Why Baseball Works Best

 I always told people that baseball was really the only sport you could legitimately make films or write truly great books about.  The most basic reason is that there are so many lulls in the action, so many hushed points where human interaction could be used to develop relationships, hash out conflict, and build to a climax, all while connected by the sticky glue of America's pastime.  Not to mention that in those lulls lie big gaping openings for humor, either slapstick or thoughtful moments.

Cerebral films such as Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, and the ethereal The Natural are perfect examples.  And if it's straight chuckles you're going for, there's always Major League, Mr. Baseball, or Mr. 3000.   

As I age, I find these things to be true also of biographies, autobiographies, and histories in the realm of sport.  I feel the main ingredient is the eccentricity of baseball players.  These players are much weirder, right out front, than I've seen evidence of in football, basketball, or hockey (though the latter, I've read little about).

Baseball seems to have a sort of intravenous connection to the soul that starts in childhood.  It pumps in history, as you go to the library to read about Aaron and Ruth, and feel the warmth of sunny afternoons listening to games while sorting through baseball cards (There's life in these motions too, just check out Josh Wilker's Cardboard Gods).  The games carried short bursts of excitement that speckle an otherwise slow paced melodrama lacing itself into your evening. 

Plus, children are just plain silly, and baseball is a kids game.

I find as I sneak into my 50's that the humor also applies to to the art of biography from the baseball insider.  It weaves itself into the essays of fans whose love of the sport may take pauses as the elements of puberty, romance, and life itself occasionally interrupt, yet never quite recedes into the shadows.  

At least not permanently. 

 What causes the bizarre nature of baseball's players, writers, and more often than not, fans?  I've pondered that long and hard and haven't been able to field an answer.  But I promise I will keep working on it.  The first place I'll look will be the mirror.

As far as biographies go, not everything is a pile of yuks like Jay Johnstone's books, but generally there's a generous dollop of comedy in most cases.  Some examples of course, notwithstanding.  The two I'm reading right now, Ron Anderson's Long Taters and Larry Dierker's It's Not Brain Surgery are not exactly barrels of laughs, but are full of history and baseball lessons.  

More often than not, it is the case that humor is heavily involved in the laying out of baseball players' remembrances and the fans connections to it.   Try to watch a baseball documentary and not find humor, or maybe just some flaming outrageousness, that one can't help but laugh at.  I watched ESPN's four-part series on the 1986 Mets and their World Series run, and despite all the sadness that may have been soaked in those still somehow victorious days, or current life statuses, there was so much incredible ridiculousness, so many quotes, off the field hi-jinks, and knee-jerk acts.  These are often so unreal, you just couldn't help but laugh at them.  (Bill Buckner's saga of unnecessary scapegoating notwithstanding.)

But it's there. The odd-ball natures of personality and crooked intensity of a baseball man.  In full color. Read Jim Bouton's controversial  Ball Four, Sparky Lyle's uproarious The Bronx Zoo, Kevin Cooks non-stop Ten Innings at Wrigley, or Jason Turbow's wonderful Dynastic, Bombastic Fantastic and tell me this game isn't a freakin' hoot. Even the moments where some of these guys want to practically assassinate each other in the locker room bring so much of humanity's stupidity into the glow of daylight, that you can't help but roll your eyes and chuckle at the least.  

I don't have the inside views of the players or writers, but I doubt any athlete plays more practical jokes than the baseball player. Actually, John Kruk once said, "I'm not an athlete, I'm a baseball player",  so maybe that's wrong terminology.  Just read the affore mentioned Jay Johnsone's Temporary Insanity for probably case-closing evidence of this practical joke statement. Hot foots to Shaving Cream pies to hotel room chicanery, ballplayers love it.  

Malapropisms?  

Baseball players deal them like cards in a black jack game.  From Yogi Berra to Jim Gantner, to Padres announcer Jerry Coleman.  (Baseball announcers often write books as funny as the players. Try Bob Uecker's Catcher in the Wry)  The funny thing is they have no clue they just jacked up the English language ("90 percent of baseball is half mental"). Thanks, Yog.

