Milwaukee: Not for the faint of heart.

I watched Friday’s Mets/Brewers game, and while it was an ultimately unfulfilling evening – the Mets lost 3-1 – there was some redeeming value to the broadcast.  It is a time honored Mets broadcasting tradition that whenever the team plays in Milwaukee –  the cheese capital of the world – the announcers make a point of talking about the concessions.  The gold standard belongs to longtime radio announcer, Howie Rose, who after a five minute monologue about the preponderance of cheese in Milwaukee, summed things up with, “Milwaukee:  Where arteries go to die!” 

During the mid-innings of this past Friday night’s game the television announcers began their usual tribute to Milwaukee’s Miller Park concessions, showing the concessionaires preparing  something something called a stuffed potato.  The trouble was that you couldn’t see the potato.

To begin with, what looked to be two pounds of pulled pork swimming in a glutinous sauce was slathered onto a baked potato.  Then (of course) came the grated cheese followed by a mass of caramelized onions.  This was followed by more cheese. The piece de resistance was sour cream.

How does anyone eat something like this without looking like an extra from Night of the Living Dead?!

 

Throw it back

For years the bleacher bums at Wrigley Field have had the quirky habit of throwing the opposing teams home run balls back onto the field.  When I first learned of this I thought it was a badass thing to do.  It was original and funny too.  In the past 15-20 years, however, fans of other teams have adopted this habit until now it has become de rigueur.  It’s a trope and a tired one at that.

If I was ever lucky enough to catch a home run ball the last thing I’d want to do is throw it away.  How often do these nimrods who mindlessly shout ‘throw it back!’ think this happens?  Allow me to offer a hint:  Almost never!

It’s one thing for the Cubs fans to do this.  I can stomach it from them since it’s their long-standing tradition.  But for a Cardinals or a Brewers fan to do it?  Well that’s bush league.

If I was sitting in the bleachers in Busch Stadium (no pun intended) and I caught Kris Bryant’s home run do you think I would throw it back?  Hell no!   Not only would I keep it, I’d have it bronzed and would brag about it until the day I died.

Imitation is not always a form of flattery.  in this case it’s a form of sheep-like stupidity.  Not for nothing, the Cubs are known as lovable losers.  Is this the kind of tradition you want to imitate?

Elimination day

At last I can exhale and begin to enjoy the 2011 baseball season now that the corporate automaton known as the Yankees have been eliminated by the Detriot Tigers.  That’s twice in five years that the smug, arrogant Yankee fans have looked past the Tigers towards the ALCS, and each time, much to their chagrin, their clean-cut, star-laden team has come up short.

How did the Yankees lose that game?  They had men on base in every inning except the first and the ninth, yet they could only score two runs.  Playoff A-Rod is an out waiting to happen.  I wonder if the Yankees are beginning to regret the contract that they gave him.  Who am I kdding — they could sign Pujois, Lincecum, and Cliff Lee next week and not blink. 

Here is the opening of longtime New York sports radio host, Chris Russo’s show the morning after the Yankees were eliminated.  It’s worth a listen.

But enough about the Yankees.  Let’s talk Brewers baseball.  There were two classic game fives on Friday night, but few games will match the intensity and drama of the Brewers deciding game versus the surprising and resilient Arizona Diamondbacks. 

This is why we watch baseball:  Not to see high-wattage super-teams composed of mercenary, colorless players, but to see the unbridled elation from teams such as Milwaukee. (or Arizona, had they advanced)   

Elation may have been an understatement.  I have never seen a team go so wild over a divisional series win before.  Granted Milwaukee won it with a walkoff hit in the bottom of the 10th, coming on the heels of Arizona failing to score a go-ahead run after they had loaded the bases loaded in the top of the ninth.  Still — the way they were carrying on you would have thought they had won the World Series.  

The sideline reporter tried to interview Prince Fielder, but the big guy would have none of it.  He grunted a few syllables before saying he had to go.  After a couple of comments from Ryan Braun, the hero of the hour, Nyger Morgan, popped his head into the frame and the reporter, quick as a cat whirled around and shouted, “Nyger, a few words please!”  Morgan had turned to the crowd and was shouting something at them.  All of a sudden you see this hand with a television mic extend towards Morgan and then you hear, “FUCK YEAH! FUCK YEAH!”

You know it’s been a couple of good days in the Keitho household when you get a Yankee elimination followed by unscripted F bombs on TV.  

Finally the reporter corals Morgan for an interview and he’s still looking around at the crowd and hugging various players, and finally he turns to her and says, “I got nothing for you,” and leaves for the clubhouse. 

 What the?!  The Brewers are the anti-corporation, dissing the media.  I love it!  

The next thing TBS showed was the clubhouse and I had never seen so much champagne flowing and such carrying on.  I counted eight bottles, and believe me, they were flowing.

Psst…Brewers…you haven’t won anything yet. 

 Ah, who am I kidding, I can’t stay mad at them.  I’ll be rooting for them to advance to the World Series, if no other reason than to see how much more amped up their celebrations can get.  Pass the cheese!

R.I.P. pennant races

It seems like only yesterday that I was waxing rhapsodic about the possibility of an epic four team National League Central Division pennant race.  I had Pirate fever and was envisioning playoff games from PNC Park.  Braves-Pirates would have been a fun first round matchup — a rematch of the 1991 and ’92 NLCS, and a chance for the Buccos to have reaped revenge. 

Alas, what a difference four weeks make.  Not only are the Pirates dead and buried — their hopes of breaking their 19year consecutive losing season streak all but dashed — the entire division has been taken over by the ascendant Brewers.  Mind you, I am happy it’s Milwaukee, rather than the Cardinals and their insufferable skipper, LaRussa, but I would have preferred a good old-fashioned dogfight.

In fact, there is only one pennant race this year, and I am lucky enough to be residing in one of two major league cities that is still hosting meaningful games.  By all rights, the San Francisco Giants should be buried, but it is their good fortune to play in the NL West, which contains a broke Dodgers, and a broken down Rockies.  The Diamondbacks are a feisty, young squad, and they are the surprise team of 2011, but I don’t see them winning more than one playoff game, if that. 

The Giants, with their pitching, would at least have a shot.  They have been a walking M*A*S*H unit this year — at this writing they have nine players on the DL — and yet have managed to remain in the race.  They picked up Carlos Beltran from the Mets, who did his best to blend in with his teammates by immediately going on the DL.  What is it with Beltran — the man can’t stay healthy.  He is a great player, but his entire career is based on the 2004 post season. 

A September devoid of pennant races is a bitter pill for me to swallow.  Once October begins, so does my personal hell, which consists of sweating through another Yankee blitzkrieg.  It’s torture watching them grind their way through playoff run after playoff run.  Yes, I know they’ve lost a few first round series in recent years, and the Redsox look formidable, (as does Texas) but something tells me that the Yanks will not be an easy out this year.  I dread another Redsox – Yankees ALCS — those five hour marathons which end when some obscure Yankee hits a homerun.  

All I hope for at the beginning of each baseball season is for the Yankees to miss the playoffs.  This has occurred once in the last 16 years.  It has been a reign of terror and there is no end in sight. 

The fact that there may be no pennant races, thus cutting off my last enjoyable month of the year, is a bitter pill to swallow.  Football, you can not start soon enough.