The 1981 Brewers Were the Opening Act For 1982

The 1981 MLB season was shortened by a player strike, which lasted from mid-June to mid-August. The second half began on Aug. 9 with the All-Star Game, which included Rollie Fingers, Ted Simmons, and Gorman Thomas. The playoffs would match the first-half winner against the second-half winner. In the American League East, it would be the New York Yankees against the Brewers.

The Brewers were a .500 club until mid-May but then ran off 16 victories in a 22-game span, moving them to within one game of the division-leading Yankees. After losing four of their next five games, the Brewers would end in third place (three games behind New York) when the strike hit on Jun. 11.

The Brewers took the second half of the split season, going 31-22 and winning the AL East by 1.5 games over Boston and Detroit. That propelled the Crew to their first playoff series against New York.

Along with the usual stars on the team, several ‘role’ players performed well. Here are some of the key contributors.

Outfielder Mark Brouhard scuffled early in the season, batting only .242 through mid-May. Brouhard heated up as the Wisconsin weather did, though, and during the aforementioned 22-game span, “Bro” went 25-for-77 (.325). Surprisingly, Brouhard failed to hit a home run, but he did have triples in back-to-back games in late May; he also had three hits in each game.

In the second half of the season, Brouhard was sidelined for two weeks with muscle cramps in his legs in mid-August. Upon his return, Brouhard was red-hot, hitting .379 (11-for-29) with four doubles, one triple, and seven RBIs, raising his batting average to .322 in his first seven games back. Unfortunately, he slumped in the last part of September, getting only four hits in 40 at-bats to end the season.

Charlie Moore played mostly behind the plate but moved to the outfield for eight games—a precursor to his 1982 season, when he played 85% of his games in right field. Moore entered May 1981 with a .250 batting average. It wouldn’t stay that low for long. Moore went 27-for-71 (.380) in May, raising his average to .367. After struggling in June and August, Moore got his batting eye back, hitting .306 (11-for-36) along with his only home run of the season in September.

When Robin Yount injured his right knee in early May, Eddie Romero stepped up and took over the shortstop position for the Brewers. Although his numbers weren’t great in the two-week period of Yount's convalescence, Romero provided stability and even showed some clutch ability, knocking in six runs across 46 at-bats. He did commit five errors in 14 games, but he had a big game on May 20, going 2-for-2 with a walk, run scored and RBI in a 6-1 win over the Minnesota Twins. The Brewers won seven of 14 games, and stayed in the AL East race, dropping to 3.5 games behind the Yankees.

Marshall Edwards wasn’t large in stature, but he came up big as a reserve outfielder for the Brewers. In late May and early June, Edwards banged out nine hits in 29 at-bats for a .310 average, including a 2-for-4 performance with an RBI in a 5-1 win over the Detroit Tigers on May 27. Four days later, he bettered that, going 3-for-4 with a double, triple, stolen base, and two RBIs in a 5-2 win over the Boston Red Sox.

Don Money also played a large role, not so much with his bat (that would come in 1982), but with his leadership in the clubhouse and on the field. Money played in 60 games and only slashed .216/.288/.286 across 185 at-bats. Making 48 starts at the hot corner, the 34-year-old veteran made only three errors and had a .977 fielding average in 130 chances. Money was felled with a sciatic nerve problem in his back and missed two weeks in September. He played two games at the end of the regular season and went 2-for-5.

Playoffs
Mark Brouhard was scratched from the first-ever Division Series due to a pulled calf muscle. Charlie Moore split time between DH and right field in four games against the Yankees and went 2-for-9, but did have two hits in Game 1, a 5-3 loss at County Stadium. Eddie Romero started at second base in Game 5 and went 1-for-2 with a run scored in the 7-3 loss to New York.

Marshall Edwards made a pair of appearances in the series, going 0-for-1 in games where he entered the contests as a pinch-runner. Don Money went 0-for-3 in the ALDS against New York but came achingly close to sending the Brewers to the ALCS. With the Brewers trailing 5-3 in the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium in Game 5, Money came to the plate with two runners on and two outs against Yankee relief ace Goose Gossage. Money hit a deep, hooking drive to left field that 6-foot-6 left fielder Dave Winfield caught at the wall. Five more feet and a Rollie Fingers 1-2-3 ninth inning would have sent the Brewers to the championship series against the Oakland Athletics.

Prep for 1982
Moore became a full-time right fielder, while Brouhard, Romero, Edwards, and Money all played key supporting roles in helping the Brewers advance all the way to the 1982 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. If ace reliever Rollie Fingers had been healthy, it's likely the Brewers would have hoisted the trophy as the 1982 World Series champs. They got that far in 1982, in part, because of what they learned and discovered about themselves in 1981.

Are you interested in Brewers history? Then check out the Milwaukee Brewers Players Project, a community-driven project to discover and collect great information on every player to wear a Brewers uniform!