get up get up and get outta here!

I think of my organs as separate beasts all sharing the same prison cell body with eyes as peep holes through the bars. Memory or lack of one is not an organ. I guess it would be the action of one of those hammond b’s, but amazing how unpredictable it can be; amnesia and recall dueling side by side.

Phone numbers from the fourth grade I can recall digit by digit. That’s almost 30 years ago and yet I can feel the melting of my data base memory. Maybe it’s a timely fleeing; a slow disintegration of all I’ve gathered over the years; all the stimulation and what not; the fruition of Pol Pot’s horrific “Year Zero” Cambodia? We are living the 40th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon in neighboring Vietnam. PBS reminded me.

I was five years old at the time and don’t remember a damn thing except my first pack of baseball cards arriving in that 1975. I bought it at Winkie’s Variety store; same place I bought a gold-fish a few years later and then put the damn thing in a rice bowl because I didn’t have a fish tank. It died a few days later. That was the first and last pet I ever had; other than my organs.

I don’t remember any particular sensation freeing those cards from cramped wax packs, holding them in my hand and sliding them one by one; revealing faces, colors and scenes. Nope, I don’t remember a thing except Jim Brewer being in the pack. Maybe it’s a simple case of day glow psychedelic borders dominating the memory freight and fret boards in our brain or maybe it was his first baseman’s glove appearing bigger than his head. I got pulled into a whirl pool junky paradise and never really made it out.

This gives me hope and incentive to perform word searches and attend Bingo at the local church. Doctor’s say those types of activities are good for the memory and brain, but screw it. I can throw away my Ginkgo Bilbao. I’ll remember yesterday; no crutches needed because the Brewers won a game hot Yosemite barbecue grilling corn cob chomping damn Sam!!!

I always thought it sounded smarter to hit behind runners, bunt, wear a squint in my eyes and look pensive as I rolled dice to see how my strat-o-matic hit and run would turn out. It got me nowhere. The Brewers hit home runs. They win games. They can switch leagues and they did and it still won’t make a difference. Yeh, there was Davey Lopes and Phil Garner managing former Brewer teams and Tom Trebelhorn too, but those were just intermissions. The Brewers hit home runs.

Yeh, Roenicke was brought in as manager that loves to run; loves to stretch singles into doubles and yeh, the Brewer led the league in stolen bases a few years ago and Gomez and Segura and Braun when healthy all keep stealing, but it’s just a recreational activity between home runs. The Brewers hit home runs. The Brewers win games. Bambi’s Bombers Harvey’s Wallbangers. The one time trip to the World Series is a hard habit to break. 

I love Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati because I love whiffle ball. Ryan Braun hit an opposite field home run Tuesday and in his second at bat Wednesday he hit another opposite field home run and then in the 8th,he hit a grand slam-more of  blast to center field because a home run to any center field is a blast and so is the Brewers winning. That was Braun’s 4th home run of the year.  Adam Lind also hit his 4th of the year earlier in the game and Khris Davis hit his first. 

Contagious situation.
Here’s to the forest fire beginning right………………….now.
The Brewers are 5-17. 

wabash cannonball

There’s a rush to reach the 1980’s in this quick survey of Milwaukee Brewer’s first round draft picks for a reason I don’t want to say because that would suck the surprise out of it.

There’s a pattern I’ve been looking for in Brewer drafts and well, patterns are not always so obvious; especially when the sample size multiplies and triple flies and the Brewers are not exactly the oldest franchise, but they do stretch back to 1969 Seattle Pilots and that’s a bunch of years.

Management changes and so do visions and divisions and needs. Pitchers rip rotator cuffs and speedsters pop hamstrings; players are sold and traded; the roster is cleared of financial doom. Rules and compensation changes and what nots make finding a draft pattern like looking for Waldo in a colorful junk heap, but those 1980’s hammered home a possibility, but I can’t say just yet. I want to drag this out a little longer and add some musical interlude that well, by George, it kinda soothes my troubled mind, but as you’ll soon see, it’s not troubled at all because 1978 was the first wave of Brewer success; 93 wins of beefy love; a time to celebrate with a look even further back.