I could probably go on further, but I think I've dropped enough names here so that you can do the exploring yourself, and not be denied the wonderful first-time feeling of experiencing the hilarity.  It's an old game.  It's attached to America along with hot dogs and apple pie.  Some of my earliest memories have elements of it affixed to them like peripheral images.  To me, the chatter of announcers and repressed lull of crowds bring me back over 35 years, and to a certain degree, relax me.  Yes, baseball is in the blood. 

And in the heart. 

And, deeply and enthusiastically entrenched in the funny bone.

 

Baseball Legends that maybe ought to be in the Hall of Fame? : KONG

Sometimes it's not things you see, or things you have happen to you, but an anecdote passed on.

Back in 1984, my friend Jon's parents took me to my first major league baseball game.  It was my Milwaukee Brewers against a weak Oakland Athletics team.  You'll read later on in the future about how the Swingin' A's were among my favorite Non-Home teams.

   

But while sitting in the glory of Milwaukee County Stadium, Jon's dad (Not the Crayon Death album, but boy, do I recommend it) regaled me with the legend of baseball's Kong.  Apparently on a road trip out west, Jon and his family attended an A's game in Oakland.   I guess the area where your feet rested in that former home stadium of the Athletics, is of a metallic design.  When Dave Kingman (nicknamed Kong due to his home run prowess and the word KING being present in his last name) approached the plate, the fans would pound their shoes against the metal floor in rhythm causing a resonant banging sound, to which they'd follow with "KONG!, KONG!"

I'd become somewhat fascinated by Kingman at this point.  He wasn't the prototype home run hitter, definitely not physically.  He was 6'6 and lanky as hell.  He wasn't a compact guy with quick wrists like your Henry Aarons and Mickey Mantles. He wasn't your "big strong dude" like George Scott or Richie Allen,  and he definitely wasn't your steroid infused versions that came later like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, and Sammy Sooser. ( I mean Sosa ).

Jon's dad's "KONG" description drew chills and goosebumps from me as the 1976 King Kong was among my favorite films, and the sound Jon's dad was describing was more than a little reminiscent of the chants and stomping roared out by the natives upon the approach of the great beast to attend to the sacrifices they had laid out for him.  Oakland wanted their powerful beast to approach home plate, and launch a sacrifice into the seats.  

I often wondered if Kingman was touched by this mass-fan gesture.  Looking at the history of the man, it'd be doubtful.  After all, he is known for social issues.  Like dislike of female reporters and sending a purchased dead rat to Susan Fornoff of the Sacramento Bee in the mail to protest appearances in the clubhouse (this led to his dismissal from the A's).  And a general disdain for talking to the press overall.

However, he is among the first noticeable practitioners of 3TO, or the "three true outcomes; you walk, you strike out, or you jack one over the fence."  Read more about that here.

The first handful of years of his career consisted of him shifting.  He had injuries, he was traded, and in 1977, he was traded and waived 3 times in the same season, and released at the end of it.  (Sports Illustrated: More Sports: Joe Posnaski). There had to be some attitude issues for management to give up that bat repeatedly.

In the Summer of 1978 however, with his arrival in Chicago's Wrigley Field, the proverbial bandbox, anticipation was that he would break the seasonal home run record. (Baseball Quarterly, 1978, Summer).

This did not happen. But Kingman did crush a ton of dingers while he was playing in the North Shore.

After some serious baseball mashing around that time in Chicago, it appears, for a while, his career went back to the inconsistency it happened to be previously. 

When it comes to the end of Dave's career, I have a conspiracy theory. Despite the dead rat issue.  Bear with me here.

The final year of his career, he hit 35 bombs and drove in 94.  No one has ever hit that many homers in the final year of their career.  Kong's roar was still as powerful as ever.

Why did no one want to pick him up after that season??

He had reached 442 home runs.  Most (myself included) feel that 500 home runs is automatic entry into 

 

the Hall of Fame.  To me, it goes without saying.  As I had mentioned, Kingman had a pretty bad relationship with the press in his career and those folks are responsible for voting people into the Hall...

