After Dickey comes, or came, the abyss. Fans who suffered through the Gory Years after Vince Lombardi left and before Ron Wolf got to Green Bay can recite with varying degrees of exasperation the list of starting quarterbacks after Starr and before Favre, including Scott Hunter (who at least won a division title by handing off to John Brockington and MacArthur Lane), Jerry Tagge (a Green Bay native whose skills as Nebraska’s quarterback in more of a passing offense than the Cornhuskers eventually ran didn’t translate into the NFL), Jim Del Gaizo (because the third-string draft pick of the Super Bowl VII champion Miami Dolphins should be worth two second-round draft picks, right?), Jack Concannon (perhaps because he was on the early ’70s Cowboys practicd squad), John Hadl (more about him momentarily), Don Milan, Carlos Brown (later known as actor Alan Autry of “In the Heat of the Night”), Randy Johnson and David Whitehurst produced little success.
That’s the pre-Dickey’s-broken-leg list. After Dickey came Randy Wright (one of UW’s best quarterbacks, but see Tagge), Jim Zorn (previously in Seattle), Don Majkowski (Magik for 1989), Anthony Dilweg (despite being the grandson of a Packer alumnus), Mike Tomczak (who was less effective in Green Bay than he was in Chicago, and he was no Jim McMahon with Da Bears) and Blair Kiel (formerly of Notre Dame, about which more later).
The worst part of this tale of woe is Hadl, the object of possibly the most idiotic trade in NFL history. Somewhere between Del Gaizo and Milan GM/coach Dan Devine realized he had no NFL-level quarterbacks on his roster. And so Devine panicked and sent two first-round draft picks, a second-round pick and two third-round picks to the Rams for Hadl. Starr, who replaced Devine as GM and coach after Devine left for Notre Dame, then had to send two more draft picks and a player to Houston to get Dickey.
That long preamble leads us to Cliff Christl:
Over a span of seven years, from when the newly formed American Football League held its first draft on Nov. 22, 1959 until a merger agreement with the National Football League was reached in June 1966, the two leagues held separate college drafts and engaged in expensive bidding wars to sign their picks.
The Green Bay Packers lost only one of nine No. 1 choices during that period and it proved to be no loss. Wide receiver Larry Elkins, selected with the Packers’ second first-round pick and 10th choice overall in the 1965 draft, signed with the Houston Oilers and turned out to be a bust. He played two years and caught a total of 24 passes.
Still, the Packers lost a quarterback who could have become Bart Starr’s heir apparent and four solid offensive linemen. …
The AFL held its draft on Dec. 1, 1962, two days before the NFL, and the Buffalo Bills announced 13 days later they had signed Lamonica, their 24th round choice. “I’m going with the Bills because they gave me a better one-year offer,” explained Lamonica. “I don’t intend to play pro ball the rest of my young life. I have other things in mind.”
The quarterback who became known as “The Mad Bomber” as a pro struggled as a senior at Notre Dame under Joe Kuharich much like Joe Montana did later under Dan Devine. In fact, Kuharich considered Lamonica a better runner, but thought junior Frank Budka was the better passer because he threw a better deep ball. So he had them split time.
1963 wasn’t one of Notre Dame’s more memorable seasons and Lamonica was the subject of one of the better stories that circulated in South Bend. Apocryphal or not, it went like this. One day a priest encountered him on a golf course and asked why he wasn’t at practice. Lamonica responded, “I don’t have to practice. I know both of Kuharich’s plays.” So the priest, in need of a golf partner the next day, asked Lamonica to join him. “Can’t make it today,” said the quarterback. “I have to find out which play Joe wants to use Saturday.”
Following a 35-6 loss to Northwestern, Notre Dame was scheduled to play Navy next. That week, the Midshipmen’s chief scout Steve Belichick told the Baltimore Sun that Notre Dame’s biggest problem was quarterback because four players were sharing the position. But Belichick added that he liked what he saw of Lamonica, despite the lopsided score, when he got a chance to play in the second half against Northwestern. “He gave them the best passing they’ve had all year,” Belichick said. Sure enough, against Navy, Lamonica outplayed sophomore Roger Staubach and triggered a four-game winning streak for the Irish.
