jaybird2001wi

With the Brewers in the running to have one of the best records in its history, there are obviously going to be some "casual" bandwagon fans jumping on board and acting like they have been there through thick and thin yet they likely cannot name a single player off the 1995 Roster or ask dumb questions on the jsonline.com Mailbag (I have noticed some fans have asked what OBP is or basic questions a diehard Brewer fan should know.) Here are some of the things I have noticed in some Opinion pages: 1) In the Racine Journal-Times Letter to the Editor section, there was a fan who "complained" of the prices at Miller Park by saying something along the lines of "15 dollars to park, 10 dollars for a Bloody Mary.... Mr. Attanasio you claim that you will be losing money this season, can I have the number of your accountant to do my taxes?" I wanted to respond to his letter by saying he is an idiot because a) it was likely his first ever game, b) buying a Bloody Mary at a Brewer game basically says he does not know jack about how to be a fan at a Brewer game and c) he does not have any knowledge of the intricate parts of baseball economics. 2) Q: R Feran of Waukesha - What does OBP mean? A: Brewers Mailbag - On-base percentage. Most folks think it's more important than batting average. From the August 11 mailbag I know I may over critical of the casual fans, but shouldn't there be more pressing issues? Couldn't the guy just go online and google OBP? 3) Q: DJ of West Bend, Wis - Why don't the Brewers make a trade for Ben Sheets now. He is now, always has been and always will be a 12 or 13 game winner with a .500 or so record. We can talk about how good he is, or will be, until we are blue in the face but look at the facts. I will be glad to see him go next year and I think we should try and move him now while we can possibly get something for him. A: Brewers Mailbag - A trade like that basically tells everyone that you've given up hope of making the playoffs when two weeks ago they looked like World Series favorites. If they did that trade, Miller Park wouldn't be standing 24 hours later. From the August 6th Mailbag This guy seems to be mis-informed of the following: The trade deadline has passed, we are in the middle of the pennant race and I don't really have to explain his bad logic at that point of the season. I picked a couple questions from this month's mailbag but could probably find about 20 or so if I went back to the beginning. But based on my experience attending Brewer games, I have the feeling most of the fans that attend during the remainder of this season must think the following: 1) It is still cool to do the wave 2) Poor etiquette, getting up in the middle of an at bat 3) Fans asking "Who No. 25 on the Brewers is." 4) Typical bandwagon fans will talk about "how they were the biggest Molitor and Yount fans up to the year 2000" 5) They will complain about the price of hot dogs and say "the last time I was here it cost $1.75" 6) They will complain about beer prices and state "the last time I was here it cost $3.75" 7) Bandwagon fans will try to "act like they know" the game by running off stats they just found in that days newspaper. 8) Will think Ryan Braun has been around has been around for five years. 9) "Suddenly" think they JUST discovered a "true Brewers ace" in Ben Sheets. 10) Will get mad when a Brewer hits a sacrifice fly to advance a runner and believe "we stink because we can't hit a homer every time." Any other thoughts?

Since 1992 was our previous last winning season prior to last year, I have thought about how some of the decisions made pre-1992 and post-1992 made a domino effect on baseball. Here are some things to mull around in the head: 1) What if Gary Sheffield wasn't a head case? Scenarios: a) We would not have gotten Matt Mieske, Jose Valentin and Ricky Bones; therefore we would have never been able to re-acquire Jaime Navarro (Valentin) from the White Sox and Gerald Williams (Bones) and Bob Wickman. Then there may not have been a Richie Sexson since we traded Wickman for him. b) If Sheffield would have the season he had in San Diego in 1992 and played third base, Kevin Seitzer wouldn't have made his way to Milwaukee and we may never have gotten Jeromy Burnitz and made that awful trade with the Mets and received Alex Ochoa and Glendon Rusch. Maybe we would have won the 1992 American League East over the Blue Jays? There would have been a totally different World Series Champion. Maybe Paul Molitor would have not signed with Toronto and gone to another team instead, therefore creating a different 1993 WS Champ. i) Joe Carter's legendary World Series blast would have also changed and Mitch Williams would have been a different guy today. c) We would have eventually had the outfield of Yount, Greg Vaughn and Gary Sheffield and never would have dealt with Kevin Reimer. d) Would Sheffield have ended up in Florida? 2) What if the Brewers would have handled the Molitor situation differently by allowing him to play first base instead of being labeled "as nothing but a DH?" a) We never would have thrown money on Franklin Stubbs and Jeff Bagwell played 1st Base for Houston the year Stubbs made his Brewer debut. b) John Jaha would have been relegated to Designated Hitter in 1993. c) We may have had more winning seasons between 1993-1998 because we had a few "fringe years" where we were a game or two away. With these two decisions, Sal Bando's job would have been FAR more different. He wouldn't have touted Jose Valentin as part of the "Miller Park core" and we would have had a completely different shortstop for the mid 1990's. Also, Molitor played the last six seasons of his career primarily on artificial turf. Would he have been able to play another year or two? 3) What if Bando listened to his scouts and not drafted Antone Williamson and drafted their guy, Nomar? a) The shortstop question above would have been solved and we would have had this LineUp in 1997, Nomar's first full season 1) Molitor 1B 2) Cirillo 3B 3) Nomar SS 4) Sheffield RF 5) Nilsson C 6) Chuck Carr CF 7) Vina 2B 8) Julio Franco DH 9) Matheny C Keep in mind, things would have been a lot more different and there may have been an alternate plan in place for the outfield had everything panned out, we may never have gotten Chucky Hacks and Surhoff may have never moved out of the catching position (and going to another team) and we could have a different DH. Would anything else have drastically changed if these three different scenarios played out differently?