Kingman was a mere 58 home runs away from that vaunted 500 number.  And the way he was raking, (He had hit 100 in his previous 3 seasons), 500 was pretty good odds.  Was there something among the baseball writers and management doing a bit of collusion to keep Kong out of the Hall??  I'm not being an apologist for his issues with the postal service dirty tricks, but I'm ready to argue there are folks in the Hall who have done worse.

Well.  If it's about personality, and I know there is no comparison between the long-time all time hits leader, Ty Cobb (before Pete Rose came along, broke the record, then kept himself out of the hall by getting caught gambling on baseball) and a guy who's career average is .236 in Kingman.  It's well known that Ty Cobb was a racist, misogynist, asshole whose character traits were probably infinitely worse than a guy who was seemingly just known as a chronic crab-ass.   

Cobb's in the Hall.

But who am I to say?

Baseball as Religion: What's Left

      Neil Marshall became one of my favorite film directors with the release of his British Horror-action adrenaline feast, "Dog Soldiers".  If you've seen The Descent, Centurion, Doomsday, The Reckoning, the most recent Hellboy, or episodes of Westworld or Game of Thrones, you're familiar with the man's skillful work.  Soldiers  concerns a military unit, out on maneuvers, that encounter a hellish canine nightmare.  But Neil isn't all about werewolves, fisticuffs and gunfights, he has a heck of a knack for dialogue.  In one of cinema's all time great monologues, Sean "Albert Pennyworth from Gotham" Pertwee, unleashes a story of how one of the men in his former UK unit, deeply entrenched in Afghanistan, had decided to get a tattoo of Satan, ("Ol' Scratch himself") on his personhood.   This bloke, literally blown apart by an IED in the desert, left only one piece complete.  Yes, that "bit" with Beelzebub himself etched in his skin, remained in its entirety.  I'll leave what happens after this jolly piece of storytelling to your imagination, or your time in viewing it.  Because the exclamation point is artwork.

                                           

     One of the most stupid things that ever happened in the history of man was when Harry Dalton, who had built the 1982 World Series version of the Milwaukee Brewers, decided the way to fix the struggling 1983 version was to trade James "Stormin' Gorman" Thomas to the Cleveland Indians (Now the Guardians) for Rick Manning.  I still remember the news coverage of this blasphemous act, when Milwaukee News reporters found Gorman sitting in a Milwaukee pub, getting ripped, near tears, trying to dull the pain.  He, and The Brew City, were not a happy collective.

     This trade did not help the team one damn iota.  They weren't able to replace Gorman "in the aggregate" as Brad Pitt's Billy Beane puts it in Moneyball.  This is in reference to recreating the numbers of one Jason Giambi, who had been lost to the New York Yankees in free agency like everyone else in baseball who has a great final year of their contract.  (See:  Milwaukee Brewers' CC Sabathia).  Gorman's run production never came close to being consistently approached, actually.  The Brewers dovetailed into mediocrity, never to return until Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder led them out of the murk in 2008.  This card I have of Gorman,  I am pictured holding below, shows what he looked like in that bar interview, to a certain extent anyway.

        

Gorman bounced from Cleveland to Seattle, then back to Milwaukee for one final season, where he hit below .200 but flexed that legendary muscle with 10 more homers in limited at bats.  The organization and Gorman, a South Carolina native, never really separated, as Thomas is always around. He's often hanging about in front of Gorman's Grill at the former Miller Park, jawing with fans, chuckling, and signing autographs.  I did that with him myself one day.  Gorman and I had a nice conversation and he signed the bill of my Brewers cap. 

The next morning, I woke up, walked to the living room, and lying upon the floor was the decimation of that hat.  The remains of an assault from my German Shepherd puppy, was a collection of shredded blue, yellow, and gray fabric, cardboard, and plastic mesh.  

One piece remained.  About the size of a baseball, Gorman's signature fitting, in it's entirety, within that fragment. 

