For now at least, Prince Fielder and Brewers fans are having a lot of fun together.
By TYLER KEPNER
Published: October 9, 2011
Braun Keeps Battling
Milwaukee
Ryan Braun of the Brewers, a top candidate for the National League’s Most Valuable Player award, drove in four runs on Sunday with a home run and a double.
| BRAUN | REGULAR SEASON | N.L. RANK |
| Home Runs | 33 | 6th (tied) |
| Runs Batted In | 111 | 4th |
| Hits | 187 | 5th |
| Doubles | 38 | 4th (tied) |
| Runs | 109 | 2nd |
| Average | .332 | 2nd |
| Stolen Bases | 33 | 7th |
| On-Base Pct. | .397 | 5th |
| Slugging Pct. | .597 | 1st |
Mike Myers, the old left-handed submarine pitcher, stood in front of the visitors’ dugout on Sunday, gazing up at the retractable roof and the $10 million video board in center field. This was not County Stadium, where he played for the Brewers in the late 1990s.
There, Myers said, it could get so cold that relievers staked out seats beneath the scoreboard, which rattled and groaned but at least radiated some warmth. Failing that, he said, they could make a little bonfire, hidden from the rest of the ballpark. The bullpens were an outpost within an outpost. Back then, Milwaukee might have been the most irrelevant city in the majors.
Now it is a rousing success story, with the Brewers drawing more than 3 million fans this season to Miller Park, where the bullpens are prime territory. They are raised above left- and right-center field, the power alleys belonging to Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. There is no more devastating tandem in the majors.
The Brewers stormed past the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-6, in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday afternoon. Braun buried a two-run homer to left to give the Brewers a lead in the first inning, and Fielder put them ahead for good in the fifth, with a sizzling liner to the bullpen in right.
He gestured to his family in the crowd, then shadowboxed with Braun, two sluggers in their primes savoring the moment.
“Besides being great players, they have fun, man — they really enjoy the game,” the Brewers’ Jerry Hairston Jr. said. “We don’t want to be too demonstrative — we don’t want to embarrass anybody — but we have to play that way. We have to enjoy ourselves.”
Duos like Braun and Fielder do not stay together long in markets like this. Braun is signed here through 2020, the face of the franchise for this generation. Fielder, most likely, will leave this winter for free-agent riches.
It happens almost everywhere, as local fans know well. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar left the Bucks. Paul Molitor left the Brewers. Brett Favre left the Packers. The important thing is leaving a legacy while you can. Fielder, with Braun as his partner, is doing that now. Braun said Sunday’s home run was the hardest he had ever seen Fielder hit a ball.
“It was really exciting,” Fielder said. “I heard the crowd, but it was kind of a blur.”
The Brewers are trying to do something precious: win the first World Series in franchise history. We saw it last season, in a way, when the Giants brought San Francisco its first title. The pursuit of something new is deliciously entertaining when the fans care so much.
For all the talk of low television ratings in recent postseasons, the game has rewarded the patience of long-suffering fans. Already this century, the Angels, the Red Sox and the White Sox have erased several decades of dismay. The Brewers — or the Texas Rangers, in the American League — could be next.
“The fans are very passionate, and they’re just excited,” Braun said. “They’re enjoying this as much as we are, recognizing how rare it is for us.”
The matchups almost never work out this way. For the first time since 1997, neither L.C.S. includes a team from New York, Boston or Los Angeles. The final four teams all play in the middle of the country, and the teams with the top nine payrolls are home for the winter.
The Detroit Tigers ranked 10th, at $105 million, at the start of the season. The Cardinals ranked 11th, the Rangers 13th and the Brewers 17th. Middle America, middle payrolls, top-tier results.
“If you’re good enough to get in, any of the eight teams can beat any of the other seven,” Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa said. “There’s no doubt in my mind. It’s been proven over and over again.
“What that means, I think if you’re in uniform, you can’t get caught up in what the ratings are going to be if this club or that club would draw more TV ratings or more interest. It’s a competition; if you’re good enough to win, you move on. And I think M.L.B. wins any way you go.”
The Brewers don’t lose often at Miller Park, where they are 61-24 this season, including the postseason. When they lost the lead to Arizona on Friday, in the decisive game of a division series, the owner, Mark Attanasio, fretted in his box beside the dugout. Then, he said, he noticed the rest of the fans still standing and roaring — waving rally towels, believing.
“It can’t end like this,” Attanasio said, describing what was going through his mind. “This means too much to these people.”
The Brewers rallied in the 10th to win, and now they are three victories from their first pennant since 1982. A burly cult hero from that season, Gorman Thomas, tossed the ceremonial first pitch before Game 1. Never mind that he made the last out of the 1982 World Series, against the Cardinals, back when Milwaukee played in the American League.
That was a long time ago, in a season now commemorated above the foul pole by a lonely flag, awaiting a companion, at a rollicking ballpark that once seemed like a dream.
“All they really want is a winner,” second baseman Rickie Weeks said. “They’ve been trying to find a winner for 30 years now, and they finally have a team they can root for.”
No comments:
Post a Comment