In yesterday's Witrado mailbag, here is the first question in its entirety: Q: Spaulding of Omaha, NE - What are the chances, with Rickie Weeks still playing absolutely horribly and now reinjuring his thumb, that Ned Yost will finally bench him and let Ray Durham finish out the year at 2B? Is this even being discussed?! And why is he still batting leadoff?! Weeks hurts our chances of winning with each at bat and each ball hit in his direction. You can't even say he's worthless. Being worthless would imply no impact. Weeks has definitely had an impact - but it's been far from positive. Does no one within the organization see Weeks play as problematic? A: Brewers Mailbag - In the last mailbag, I failed to answer a question completely and had some emails about it. So for anyone wondering why teams don't trade draft picks, it is because MLB rules don't allow picks to be traded. I answered the question as to why this might be the case without actually stating the rule. My aplogies, as I am still learning all the rules of the game, of which are there are about 800 truckloads. Again, I will try to be more informed when answering these questions. Now for this week's bag... I think people in the organization see that Weeks has hurt the team but Ned Yost will stay loyal to his second baseman, this I have no doubt about. It seems that Yost is going to be Stubborn on this one, and I don't know why. Everyone in the press box is sort of baffled by this one. But here is one snippet that allowed me to lose ALL respect for Witrado: You would think a medium-sized Metropolitan newspaper like the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel would have hired a beat writer who actually had more knowledge of the game than this. On top of all of that, his mailbags are absolutely brainless. The people who send Witrado questions basically have no knowledge of the game at all. But then again it was inevitable since the Brewers have gotten many new fans since they started winning ballgames and the casual or bandwagon fan have started to re-emerge at Miller Park.But to add to my previous statement, I have met a couple sports writers outside of Milwaukee and the guy I worked for at the Beloit Daily News (Jim Franz) knows more about the facets of the game than Witrado and it makes me wonder how in the world the MJS hires these guys. I remember Michael Cunnigham a few years back and he was more informed than Witrado is.