Neil Marshall would have been impressed.  It wasn't ol' scratch, but many pitchers of the 70's and 80's felt that Gorman Thomas and his incredible power, and ability to hit in the clutch, was the devil himself.

And Milwaukee still sees him as a baseball angel. Sort of a memory of a time when we captured, and oh, so briefly held the national baseball spotlight. 

 

How Can There Be No Jay?

       Today I found out Jay Johnstone passed away.  I stumbled across that upsetting piece of information on a 80's baseball facebook page, and I was taken aback.

     I shed a few tears, tears of a clown perhaps.  Johnstone's first book was the perfect storm of two the most important things in my life during the mid 1980's; baseball and laughter.  He was the clown prince of baseball, cut from the same cloth as Bob Uecker, just a bit younger.  His first book, Temporary Insanity, went with me everywhere.  Living in Waco, Texas circa 1986, and not knowing anyone, I buried myself in books (and baseball).  Insanity documents not only what was a really original baseball career story, but a life lived that was often inspiring, and always hilarious. 

     The chapters of this book point out how no one was safe in the circumference of Jay Johnstone.  He was a hell of a pinch hitter, one of the best the game's seen, but was unmatched as a prankster.  You'd probably feel sorry for his primary targets Phillies and Dodgers managers Danny Ozark and Tommy LaSorda, if you weren't laughing so damn hard.   He also flat-out illuminated in the department of finding out and illustrating slips of the tongue and malpropisms, no matter who they originated from, and they're listed in perpetuity in the last chapters of the book.  This first of his three books was so funny in so many ways, and so moving, that I have probably read it 8 or 9 times.   This may be a conservative estimate.

     It's not unknown information that baseball is the sport that probably lends itself best to comedy due to the long periods of inactivity, and the interaction that falls between pitches.  The sport is full of quirky characters.  It's not unlike fielding a roster of 24 field goal kickers.  Johnstone took that weird to a next level, sought it out in others, and made sure he remembered and documented it. 

     Left to my own devices much of the time in Texas, as I was pretty much everywhere I lived, when I needed a smile or a chuckle, it was there in that book.  At least in the first volume, it almost felt like you were being regaled with classic stories by a friend. It really felt like I knew Jay.  The resultant condition of the book explains my dependence on its words and images.

     Life moves on, we all age, grow, mature, move on.   I hadn't thought about Johnstone in some time, and maybe that humor should be something I ought to look back on in these dark fucking times we're endlessly wallowing in. So, in actuality, I wish I could have thanked Jay for being one of those figures that helped me crack grins when they were a rarity, and may be soon giving me some once more.   A friend once told me; everything that is old becomes new again.  Pick that book back up, Rob.  Hilarity awaits.  

  You see, I still have that original paperback copy, worn, dog-eared, yellowed, and partially separating, though it may be.  However, It's definitely got miles on it to go before it sleeps, and it sure as hell is not going anywhere.  I may actually still need it.

     Thanks, Jay Johnstone.  And please, rest well and with much laughter. Somewhere you're giving hot foots, locking managers in their offices, and wearing a Budweiser umbrella hat like the one you sported on your 1984 Fleer baseball card.   I'll miss you, your giant glasses, your stories, and your smart ass sense of humor. 

Baseball as Religion Part III: Ephemera

I've notated it more than once on this blog, the effect of baseball on my youthful life.  Especially in 1982.

I became a completionist that year as well.

It started in the fall of that year.  A trip to a convenience store with my sisters Linda and Pee Wee had me spending the 50 cents I had in my pocket (Linda covered the sales tax) on a pair of Topps baseball wax packs.

Yes, they were that cheap, and you got 15 of those rosary beads in one shot, along with that pink, brittle, and powdered stick of what apparently was gum.  It was awesome.

