Category Archives: Sports

The Spring Homestretch

The Journal-Sentinel featured a post on the Brewers blog yesterday speculating on how the roster would shake out for opening day on April 7 in San Francisco.  As I page through some older posts, working on my little updating project that I mentioned yesterday, I’ve become more curious than usual about the accuracy of my various predictions.  I wonder how Haudricourt’s list stacks up against the one that I made back in October, right after the Crew was eliminated by Philly…

A quick overview:

  • Agreement on “locks” – 13
  • My “good bets” that TH says are locks – 6 ((One should note that in October, I had people like Prince and Billy Hall noted as only “good bets,” mostly because the possibility existed they could be traded…))
  • My “good bets” that still have a shot – 2 ((Lamb, Gwynn))
  • My “locks” that will not be on the team – 1 ((Who saw Solomon Torres’s retirement coming???))
  • My “good bets” that will not be on the team – 5 ((Mota, Capuano, Shouse, Escobar, Kapler))

I think I’ll revisit it again when they annouce the 25-man…

The Most Optimistic Brewers Preview You'll Read This Year

Tomorrow is the Brewers’ first spring training game down in Maryvale.  The team looks a bit different than last year, but overall, a lot of familiar faces are back.  Still, the concensus from the national and regional prognosticators is that the Crew will be lucky–very, VERY lucky–to experience the sort of success and playoff run that they had last season.

But I’m not a sports writer or a broadcaster; I’m a baseball fan, so for people like me, spring is all about optimism, and seeing the silver lining around each CC Sabathia-shaped cloud.  With that in mind, here are the Top Five (Perhaps Overly Optimistic) Reasons the Brewers Will Have a Great Season:

  1. Our young pitchers will each start at least 30 games and win 15 apiece. Yovanni Gallardo is going to come back healthy from his knee troubles in 2008, and it will be shown that he racked up enough bad luck last year to last for a while.  Manny Parra will really come into his own in his second full season in the majors, no longer hampered by the nagging inconsistency that was troublesome at times in 2008.  The young 1-2 combo in Milwaukee will draw comparisons to Ken Macha’s Oakland A’s teams that featured Tim Hudson and Barry Zito early in their careers.  Speaking of which,
  2. A change in managerial demeanor will be reflected throughout the clubhouse. I was never a Ned Yost basher– he guided the team that was a laughable riff-raff at the open of 2003 and helped transform them into serious contenders in 2008.  But you can’t deny that by the end, he was wound a bit too tight and the feeling seemed to be reflected in some of the players.  Ken Macha will be more relaxed, and having two more members of his coaching staff with managerial experience will help, too.
  3. Trevor Hoffman will be a steady, if not spectacular, closer from day one, and the trickle-down will lead to clearly defined roles in the bullpen. The Brewers were scrambling to get all their pitchers into a groove in 2008 after Eric Gagne blew his first save on opening day, Carlos Villanueva’s struggles in the rotation led to McClung bouncing back and forth, and a variety of injuries meant guys had to shift around.  This year, Hoffman will be the one and only closer, Villanueva will be where he belongs (in relief), and the rest of the group will be healthy enough to stay comfortable.
  4. Our big guns (Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder) will continue their meteoric rise. Another year under their belts, both comfortable with multi-year contracts, Prince having taken care of himself a bit better in the off-season, our 3- and 4-hitters will each hit at or near .300, blast 30-40 homeruns, and knock in over 100.
  5. The “other guys” will see a reverse of fortunes, too. Bill Hall’s improved eyesight won’t quite return him to 2006 form, but he will hit for a respectable average from both sides and earn his every-day job back.  Corey Hart will shake his post-all-star mental block and rediscover consistency.  Jason Kendall will get some occasional rest from playing every day, and that will reflect itself in an improved offensive game.  Rickie Weeks will benefit from the tutelage of bench coach Willie Randolph in the field, and hitting coach Dale Sveum at the plate as he becomes one of the top lead-off men in the National League.

So even though we don’t have CC or Ben Sheets, the world is not going to end.  We’ve got an exciting and talented group of players ready for another season.  It’s going to be a good 2009…

Top Notch For All Parties

Michelle and I DID end up making it to the Bucks game this evening– she was pretty sick and didn’t go into work this morning, but the drugs she got from the doctor were kicking in by the time the game rolled around, so we decided not to waste them.

I haven’t been shy about bad-mouthing the Bucks in this forum for the last couple seasons.  If Michelle was not a huge fan of TJ Ford (from his days in Milwaukee), I most likely would not have bothered with a game this season.  This is definitely a different group than the last time I watched them, though (back in December of 2006).  I was impressed with the hustle and the apparent effort at the defensive end of the floor.  Granted, on this particular evening, they were shooting anywhere from 53-57% throughout the game, so there was a lot of incentive to get after the ball and keep things rolling.  But yeah; I’ll admit, I was impressed.

Meanwhile, I took along my camera, attached the telephoto lens, put it on continuous-shooting mode and ended up with about 750 images to download– yikes.  Bed time; be back tomorrow…

It's Just About Time

While Jim is sad about the lack of exciting sports-goings-on at this time of year, I am delighted to look ahead to baseball season.  Tom Haudricourt, from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, posted a blog with a link to Baseball Prospectus’s 2009 predictions earlier today…

They mathematically project a team’s record by tallying up individual player projections for the year.  They have the Brewers finishing with a winning record, but missing the playoffs.  It’ll be interesting to come back here in 7 months and see what actually happened!

PLEASE Say It Ain't So!

The Journal-Sentinel is reporting this morning that the Atlanta Braves will consider long-tenured Brewers play-by-play man Jim Powell to fill their radio broadcasting vacancy.  The Braves’ Skip Caray (as well-known and beloved as our own Bob Uecker down south) passed away last summer, and Pete Van Wieren abruptly announced his retirement.

