Fox Sports Wisconsin broadcast a baseball game Monday night. You may have been watching Matt Kenseth do Wisconsin proud by winning his second Daytona 500. But you’ll remember this baseball game just the same.
Because it was only one of the happiest moments in Milwaukee Brewers history. Sept. 23, 2011 – the night the Brewers clinched their first divisional championship since 1982.
There was Ryan Braun, standing at home plate with the score tied 1-all. There were the two base runners, Corey Hart and Nyjer Morgan. There was Florida’s Clay Hensley, hurling the ball plateward. And there went the ball, far, far away.
I heard the rapturous call from Brewers broadcaster Brian Anderson. I watched Braun do that now-famous ax-chopping motion with his bat. I saw the Miller Park masses conjure a blizzard of whirling white towels, their ecstatic screams merged into one thunderous roar. It was a portrait of pure joy.
And you know where my brain cells went?
To Ryan Braun’s urine.
Trust me, it wasn’t by choice. That moment reprised on the TV screen is exactly why we sports types are sports types. We watch for the human drama. For victory’s thrills and, yes, the agony of defeat. Jim McKay really did nail it. And yet, we’re all still chained to Braun’s did-he-or-didn’t-he saga. You can’t arbitrate closure.
For all my young years of watching “Wide World of Sports,” I don’t recall McKay saying a drop about urine. Or maybe I just missed all the episodes on the East German swim team. But there’s no denying that these days, we’re through the looking glass and light years beyond it.
And for modern-day observers, agony can take on far subtler forms than a tumble down a mountain.
Which brings us to the most unfortunate shame about this whole Braun saga.
It’s not his ultimate guilt or innocence. It’s not who you believe or who’s to blame for this whole mess. It’s not whether baseball’s drug-testing system is fatally flawed or fully foolproof.
It’s none of those things because Braun will go on and the Brewers will go on and baseball will go on, drug tests and all.
The shame is that everything in the present has affected everything in the past and will continue affecting everything in the future. You can’t unknow something, and we know we know something, even if we can’t be sure what it is.
When you watch baseball, you want your mind on baseball, not in a specimen cup. And whether you side with Braun or line up against him, we’re all walking down the same unpleasant yellow brick road.
If only we could click our heels.
Feel free to follow me on Twitter, where I tweet as howiemag. And listen to me chat sports with Mitch Teich once a month on WUWM’s “Lake Effect.”