Still have two of the yield from that day, worse for wear,  and you can see them below:

1982's Topps series was probably among the least attractive of their baseball sets, but I wasn't aware of the aesthetics in the moment.  Sadly, it was late in the year, the shelf-space wouldn't be occupied by baseball cards much longer, as Halloween and Christmas items would begin to replace them, but the appetite was whetted for my new hobby.  That same fall, a trip to Ben Franklin (the noted five and dime store my Mom liked to frequent) brought to my attention the Topps baseball sticker album.  The whole book was only 25 cents. Where they got you was the packs of stickers required to fill it.  They charged .25 a pack, and you got about 7 per pack, if memory serves.  Mind you, this was 1982.  A quarter was not breaking the bank, even that far back.  So trying to fill these things was a blast and something fun my dad and I did together.  I wasn't able to put very many in the album, for as was the case with the cards, the time for the stickers to be on the shelf was short.   So I would bide my time for next season.

This was just on the fringes of the era where adults would come in and ruin a kids' activity (as they did with comic books and record collecting) with appraisal, marketing, price guides, inserts, and chase cards.  All that miserable shit was just around the corner.  The piece de resistance of card collecting at that time was simply finding or trading for a player's "rookie" card.  Nowadays that term doesn't really matter all that much.  People just want that 1 in 300 pack insert opportunity that has turned the hobby from hero worship into slot machine-lottery ticket buying.  I'm getting off topic here, as a bitter old man is wont to do.

Back to Dad and I.   He really was a backer of my interest.  So much so, that he'd often stop on the way home from work and pick up several packs of cards or stickers.  He'd then hide them in various spots around the house for me to find.  It was a ton of fun looking for the packs between couch cushions, between books on shelves, tucked amongst the breakfast cereal.  As good as he was with hiding small items, Dad was practical with the overflow too.  Like with the Reggie Jackson-emblazoned 1983 sticker album. When doubles started to build up, we picked up a second album and put them in that book.  Eventually, we did fill the first one, but ended up having to buy so many packs to get the last couple to fill it, we filled 3/4 of a second one. Along the way, Dad was just as interested and having as much fun with it as I was.  Realistically, this would be difficult to do today, as 25 cents just doesn't go as far as it once did.

One year for Christmas, my parents shocked me with complete sets of 1982 and 1983 Topps baseball cards.  When Donald Trump collapsed the USFL with his raging litigiousness, Pop rushed across town and bought me the only sets the Waco, Texas sports card shop carried.  He contributed the 1963 Pete Rose to my collection, as well as the coveted 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly, among many others. In hindsight, that may seem frivolous to many, but over the years those cards eventually became financial backing for a young man yet to be blessed with health insurance, and saved his ass from either of the unwanted fates of not getting needed health care, or going into massive debt getting it.

I seem to remember him making the prediction that this was a possibility over 35 years ago, and 8 years before it became true. Thanks, Dad.  Imagine doing something that was so much fun at the time, and down the road it ended up with a result somewhat like playing the stock market with cleverness.  

I do miss those cards now that most of them are gone, but damn if it wasn't a hoot of an investment.

Baseball as Religion Part II: The Home Run Book

Let's start by talking about the home run.

Chicks dig the long ball.

That's an old phrase that pretty much means "go big".

Baseball was a big part of the coping mechanism of my youth.  It distracted, it soothed, it shaved edges.  It made blood flow.

And as any good cleric in any religion, I studied.  I studied it hard.  I absorbed the biblical sports page, joined the choir in the highlight videos, watched ESPN Sportscenter (in its infancy, of course), and memorized library books and the backs of baseball cards.  I became an ardent attendee of summertime sermons on Superstation TBS and WGN, becoming an ancillary fan of the Atlanta Braves and Chicago Cubs in the process.

I became such a savant that for Christmas, dear old Dad had note pads printed that were emblazoned with a cartoon figure of some cat swinging a bat.  The headline of these pads?

Who will tell me about baseball?   ROB WILL.

All that being said, The Milwaukee Brewers were, and still are, the principal drivers of a baseball passion that does still exist in a much less feverish form now.