Dizzy Dean was a colorful character and the last National League pitcher to ever win 30 games. He also didn’t speak right according to the local English professor enjoying a corned beef sandwich at a hip deli on a street corner. Dizzy took to broadcasting when his pitching days were done and that musta been a tough act to follow because he was regarded as one hell of a pitcher. I can’t say for sure. I never seen him pitch. He was on the mound for just under a bakers dozen years and then gone; injury riddled; pitching way before my time, but I love how he leans back on that mound with that leg saying screw you batter; here it comes and that mitt! Holy nothing!

He pitched for that Gashouse Gang in St. Louis; the Cardinals for 8 years and then the Cubs for three and that was enough to get him into the HOF; hmphhhhhh; kind of flabbergasting or Ralph Kinerish. He also returned to St. Louis; not so much as a comeback as a “dammit all I can do better than these suckers;” not the Cardinals, but the cross town St. Louis Browns.

Dean said something on air to the effect that he could pitch better than these belly itchers on the mound and someone must have suggested; Hey Dizz, then why don’t you go and do it, and so he did; but only for 3 innings. That was in 1947 and that marked the end of his injury riddled career.  He only won 150 games and didn’t strike out that many batters; not such a sexy ERA at 3.02, but he was elected into the HOF in 1953 as a player.

He mighta got in as a broadcaster anyway or colorful character if they had a section for them. Bill Veeck took over the St. Louis Browns in 1951 and he made Dean a broadcaster or Dean already was a broadcaster or he was more than that. He was the Hillbilly Philosopher. Veeck just gave him a booth and a microphone.

Dean branded his country bumpkin personality into a marketing tool and made a legend out of himself. He made it fashionable to not speak right. He said things like ain’t and when the academy complained, he said ain’t even more. He also sang on air and that ‘s where the musical interlude of Milwaukee Brewers first round draft picks belongs because the Brewers enjoyed their first winning season in 1978; one year after drafting Paul Molitor.

Take it away Dizzy and tell us about a time when woman were tall and handsome.

Mt. Muchmore

There must have been some talk of 100 miles in 1973. That’s how far Wounded Knee, South Dakota is from Mount Rushmore.

In 1973, the Oglala Lakota Sioux and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied Wounded Knee; scene of the massacre December 29, 1890.

The occupation lasted for 71 days; from February 27-May 8; from pitchers and catchers reporting to May day regular season; scared the FBI enough to send in troops. There must have been some talk of messing with mug shots 100 miles away; smearing red paint lipstick on Thomas Jefferson or eye shadow to Teddy Roosevelt; getting rid of George Washington and Warren Spahn all together.

Did I say Spahn? I meant to say Abraham Lincoln. Schnozes and hats; I get confused. There must have been some talk about the Baltimore Orioles 1971 and four pitchers winning 20 games in the same season. The AIM members came from all over North America. It was a pan Native American Movement; all tribes welcome including Winnebago from Wisconsin.

Black Elk promised. He was a second cousin of Crazy Horse and an Oglala Lakota Sioux medicine man, so it’s no wonder the Milwaukee Brewers drafted position players for five consecutive years and only in their 6th year of existence-1974 did they select Butch Edge beginning a string of three consecutive pitchers. Edge was followed by Richard O’Keefe and Bill Bordley.

It was time to realize the Lakota Sioux definition of Mount Rushmore; Six Grandfathers; to draft and develop six pitchers worthy of being carved into a rock face, but no need to carve the actual image; the vision always enough; never know about relocation and contraction; Trail of Tears, the Etruscans and Phoenicians, Nero and the Montreal Expos; genocide after genocide; since 1996 over 5 million people killed in Democratic Republic of Congo.

The irrelevance of the first round; of it being a Milan runway super legs fade away, but those other girls tucked away working cashier jobs at a 7/11 in Racine, Wisconsin. They last.

Butch Edge pitched 51.2 innings for Toronto in 1979  Richard O’Keefe never surfaced in the major leagues but there is a Canadian beer with his last name. Bill Bordley pitched 30.2 innings for the Giants in 1980. Bordley was honored as chief of MLB security in 2011 and that’s cool, but please let us kids and adults run wild on the diamond when our team wins.

