Tom Hanks uttered the famous line “There’s no crying in baseball!” in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own. True enough. But there’s no crying after baseball either.
Surely the Milwaukee Brewers season ended with a gigantic thud after so much promise and high expectations, created by the team’s first NL Central Division title and a franchise record 96 wins including a major league best 57 at home. Playing teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates and Houston Astros a whole bunch of times during the season was a major contributor, making Milwaukee pitchers look great and disguising some glaring weaknesses.
Then the Brewers played Arizona, a pretty good and very hot team, in the NLDS and squeaked by using a combination of smoke and mirrors, Yovanni Gallardo and a seeing-eye ground ball. The hated Cardinals were up next, and the fact that the Brewers lost 6 of the last 7 regular season games to St. Louis would prove to be a harbinger for disaster in the NLCS, where the Crew’s flaws were glaring and exploited. The Brewers got thumped.
So the instinct is to be sad and depressed. I got home last night and really didn’t know how to handle not being able to look forward to the next Brewers game. There seemed to be a big void.
People have said that winning the World Series is the best thing in the world, and losing the World Series is second best. We don’t have either one to brag about. It is really hard to win a pennant, but after Sunday night I realized that it was harder losing one. And watching the Cardinals celebrate on our home field might have been the ultimate insult.
But there is joy in Mudville, to coin another baseball phrase. The real winner in this somewhat magical 2011 baseball season is Milwaukee. The Brewers created national attention with their play on the field, but the fans demonstrated night in and night out that they may be the best in baseball. And Miller Park looked like a real jewel on the national telecasts. As did Milwaukee.
Sure we have holes to fill – third base and shortstop, center field, relief pitching and, of course, first base. But we have a core of still young, solid players coming back, Corey Hart, Gallardo, Zack Greinke, Rickie Weeks and of course, possible MVP and Milwaukee Brewer for life Ryan Braun. Players love playing here, and manager Ron Roenicke thinks this might be the best place to play in the majors.
So the future on the field is bright. But the future is also bright because of the fans – over 3 million of whom went through the turnstiles in 3 of the last four years. In 2011, the smallest market in the major leagues ranked 7th overall in attendance out of the 30 teams, drawing more fans than the Boston Red Sox, the Cubs, Texas Rangers, LA Dodgers and the NY Mets. Simply amazing.
So be proud, Milwaukee. We dressed for the party and it came to us. It was a real blast. And we were the belle of the ball.