But it was different back then.  Watch The Sandlot, listen to Daniel Stern's monologue in City Slickers, and you'll get my meaning.  I was up with the sun, catching and hitting balls (with friends or without) until it went down again.  Evenings were spent with my besties, monks from the temple of the national pastime, playing Milton Bradley's Championship Baseball or watching games on the tube.  Rainouts were seldom cause for sadness as the local channels ran highlight films of World Series past until the game returned, expanding my already impressive knowledge of the game.

Rob Will, acolyte of the Diamond.  How's that for baseball religion allegory work?

Anyways, back to the long ball.  Any sports fans loves the quick score.  The 80 yard bomb in Football.  The Clutch 3 in basketball.  But neither are quite as majestic as the home run ball.  Someone, preferably from my team, tacking a hard rawhide encircled ball of twine and literally driving it further than a football field with a stick.

After the sphere has been thrown at them, often at over 90 miles per hour, no less.

The glorious home run ball is comprised of a long arcing tracer missile ascending into the night air, accompanied by the rising vocal excitement of the paid faithful, a piece of excitement only matched by its descent into the crowd, signaling the satisfying confirmation of runs scored.

It's even better when it's late in the game, more importantly in the post-season.  Bobby Thompson, Kirk Gibson, and Bucky Dent....I'm talking to you.


So, there it was one spring day.  6th grade.  Right there in the iconic publication called the Weekly Reader.  The Home Run Book.  The Topps' Home Run Book, no less.  Who better to put together an encyclopedia of the best baseball had to offer in the round-tripper department than the premier manufacturer of the rosary beads of the sport, the baseball card.  Each cardboard saint came in a wax pack accompanied by wonderful facts and stats, introduced by the whiff of the powder pink residue scent of the stick bubble gum.  A gift from the baseball deity,  this book was my catechism, a pocket prayer book for the baseball seminary.

In it's tiny form, it listed out all the vital stats on the men who hit the most home runs.  A pocket history of the dinger's legends.  Categorized by career 400, 500,  and 600 home run hitters, and of course finishing with the two who filled the 700 homer category, Ruth and Aaron. The book obviously predated Bonds by many years, but it doesn't matter.  I don't care how many that steroid-infused twatwaffle hit, Aaron is still number one.

Don't argue with me.  I'll excommunicate you from my beautiful baseball religion.

After the book's home run hall of fame, was a segment consisting of simple home-run related tidbits, that while not as informative or colorful, were still fun. Topps' The Home Run Book was a compendium of knowledge on the most exciting moments in the grand old game, and those that elicited the most of them.

Every day of the summer of 1983, this young monk, still growing in the baseball priesthood, read one chapter.  He took in the stories of the great popes of his religion.

And remembered them.

Baseball as Religion Part I: Civil War

I've written in this blog in the past about how, 37 years ago, my brother moved back home and introduced me to baseball.   Click this shit below to read it.

Along with Danny's baseball wisdom, came a deep love for the Milwaukee Brewers, or as they were known at the time, Harvey's Wallbangers.  Incidentally, for a great composite of how I like to remember this team, from another's point of view anyways, check this out:  Cardboard Gods  by the great Josh Wilker. 

This was the summer of 1982, (obviously, from the suggested reading I just plugged above) and my brother Dan and I immersed ourselves fully into Harvey's Kuenn's band of crazy, lovable, powerful, goonish baseball knights in blue pinstripes.  These rawhide chesspieces were a great vehicle that my brother used to school me on how the game worked, and he was good at it.  It eventually spread out into the backyard, where he taught me to catch a tennis ball, after helping me break in a new glove, and started bestowing on me the skill of how to swing a baseball bat and not look like a complete doofus while doing so.  

The Brewers were good, good enough to take the Cardinals to Game 7, but not enough to win it.  Short closer Rollie Fingers due to a rotator cuff injury, they just couldn't put the Redbirds away, and due to this fact I will forever hate that team with a burning passion for the hot tears that they caused to roll down a 10 year old boy's cheeks on late October evening.  

Otherwise, those were fun days. 