Ok, so 1974 wasn’t the time for the Brewers to chisel all time great pitchers into mountain side mind. It would be many years before any picks made it that far and not a first rounder either. Even teams with more Brewer years under their wampum belts and already 6 pitchers carved….even those franchises scan the spring training horizon for a new one in the mist..

In 1977, the Brewers surrendered their short-lived experiment and returned to tradition; the elders echoing “draft position players; draft shortstops” and so Paul Molitor was the fourth shortstop drafted in nine Brewer years; not that surprising since the best athlete typically plays shortstop and easily shape shifts into other positions.

Gorman Thomas became an outfielder. Tommy Bianco became a used car salesman or something. Robin Yount did double duty; first at short and then center field and Paul Molitor played third, second, outfield, first base and in a quiet under tone-dh, but all of them originally shortstops.

Molitor was voted into the HOF in 2004; five years after long time Brewers teammate Robin Yount enjoyed the same honor….book ends of Hall of Famers; same franchise first round draft picks; rare…..Black Elk rare.

Molitor played 15 years in Milwaukee and then 3 more with Toronto and 3 more with Minnesota. 

Molitor was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and that’s not too far from Milwaukee or Toronto so Molitor played all 21 years close to home and he was fantastic; finishing with a .306 average and .369 OB% to go along with 3319 hits including 114 triples and 605 doubles, 234 homers.

He was the ignitor; by far the greatest lead off hitter to wear a Brewers uniform.

 

the parking lot that changed baseball

Dice, jacks, flipping baseball cards, slinkies, silly putty, smart phones. Evolution? Maybe. Maybe not. Stage coaches bumping dirt roads, trains over tracks, automobiles on interstates. Evolution? Maybe. Maybe not

But parking lots, we love you. Frisbee, pickle, and sip beer. Barbecue brats tailgate, and listen to old 8 tracks, The Scorpions, Frank Sinatra, or Cold Play, whatever you want. The lot is big enough for lizards with wet t-shirts too. The sky is our umbrella and first pitch is soon or when the beer runs out or the 4th inning or whatever comes first. Who’s on second. Pass me another Schlitz.

You gotta have a parking lot. Street cars are too old and trains? Forget about em! Too early for spaceships and no one walks anymore unless it’s inside and at a mall and Walter O’Malley knew this way before anyone else or he watched Lou Perini exercise some good old-fashioned guts and Go west and warm the blood of baseball and become the first team to relocate and change baseball forever?

retrocom.com

Bushville Milwaukee changed baseball forever? Dear Casey Stengel! Ok, maybe it was more Perini than Milwaukee, but it takes two to tango and what great dance partners they turned out to be. And when Milwaukee with its new County Stadium and massive parking lot got those turnstiles spinning and runners scoring on the diamond and Spahn and Sain and pray for rain, well, you bet your Howling Hilda Chester that Mr Walter O’Malley took notice.

But I don’t have the impression that he really wanted to leave Brooklyn. O’Malley really tried to stay and according to a little snippet in the book Lords of the Realm, he even considered a dome long before anyone else even knew what the hell a dome was.

And even the vilified master builder Robert Moses proposed a stadium in Brooklyn, but in the end, it was the Braves in Milwaukee and Calvin Griffith of the Twinkies visiting Los Angeles and apparently discussing his team’s potential move from Minnesota to L.A. Gave O’Malley itchy feet I guess. He wanted in on LA and not no second fiddle so  so he packed up some Perini guts and road his coattails out west, way out west to Beverleeee and Stoneham followed with his  Giants and another Iron curtain bites the dust as snow melts and water races for a homeland; out to sea or something like that.

…..and the Athletics move to KC and then to Oakland and KC is awarded the Royals. The Braves flee to Atlanta and Milwaukee steals the Pilots from Seattle and Mariners are born 7 years later and am I repeating myself? and interstate commerce and speed up the reels and it’s all a blur and and and

now it’s 2014 and the Giants and Royals are in the World Series together for the first time and the series is tied 1-1 and they’re going back to San Francisco but without flowers in their hair thanks to Giant’s big hunk rookie right hander Hunter Strickland…..Hunter Strick Land. What a freaking name! and what a freaking temper and rightfully so.

