Photo: Reuters/Darren Hauck
Dear Bud, Mark, and God,
I am delighted that events have called for this letter to be written on a Saturday. I assume that you three could discuss some of its finer points over Bloody Marys tomorrow during your weekly brunch.
In 1982, the Brewers clinched their last division title, and in the process they set a then-record for the most homeruns by a team in the history of baseball. I wet myself. I know this, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, because I was seven months old when they ultimately went to the World Series. At seven months old, I had seen what has so far been the precipice of my baseball life, which amounted to a loss in seven games against the Cards.
I'm not going to lie. It's been a tough road for the Brewers fan. It took almost one hundred years to figure out if our Milwaukee Brewers were Major League or Minor League; American or National. "Bushtown," they called us... Bushtown.
The darkest hours during my baseball life involved concerns about my team leaving town. They involved getting used to the idea that 13-0 starts doesn't mean we'll have a postseason. They involved a Twins fan getting the prestigious "fan of the game" title while my American League team got shellacked in an empty, dilapidated County Stadium by the Twins. And, as somebody who had always claimed the Cubs as his National League team, they involved several years of therapy since 1997. Bud, I'll bill you later.
Still, there were things to rejoice over. Bud got Bob Uecker (who I've always assumed was God's distant relative) to become our local ear candy. There were Bucket Brigades, Vaughn's Valley, a 1987 no-no, 3000 hits for The Kid, and there was, eventually, something brewing in our farm system-- the Baby Brewers.
These Baby Brewers-- they're all grown up now. Many have gone to other teams. But when they came, in the mid aughts, change was in the air. Our beloved Milwaukeeans in the Selig clan had given the reigns to Mark Attonasio, an outsider. Forty years after a team showed up in Milwaukee with outlines of stitching that spelled "Seattle" still visible on their jerseys, forty years of identity crises, ups and downs, and worrying that Major League Baseball would be leaving Bushtown-- forty years of hoping for some daylight... and the sun began to shine. Change was in the air, and, to our collective relief, for the better!
Last night, I got to be a Cubs fan one last time, when, powered by shear hatred cultivated over a century, they managed to not suck, albeit briefly, and destroyed the St. Louis Cardinals. Your Milwaukee Brewers; Division Champions.
Bud, Mark, God, to you three: hats off. Somehow you three got baseball in Milwaukee, gave it to me, kept it there, and made it something to be proud of.
But... the timing. As you know, I had taken off to Los Angeles this last year. If the deal is that the further away I get from Milwaukee the better the Brewers do, that's no problem. I can be in North Korea by the start of next season. But I'm going to need a place to watch the postseason here in LA.
Mark, buddy, I'm looking at you.
With sincere gratitude,
N.T.
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