hawing

Haha, I guess we can comfortably say that on April 7! I had low expectations not so much for the game as for the fan interaction experience. Here's what happened within my earshot/view: - Literally the first thing I heard upon opening the car door in the Molitor Lot: WORLD CHAMPIONS, BAYBEEEEEEE! - The SSH early entry line was slow going for a bit because of CHC fans having the season seat holder policy explained to them and being turned away ahead of us. Other CHC fans had passes that they presumably received from Brewers SSHs. - CHC couple entered our loge section behind me, with the husband conspicuously saying to his wife, YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO SIT NEAR BREWERS FANS? He wasn't a young dudebro, either. I didn't even flinch, much less turn around, and enjoyed listening to his wife shut him down. I didn't hear him again the rest of the night. - Those of you who follow me on Facebook know I take lots of photos at games. I do this primarily for my mom, who likes baseball but can't physically make it to games. One thing I always photograph is the line score at the end of each game. On this night, I took the photo of a monitor in the concourse. A CHC fan walking behind me conspicuously said, "You'd think they'd won the World Series!" Another guy who maybe isn't quite old enough to be my dad, but definitely older than I am. I mean, geez. Having listed all these, I will admit that most of the heart of the game was not terrible, maybe because the score was close. (Note that we were in the loge family section in front of the press box - about as tame a spot as you can get on nights like this.) Also, some Brewers fans were not on their best behavior, though I think some of that was borne of frustration over CHC fans being so numerous and therefore loud.

The small sample of items I've perused since Monday would suggest...yes. Baked potatoes were all $7.25 last year and are now either $9 or $11, depending on the toppings selected. Kettle Corn (which used to be a hefty Happy Jack's bag for $6) is now a 5 or 5.5 oz bag of Badger Popcorn, selling for $8.50. The Brewers moved away from Happy Jack's by the 2016 season, and admittedly I don't know what they charged last year. Since we were at Saturday's exhibition game and didn't use our food vouchers that day, we haven't paid full price for any item yet.

Hey, after this we won't see the Rockies in Miller Park again until at least April 2018. Rockies starters: CF Charlie Blackmon (L) 2B DJ LeMahieu ® RF Carlos Gonzales (L) 3B Nolan Arenado ® SS Trevor Story ® LF Gerardo Parra (L) 1B Mark Reynolds ® C Dustin Garneau ® RHP Antonio Senzatela ® Brewers starters: 2B Jonathan Villar (S) LF Eric Thames (L) 1B Jesus Aguilar ® 3B Travis Shaw (L) RF Domingo Santana ® SS Hernan Perez ® CF Keon Broxton ® C Jett Bandy ® RHP Chase Anderson ®

I was in Milwaukee on Opening Day and catching up from Opening Day last night. I'm leaving shortly for Milwaukee and haven't seen lineups yet, but they can be edited in here by a mod or added in a subsequent post. Will Wily be the stopper? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ No one's ever had an 0-162 season, so someone will have to be.

Can we make this thread silly enough to make it WOAH SOLVDD-worthy? I believe we are up to this challenge. http://americaswhiteboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Milwaukee-Brewers-2015-mlb-team-preview-funny-shirtless-hat-weird.jpg

With no particular offense intended toward the Brewers, as soon as I was aware that the March 31 and April 1 vouchers were intended for use only at those games, I figured there would be problems for thrifty fans who by gum were going to spend the $10 they were given BUT who didn't want to spend multiple innings in concession lines. At least some of the concessions employees were bound to be new, the setup was new, the new concessions were ultra hyped, and everyone had "free money." That is a formula for difficulties. I didn't even leave my seat once I was at Saturday's game, because (1) we'd had some food in the parking lot; (2) I knew the lines would be like that early in the season; and (3) because the exhibition game allowed us to get seats right by the Brewers' dugout for not an arm and a leg, and I was not going to waste innings of that experience waiting for food. So I am glad we have $20 to spend sometime this season. Before most weeknight games, we eat on the way to MP, but we do usually opt for ballpark food on Sundays. I doubt that the new offerings will change our pattern dramatically.

I'll take it a step farther and cite the hatred of those visors with fake hair. No. Just no. Unfortunately there's a subset of boomer age Brewers fans who enjoy wearing them on Sundays.

We saw a similar message-board sign this weekend outside Madison: DRIVING ON PILLS KILLS ZERO IN WISCONSIN Having the Zero in Wisconsin part on a different line kept us from interpreting the message the way the Patrick425s did. But the SO and I both were thinking "driving on pills? Like the street surface is covered with pills and it's a struggle to keep the car under control while driving on that surface?"

We received a "perks" email Friday, as did at least a few other SSHs. Our "silver" perk is participating in the "Family play day" (June 9, hope we can both get off work) and our "blue" perk is the refillable soda cup. I'll have to go through my fall notes to see how highly we ranked either of those. Edit: They were each our top ranked pick. I think I picked the silver and the SO picked the blue.