He served up his 5th post season home run last night; five in 5.1 innings and according to everyone’s favorite, Joe Buck, that’s the most home runs allowed in a single post season since gulp…the Brewers’ Chris Narveson back in 2011. He performed his stunt by allowing 2 to the D-backs in the NLDS and 3 to those lovely Cardinals in the NLCS.

just a bunch of names

The mile markers on US highways are vertical metal strips if I remember right and designed in part to be a GPS for tanks after nuclear devastation or maybe not. Either way, an extra terrestrial landing would hopefully put an end to World Cup rah rah events playing their soft core ethnic wars.

Assuming this extra terrestrial gang was into languages, maybe like C3PO and all the tongues the gold droid could speak….there might be a few baseball cities and their names preserved.

People would hopefully be eliminated for the same reasons the World Cup is War. So New York, named after the Duke of York would have to go and so would Houston named after Sam Houston, Pittsburgh for William Pitt and so on.

Team names like Red Sox and White Sox? What if the ET’s don’t wear socks? There are Cubs and Tigers in more places than Chicago and Detroit. A Phillie is kind of redundant. City of Angels? Athletics are everywhere. Ditto for Cardinals, Orioles, and Blue Jays. Chief Seattle was a person. Giants is nice, but screwed by Saint Francis.

Texas ain’t bad; comes from Caddo word Tejas which means friends, but Rangers might freak em out. Miami is named after more than a person. The Mayaimi people and Marlins are a fish, but there are Marlins in more than Mayaimi.

Tampa is believed to be stick of fire in Calusa language, but same limitation with Rays. Kansas is Sioux word for south wind people. Throw in city, but that Royal might confuse the ET’s who hopefully would have no idea what that was.

I went through all the teams without a scrap of ET’s clothing stuffed in a desk drawer beside reading glasses, but felt empathy for the ET’s anyway. I came up with four team names that might provide some GPS to them.

Minnesota means clear water in Dakota language and Twins is well…twins. Colorado-red brown silt carried by the river and Rockies-Rocky Mountains. Arizona for arid zone and Diamondbacks-Snakes. And Milwaukee-Gathering place by the Rivers and Brewers as in brewery where beer is made.

But silt and beer and clear water and snakes are also everywhere. It’s probably easier to be critical.

Washington is the most World Cup patriotic gotta go name of all baseball teams or maybe not if you consider the hairdo of George Washington as being white dred locks, but Washington didn’t wear the fake hair lock amendments or at least nothing too obvious in any of the pictures I seen.

Either way, the name Nationals screws it up. Poor team had to deal with the Expos for a name and now the Nationals. They’ve never been in a World Series. That’s another name that might have to be changed; World Series to maybe Diamond Trophy, but the thing could be made from recycled beer cans or something.

The Nationals play at Nationals Park and like any other stadium, major league or minor, university and some high school and little league too there’s well manicured green grass, a big obnoxious scoreboard and probably an electric batting cage machine in the stadium’s belly.

People gorge themselves with food and teams take infield and batting practice with a real pitcher, fungo bats. They play simulation baseball and do all those practice things, but the ET’s would want to see the game or eat the game or something.

The Brewers played the Nationals Friday night to kick off what feels like opening day number 2 after the all star break, but then again, it doesn’t feel like opening day at all with crickets already doing mating fertility procreation ritual sounds, louder than the same question asked three times in the same question.

Kyle Lohse who was snubbed from the NL all Star team probably a good thing with rejection spurring him forward in a fantasy of his own achievements. Lohse pitched 7 innings and allowed 10 hits, but didn’t walk any one and escaped  Houdini style from one jam after another. The bullpen must have enjoyed the 5 day rest.

Rob Wooten and Zach Duke took care of the eighth inning; no hits. Frankie Rodriguez continued his slide; serving up a ninth inning home run to Bryce Harper, but struck out two of the last three batters to save the game.

A few weeks ago, Scooter Gennet hit a grand slam of National’s super hyped ace Steven Strasburg. He hit another home run off him last night. A few weeks ago Khris Davis also hit a homer off Strasburg and he did it again last night too. Final Score; Brewers 4, Nationals 2.

The Brewers are 54-43.