After signing with Buffalo, Lamonica spent four years backing up veteran Jack Kemp, but went 4-0 in his only starts. Traded to Oakland in 1967, Lamonica led the Raiders to a 13-1 regular-season record, the AFL championship and a matchup with Green Bay in Super Bowl II. He also was named the AFL’s Player of the Year.
The week before the Super Bowl, Green Bay native Red Smith, who would win a Pulitzer Prize nine years later, interviewed George Wilson, who had coached Detroit from 1957-64 and also had faced Lamonica three times as coach of the Miami Dolphins. Asked to compare the two teams, Wilson said he thought Lamonica would be the key to the game. “I believe the two hottest quarterbacks in professional football through the season were Sonny Jurgensen with the Redskins and Lamonica in our league,” said Wilson.
Although Starr outplayed Lamonica in the Super Bowl, the latter compiled a 62-16-6 record as Oakland’s starter before being replaced by future Hall of Famer Ken Stabler in 1973.
When the Raiders acquired Lamonica, Ron Wolf was a 29-year-old scout in his fifth year with the team. Wolf has no doubt Lamonica would have eventually played for the Packers.
“He threw 30 touchdown passes his first year, 34 another year,” said Wolf. “The team went 13-1 with him as a quarterback. He had a strong arm. He could make all the throws. Plus, he was agile enough to get out of trouble.”
In Wolf’s eyes, Lamonica might have been the second best quarterback in AFL history. “Of his era, there wasn’t anybody as good as Joe Namath,” said Wolf. “Joe Namath was a cut above everybody else. He’s in the Hall of Fame. But Daryle would be No. 2. (Len) Dawson is in the Hall of Fame, but I think Daryle was better than Dawson. (George) Blanda is in the Hall of Fame. But Daryle could make all the throws.”
No doubt, Lamonica was better than any Packers’ quarterback between Starr and Lynn Dickey, but he would have been 29 years old when Starr’s shoulder problems signaled the end was near in 1969.
Keep in mind as well that most of Lamonica’s career was in the wide-open AFL. (The same applies to Hadl.) Raiders owner Al Davis coached under Sid Gillman, one of the architects of the modern passing game, and Davis loved throwing deep. (Here’s a big what-if: Davis apparently once considered trading Stabler, perhaps the most accurate quarterback of the 1970s, to Pittsburgh for Steeler quarterback Terry Bradshaw.) Even though under Bengtson quarterback Don Horn once threw for 410 yards in a game, no NFL team threw as freely as the Raiders with Lamonica or the Chargers with Hadl.
One big problem every Packer quarterback between Starr and Favre faced (often from their backs) was poor-quality offensive lines. Christl’s piece also discusses four offensive linemen the Packers drafted but lost to AFL teams who arguably would have been better than the offensive linemen the Packers had once the Glory Days offensive line retired or were traded away (Forrest Gregg to Dallas).
And while we’re talking about problems of Packer quarterbacks, we might as well add the quality, or lack thereof, of targets for those quarterbacks. The 1972 NFC Central champion Packers were so ground-bound that Hunter averaged less than 100 passing yards per game. Carroll Dale, nearing the end of his career, led the Packers with 16 catches for 317 yards and one touchdown. Those aren’t even good high school numbers today. (In fact the 1972 Packers were just 11th in offensive points per game, but were fourth in points given up per game.)
Other Packer receivers, if you want to call them that, of this era included 1973 first-round pick Barry Smith, who lasted three seasons because he didn’t like to catch balls over the middle, and a group of guys you’ve never heard of. (Jack Clancy? Jon Staggers? Leland Glass? Ollie Smith?) After Dale’s and Boyd Dowler’s departures, not until the Packers drafted James Lofton first in 1978 did they have a quality receiver on the team. (Dale and Dowler were more like spread-out tight ends than fast receivers, which Lombardi never had.) Meanwhile, Hadl was throwing to a Hall of Fame receiver, Lance Alworth, and Lamonica was throwing to another Hall of Fame receiver, Fred Biletnikoff; two other above-average receivers, Warren Wells and tight end Raymond Chester; and several running backs who could also catch.