Jump forward a couple of years.  My folks and I moved into a house in town and with that residence came a new novelty, cable television, and with that, WGN-TV and daily Chicago Cubs games.  Due to the fact the Cubbies were in the National League, unlike my Brewers American League residence, I felt no guilt in becoming a fan.  Unless a mutual I-94 World Series occurred, there was no harm, no foul in rooting for the Baby Bears. 

 It was also a benefit that the Cubs, in this summer of 1984, made the playoffs for the first time since the dinosaurs were made extinct.  They were fun to watch with youngsters like Ryne Sandberg, Jody Davis and Bob Dernier, intermingling with grizzled vets Ron Cey, Gary "Sarge" Matthews, and Larry Bowa.  Thanks to that bastard Steve Garvey and his upstart San Diego Padres, the North Shore Cubs jaunt into the playoffs only lasted one painful round.

Little did I know this little factoid: Danny had a mutual love for the same Chicago Team I had and for the same goddamn reason.  They were on TV every day during the summer.  That's right.  WGN-TV carried all Chicago Cubs games, home and road, all season long.  And ten years prior to my discovery, my brother had the same one.  Unbeknownst to me. 

Mind you, Danny and I had watched countless hours of the national pastime as experienced by the Brewtown Bombers together, we listened to Bob Uecker and Dwayne Moseley calling Crew games on hot summer afternoons while we shot the frisbee, the baseball and the shit.  He had taken me to numerous games at vaunted Milwaukee County Stadium, where he bought me sodas, hot dogs, and Cracker Jack, all while watching our heroes in blue, white, and yellow.

All the while, his number one team was the Cubs.

I had no idea. 

I found this out years later when the ultimate nightmare for two baseball-loving people in my brother and I's position was revealed to the world.  MLB moved the Milwaukee Brewers to the Senior Circuit.  

And put them in the same division as the Cubs.

I said it like that, in a sentence separated from a paragraph, to of course be dramatic.  Where the hell else would you put a team that resides in Milwaukee?  I digress.

And when my brother and I came to discuss this seeming abomination committed by the league, he said it while on a telephone conversation. 

"I'll be rooting for the Cubbies, Rob."

My head spun, I dropped the phone, my legs got weak.  I never spoke to that son of a bitch again. 

I'm kidding, of course.   His indoctrination into the Grand Ol' Game was the age-old Northern Illinois stalwarts. You always imprint on your first experience with something, as I did when Dan first blessed me with the Milwaukee Brewers.   You can't change after that, it's impossible.  It just can't be done, at least not without withdrawal, irritation, and eventually excruciating pain, and really, it's just baseball.  There's no need for that shit. 

He rooted for the Brewers in '82 for the same reason that I rooted for the Cubs in 1984.  The Brewers were in a completely separate league from his team, and he saw no sin in pulling for the local Milwaukee boys as their success started to bring them into the limelight.  

Same damn thing I did with the Cubs in 1984 as they made a run. 

The Brewers were just the baseball ride Dan chose to take me on in that moment, as the 1982 Cubs finished 73-89 and 19 games out of first place.  The Brewers were successful and far more exciting. Who could blame that beautiful bastard for making that decision.  I couldn't be happier with how it worked out.

The only difference is, despite the fact that he will always put his beloved Cubbies first, Danny wishes no ill will on the Brewers.  I myself have however disowned the Baby Bears.  A heavy taste of the Lou Piniella-led out fit, containing the likes of Derrek Lee, Carlos Zambrano, Alfonso Soriano, and Geovany Soto, et al's antics, circa the late 2000's, really turned me off.  I'm sure the Brewers have had their share of idiots in recent years, but Danny has chosen not to hold that against my favorite team. But me, I'm a homer.

I guess he's just a bigger man than me.

I do find it fascinating, the parallells at work here.  The similarities in the reasons that we did things in regard to these two baseball clubs, but for the opposite team.  There was just a fork in the road in terms of personal preference, and we went in different directions, chose different paths.  

Danny's got a World Series however.  Jealous of that as I may be, I shall hold no ill will. 

I love my brother for many, many reasons.  Baseball's just one of them.

Thank you, Danny.