I don't have many non-Brewers hats, but I do have a few, for specific if occasionally shallow reasons: 1. Cleveland Indians "C" cap. I bought it on a whim when we visited Progressive Field in 2009 because it was the least Wahoo-centric. About this time last year, a neighbor of ours passed away. He was an Ohio native and big Indians fan, so I wore the C cap periodically last year in his memory. (Sad aside: every time I wore it during the 2016 WS, at least one person - not always the same person - assumed it was a Cubs cap. At least it was people who don't really know me.) The anniversary of his passing is this coming Sunday, so I'll probably wear it again then. 2. I have a T-Rats cap, which I assume isn't considered a sin in the context of this thread since they're part of the Brewers' system. I'm averse to snakes, but this cap is a nice shade of maroon, which is a color that looks good on me. 3. I also have a red Brewers cap that I wear to Badger sporting events that fall during baseball season. That way I can still rep my #1 team while casually fitting in at Camp Randall, the Field House or the Kohl Center.

My only quibble was the Justin Bieber poster on the wall behind them.

It's in this @Brewers tweet:

My student employee who is a Cardinals fan (and not coincidentally, my lesson in tolerance for this school year) is pretty bummed today.

So what you're saying is my ATI Club lanyard from the one time we sat there is now a collector's item!

A few more comments: - I regularly remind Brewers employees and anyone else who will listen that it's 78 miles one-way from our driveway to our favorite Miller Park parking lot; but the bensheeps family comes from farther and on a route that is partly no-interstate. Props to you all. - Patrick425: Happy 51st birthday soon. Mine's later this month. I'm perfectly okay with an "age 51" promotion for anyone, this year. I'll have to get out my vintage "Toby's Power 50" Brewerfan shirt with the "I am #51" on the back and wear it more often in 2017. - What to do with Cubs tickets. I'll admit, I pretty much silently curse all the SSH customers who normally sit around us but sell out to cubs fans for those trying series. I get the value of having fans you don't want to be around subsidize a chunk of your season tickets. Just remember that you're also sticking it to those of us who actually turn out on the Brewers' side for those games. (Having said this, I know Patrick425 has a lot of Saturday night games, and I acknowledge the difference between Saturday and Sunday audiences. Even I would think twice about spending Saturday nights at those games.) Edited to add: I did not know this. That's a pretty sweet perk. We're not likely to trade in our season tickets for it, but for $10 I'd consider joining anyway.

and 30's. I'd settle for a promotion for women entering their age-51 season. Whether season tickets make sense depends on what you value. In our household, we like having the same seats every game. We have two 20-packs, because one 20-pack didn't feel like enough - although admittedly, 40 is a little much for our Madison round-trips. But the tickets we can't or don't want to use are pretty easy to sell or trade in as needed, if we don't find an in-person buyer here in town. We can order additional tickets without service charges, so we've done that for friends and family before (including some of you here on Brewerfan). We can't always get to Milwaukee in time to take advantage of the early entry days for SSH customers, but twice last year we were able to walk past a long line of cubs fans and enter ahead of them. I appreciated that. Our ticket rep is super responsive and has made some very nice arrangements for us (again, helping out some bf.netters in the process). If we see him at a weeknight game, odds are at least 50-50 he'll offer us a free upgrade to field seats. We are not his top-dollar customer, but he treats us like we are. The "postseason priority" perk is admittedly not the biggest draw in the immediate term, but had the Brewers advanced in 2014, we would have had four seats together in front of the press box, which would have been glorious. I was also happy with our postseason locations in 2011 and 2008. From our distance, the 5-county sale isn't applicable, and our small car has about an 8-gallon tank, so qualifying for the BP seats would require us to run the tank to almost empty over and over. But I know we are an outlier household on those points. Season tickets aren't particularly the answer if your goal is to minimize spending, but they work for different customers in different ways.

I was just happy that the Badgers beat Tom Crean (again) on Sunday. I'm not deep into the UW-Marquette business; I just think Crean looks like a doofus. Plus he's my age.

It's all ice, ice, baby in Madison and environs today. We live on the intersection of two side streets (an understandably low priority for the city to treat) and it's just visibly slick. I am thankful we have no reason to go outdoors today.

My peeve is any kind of email that ends with "Best," (sender's name).

Aw, Patrick, I would have taken last year's icons shirt off your hands. I liked that design but we couldn't attend that game. The icons concept is fine with me, but I agree that the entry in this contest looks disorganized. So I voted for the flag too. I don't even recall whether the fan's choice shirt game is in our package.

Guys, we could pitch in for the $11.99 3-slot taco rack and every time the Stearnseses have tacos, they'd think of Brewerfan.net.

The Canada Goose website has a page devoted to how to spot counterfeit Canada Goose jackets: https://www.canadagoose.com/us/en/counterfeit/counterfeit.html Though it's impossible to know for sure by sight alone, some of the UW-Madison CG customers appear to be international students.

Aw, thanks for looking! The Cespedes foul was way more of a rocket than the Villar one early in the game. Tom said it stung his hand right through the glove he used. Without a glove someone would have had something broken. He gave the Cespedes foul to some kids across the aisle. The Villar ball we kept.

MTM's Laura Petrie character is said to be my namesake.

I'd never heard of Canada Goose until the 2015-2016 winter, when they seemed to crop up ALL OVER the UW-Madison campus. We were mystified and then flabbergasted once we checked out the Canada Goose website and saw how much those coats cost. And most of them are good to -5! My Lands End parka cost a lot less and holds up in colder temperatures than that.