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Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich, the likely 2018 National League Most Valuable Player, doesn’t want to talk about himself.
Maybe I should be talking about myself here, but I don’t know … that’s just not me. The real story of this season, if you ask me, is what we’ve done together, as a unit. Without my teammates, I’d be nothing.
With Lo[renzo Cain], you’ve got a guy who’s had to scratch and claw his way to the bigs. He didn’t even start playing baseball until he was a sophomore in high school. Since then he’s had to face doubters at every turn. And, you know what? He wouldn’t have it any other way. He just competes and competes, and then he competes some more.
It’s like: Just give me a shot, and then watch what happens.
And that spirit, that energy … I’m telling you. It rubs off on everyone who plays with him.
Lo and I, we became Brewers this year on the same day. He signed his contract about an hour after I got traded here back in January. And then a few days later we found ourselves paired up at fan fest in Milwaukee. Almost immediately, I realized that … his positivity and outlook on life is incredible. He literally believes that he can accomplish anything he puts his mind to. Then he basically goes out and wills himself to reach his goals. As a team, we’ve seen him do that over and over again all season — whether it’s going 8 for 14 a few weeks ago when we took two of three at Wrigley, or bailing me out when I got caught in a rundown in June.
That one, especially, was just an insane heads-up play. And it was perfect Lo Cain: Never quitting, always hustling, giving everything he has for every single base.
And over time, that mindset and desire to compete … well it’s really become our identity as a team. I mean, you have Jesus Aguilar break up a no-hitter against the Cardinals a few months ago with a home run in the seventh … and then he wins the game in the ninth with a walk-off homer. That’s the kind of stuff we do. Because we have become a team that just … finds a way.
We have 10 walk-off wins this year, and even though we’ve also been walked off six times, we’re always just right there fighting hard every single night.
We may not always be the most talented team on paper, but you’ll never outhustle us or compete harder than we do. That’s basically our whole mindset now. It’s part of the Brewers’ culture.
Lo’s played here before, so he knew what to expect right off the bat. But, you know, I grew up in California. I’m new to Milwaukee.
And I have to say: I’ve never seen anything like this town when it comes to people being nice. For real. It’s a stereotype about the Midwest, but it’s true. It’s pretty ridiculous how nice people are in Milwaukee. It’s like you’re a member of everyone’s family or something.
Even before I arrived in town in January, I got a taste of that hospitality. After I got traded, it was like a whirlwind — tons of calls and arrangements. My head was spinning there for a second. I was back visiting my mother in Southern California at the time, and I wanted to get to Milwaukee to meet everyone at the fan fest, but there was just a lot going on at once. Everything was just super complicated.
Then, all of a sudden … it wasn’t.
Mr. Attanasio reached out to me with an invite. He was going to be flying back into Milwaukee with Brauny, and wanted to know if I’d like to join them on the plane.
Super nice.
Oh, and then, I get on the jet and find out we’re going to be stopping in Arizona to pick up … Bob Uecker and Robin Yount.
I mean, are you kidding me?
It was like a Brewers legends trip, and I was somehow lucky enough to be invited.
Everyone made me feel so welcomed. I just remember sitting there on that plane with all those guys thinking about how much this organization really does seem like one big family.
Then I got to fan fest and realized….
Just how big this family really is.
You never really know how it’s going to go when you get traded … especially if you’ve never been traded before. And for me there was even more uncertainty involved because I didn’t really know a lot about the Brewers as a team, or any of the players.
So, you know, this wasn’t something that was guaranteed to go smoothly right out the gate. But once I got to the Brewers’ spring training complex I got a pretty good sense that it was all going to work out just fine.
Literally two days into spring workouts, it was like, “Hey, new guy … we’re doing a Sandlot video.”
I’m like, Um, O.K….
“You’re playing Benny the Jet. Good luck, dude. I’m sure you’ll be great.”