I know I’m not alone in saying that I’ve grown to love Jim Powell on the Brewers Radio Network as much as Bob.  I can rememeber when Jim first came to Milwaukee for the 1996 season.  It was an adjustment for Uecker and the listeners after a long run with Pat Hughes in the broadcast booth.  Over time, the rapport between the broadcasters grew, and now it would be tough to count the memorable moments Jim and Bob have shared on the air (for me, many of them are marked by Jim’s uncontrollable laughter at another of Bob’s deadpan, self-depricating jokes).

Personally, I’ve also grown quite fond of Jim’s play-by-play style.  He never misses a beat in the action, but he also manages to instruct and enlighten the listeners in the finer points of the game on a nightly basis.  I’ve learned more about managerial straegy, the baseball rulebook, and various players’ approaches at the plate or on the field (and truly enjoyed it!) just by listening to Jim than I could have by reading a mittful of books on baseball.  Not only is Jim a sharp baseball guy, but his partner’s comedic timing and bone-dry delivery has rubbed off during the past 13 years.  They both make the broadcast enjoyable even when the game is a blowout, or when the team is not very good.

In offering Jim a chance to work in Atlanta for the Braves, geography has to be their ace in the hole; Jim is from Georgia, and has spoken on air time to time about his youth spent listening to Braves games on the radio.  You can’t fault a guy for jumping on what would probably be a dream job.

However, if the Brewers have any chance of retaining him, I really hope they make a push to do so.  Once again, I’m not alone in thinking that it would be great to have a familiar voice to tune in to after Bob retires (not that there’s been any indication he will any time soon, but he is turning 74 this month).  If one of the issues at hand is money (and why wouldn’t it be), the payroll situation for the Brewers’ broadcast team is probably a stumbling block.  Powell is paid by WTMJ radio, and Uecker is employed by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Granted, I don’t have any “inside knowledge,” but it takes only a slightly-more-than-casual listener to recognize that 620 doesn’t appear to have a ton of cash to thrown around on talent.  They’ve let people go pretty regularly over the last few years, they went to syndication in their 8-midnight timeslot, and Journal Communications (the parent company) also canned the entire on-air staff at WKTI and switched formats shortly before the end of 2008.  Personally, I would like to see some effort made by a consortium of WTMJ and the Brewers to try to hang on to Jim.  The effort may prove futile, but it would be nice to know that they at least asked what it would take to keep him.

Boy, there are a LOT of changes coming down the pike for the 2009 Brewers…

An Awfully Good Sunday

Michelle and I took a ride up to Nordic Mountain today so I could try out my new skis, and we could work on our plan to ski as much as we can [afford to] this season.  It went great.  The new equipment that Michelle got me for Christmas and my birthday is going to serve me well for a good long time.  Jen and Joe were also right about my boots; they were exactly the right size, they’ll just take time to break in.  After a few runs, I had forgotten the agonizing lengths I had to go to just to get them on…

Meanwhile, in the NFL, I went a lousy 1-3 in my Wild Card Weekend picks.  At least the one that I got right was a Vikings loss.  Funny epilogue to that comment– we ate dinner at Fratello’s in Oshkosh after our ski day.  We had missed the end of the football game (they had it on in the bar at the hill, but we left part way through the 4th quarter), and I asked our waiter if the Vikings lost.  He told me they did and I gave him an enthusiastic, Borat-style, double-thumbs-up.  “Yeah,” he said, “I’m from Minnesota.”  Haha.  Don’t worry about it; we tipped him well…

But now I’m tired and I’m going to bed.  I did fall once today too (trying to stop too fast at the end of a run) and I think I sprained my right thumb.  That’s my spacebar thumb, so this typing kind of hurts.  Sleep tight!

Common Denominator

While I always revel in the struggles of the Dallas Cowboys (as a rule), when I read the story from ESPN about a locker room at odds with itself down in Big D, I have to shake my head a little in pity.

Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but Terrell Owens, while having had a statistically fantastic career, has never won the Super Bowl.  However, he has managed to eventually alienate or otherwise piss off every team he’s ever played for.  Fans or coaches can make excuses, but the bottom line is this: what does every quarterback that T.O. has complained about have in common?

Replacement Prognostication: Week 15

Let’s call this the “Anxious-for-next-year-when-Schneider-will-be-back-to-doing-this” Edition.

The Packers are out of it.  Not technically speaking yet, but let’s cut through the crap, OK?  I read something in the Journal-Sentinel earlier today that said they had only held a lead for a total of like 8 minutes in the last 3 games.  Pitiful.  Meanwhile, the Vikings are on the verge of clinching the division, and with Gus Frerotte at quarterback.  Unbelieveable.

My apathy about the football season is rapidly spiraling out of control.  At this point, I am (sorry, Lorch) pulling for the Jets to do big things down the stretch, but not because I’m a Favre-zealot.  The further the Jets go in the playoffs, the better that draft pick is that Green Bay gets in exchange.  So here’s hoping we see a subway Super Bowl!!!

Outside the NFC North, the fates of our weekly predicted teams could hardly be less relevant.  Who would have thought the Miami frakkin Dolphins would have the best record in this group?  Anyway, enough pretending to care, here are your predictions for Week 15.

SEASON RECORD: 49-24, BONUS PICKS: 6-7

  • Packers – lose
  • Vikings – lose
  • Bears – win
  • Lions – lose
  • Chiefs – lose
  • Seahawks – win
  • Dolphins – win

BONUS PICKS!!!

  • Falcons – lose
  • Jets – win
  • Ravens – lose
  • Giants – win

Have you ever heard of the Amero?  Sounds like a load of crap to me…