Now, let’s just set it straight: Stuff like that is really, really far outside my comfort zone. I typically don’t do things like that. But I was being given the chance to bond with my new teammates and have fun with them off the field, so what am I going to do, decline the offer? Say I’m not going?
You just have to go and be with the guys; show them you’re a team player.
So that’s what I did. And then, next thing I know, I look up and it’s got thousands and thousands of views, and it’s all over social media.
We were just learning everybody’s names a day or two prior to that. And then we’re all in this viral video together? It was cool, though, and fun. We made it work. And I think it kind of shows the vibe we’ve had in our clubhouse all season.
No doubt one of the keys to that vibe, for sure, has been having thick skin and being able to laugh. This year, nobody’s been off-limits as far as people talking s*** in our clubhouse. Brauny’s the vet who knows everything about everyone. Wade Miley’s a character. He’s sort of hilarious, even when he doesn’t mean to be, if you know what I mean. Matt Albers is funny. Suter is crazy, the good kind of crazy. Erik Kratz keeps us all loose. So really you just never know.
It kind of sounds simple, right? It’s a long season, and you’ve got to stay loose. But it really is the kind of thing that shows up on the field during big games, when it matters.
For me, the best thing about this season has probably been all the big matchups against the Cubs. That sort of rivalry is something I hadn’t really experienced before in my career. It really is just two passionate fan bases that don’t like each other a whole lot. And you can feel that tension in the air.
I can’t tell you how much fun it is to be involved in games like that.
And as much as I love playing in Miller Park, I almost enjoy playing the Cubs more when we’re on the road. I like going into that hostile territory. Getting booed and screamed at … that does something to you, man. It starts during batting practice, too — Cubs fans let you hear it — and it doesn’t stop until the game is over.
When you go in there and rally together as a team — like we did in that last series at Wrigley a few weeks ago — it’s just the best part of playing baseball. And those games will stick with me for a while.
But that stuff’s all in the rearview mirror at this point. Now it’s almost the postseason. We’re hoping to make more meaningful memories this fall.
It’s like we’ve spent six months writing the opening chapters of a book. And those chapters are great — Brauny’s walk-off bomb against St. Louis during our very first home stand of the season, or a cycle or two by some new guy. Our story’s off to a cool start.
But now….
It’s all about how we end it.
I have a feeling we haven’t seen anything yet.
It’s going to take all of us.
It’s not just about the players on the field, or the coaches in the dugout. No. Our success in getting to and advancing in the playoffs is going to be just as much about you.
Because we feed off your energy.
We really, really do.
We fully understand that this team is more than just a random group of guys to you all — that the Brewers genuinely mean something to you. We realize that when we’re playing well it actually affects your lives and results in a certain level of joy and happiness throughout the city … and, actually, all across the state.
That’s big for us. We truly value that.
And at the end of the day, I keep coming back to how this organization, and all those who support it, really are like one big family.
To be at our best, and most happy … we need each other.
So, well … I’ve got a big favor I want to ask of you guys.
I need you to make Miller Park as loud as humanly possible these last few days of the season because it will probably come down to the last series.
Like, beyond loud.
And I guess that isn’t really much of a favor at all considering that you guys already do that anyway. But you know what I mean — make it even LOUDER than normal. Don’t hold anything back. And then, you know, we’ll feed off that energy and, well.…
Let’s just see what happens, Milwaukee.
We may not be a team overflowing with superstars, and we may not be on national TV all the time or get all the headlines or whatever, but I know we have something special here. And it’s largely because none of that stuff matters to us.
All we do is go out, grind and hustle, and compete like there’s no tomorrow.
But like I said before: We need you.
All of you.
So before I get out of here, I just have two more words for you.
LET’S GOOOOOOOOOO!
Ten years ago, I got to see this …
… on the way to seeing the Brewers get to the postseason for the first time in 26 years.
Three years later, there was this …
… but other than that and the 1981 and 1982 playoffs …
… Brewers fans have had not much to celebrate since 1970, until wednesday night.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 