When I worked at ShopKo as a cashier when I was 17 year old, it always got on my nerves when old ladies insisted on opening their little mini-change pouches and count exact change and they would sometimes toss the whole amount of change on the counter to count the change. But as far as check writing was concerned, ShopKo really didn't help matters when they insisted on making all cashiers ask for State ID in conjunction with the check and made us cashiers write out the License/ID # on every check. I also loved it when customers would critique my bagging experience and get all upset when I didn't put a specific item in with other specific items when there were only two bags. Wal-Mart has the worst checkout experience in all retail facets. The one in Racine has literally 32 different checkout lanes with only 10 operating at one time. The self-checkout sometimes makes me mad because whenever I use it, the voice tells me that the last item was "not weighed" and that I need to get assistance from an employee after the voice says: "Item was not placed in bagging unit." Gas stations are the worst, the Speedway in Racine I always stop at has this old guy working the register and he takes an absolute eternity to finish up transactions. This is what happened at the most recent trip there: Random guy fills out Powerball, whatever lottery slip Hands to old checker and the checker stares at it for about 20 seconds. Then punches in numbers manually Waits... then when ticket prints out, stares at it again for 30 seconds. Old checker says: "Hello, sir, can I get you anything else?" then proceeds to attempt small talk Random guy starts chatting it up as the ONE line gets longer with two other registers available Old checker spends 2 minutes trying to get check card to work and then asks Random guy to join Speedy Rewards As transaction is complete, old checker bags all of Random guy's items in the worst way possible. Random guy gets upset and then decides to do bagging himself and walks out. All of this could have been done in less than one minute if I was behind the counter. When I worked as cashier during the Christmas shopping season at ShopKo and then sometimes I got called up to back up the cashiers at Target, I made NO TIME for chit chat since all the lines were long. I seriously just said, "Hello." and then "Have a nice Holiday" and that was all I said. Oh, and on the sales floor I always remember when people would put stuff they got from Household chemicals or something in their cart and then change their mind in the toy section and are too lazy to put it back in the right spot... so there is basically a bottle of Windex on the shelf with the "Hello Kitty" merchandise. Since Racine is kind of ghetto, I always remember when some people would try to switch sales tags so they can get items for cheaper. I once caught someone because it looked so deliberate. I also remember when I took a phone call from some freaked out mother wondering if her kids toy was shipped to the store and I looked for it and it was nowhere to be found. The mother ended up crying on the phone for about five minutes and I had to stand there in the middle of Target listening to her. Now here is my WORST story: An old guy was using the store issued motorized carts and then less than a minute before he headed to the checkout lane, he soiled himself and it got all over the chair. The customers in front and behind him were rightfully disgusted and I was the cart attendant that night so me and the Security guy had to spend 20 minutes cleaning it up.

When I was a sports stringer (correspondent in other words) for the Beloit Daily News a few years back I covered high school basketball, football and hockey games for the following schools, CAPS indicate I was at their high school for the games: 1) BELOIT TURNER Girls Basketball (somehow they ALWAYS sent me to cover their games and there were times after watching them play I wondered why, but they were adequate with solid individual talent but just couldn't collectively bring it together) 2) BELOIT MEMORIAL Football (I now know why its more than a tip to write in pencil when doing notes on the games, ink smears in the rain) 3) JANESVILLE PARKER Girls Basketball 4) BRODHEAD Boys Basketball 5) ORFORDVILLE Parkview Boys Basketball 6) Janesville Craig Football (I got lost trying to find Monterrey Stadium, and by the way I thought I was going to get killed downtown trying to find it) 7) Edgerton Football 8) CLINTON Boys Basketball 9) CLINTON Girls Basketball 10) WALWORTH BIG FOOT Boys Basketball 11) ROCKTON (HONONEGAH, Ill.) Boys Basketball - Home of Indy Racer Danica Patrick 12) SOUTH BELOIT, Ill. (Their nickname was the SoBos because they apparently couldn't think of any other name) Football and Basketball 13) Poynette Boys Basketball (they apparently have to travel all the way to Beloit Turner for some reason) 14) BELOIT MEMORIAL Hockey (they play at the Pavilion converted to hockey arena next to Pohlman Field, the metal bleachers can freeze your butt during games) 15) Madison LaFollette Hockey (they played against Beloit Memorial) 16) Some other Madison high school hockey team I can't remember right now against Beloit Memorial 17) The majority of the teams I covered always seemed to have Vikings as a nickname, I can't figure out the others. I covered one event for the Oconomowoc Focus as a favor to a former Royal Purple colleague at Oconomowoc High against Waukesha Catholic Memorial Then when I had an internship in Whitewater and Palmyra-Eagle, I basically spent a ton of time at both high schools trying to dig up ANY sports story during the dead of summer.

Bela Karyoli reminds me of a hyperactive version of John Madden in his sport. The guy is totally out there. And although she is from Iowa, its good to see a Midwesterner get the silver in the event. By the way, ESPN.com needs to make that their top story for at least five seconds. Oh, and by the way... how is LaPorta doing for Team USA?

Doesn't anyone else see the irony in the fact that our Gymnasts finished 1-2 despite the Chinese best efforts to cheat with underage competitors and the pursuit of winning it all? Oh, and Nastia looks like she wants to cry.

ttsather, I am watching the Gymnast all-around as well. Nastia Liukin looks like she wants to kill the judges right now. And then there has been two or three interruptions by the head judge because of some discrepancies of the scoring. The head judge doesn't seem to be too happy with the way things have gone with the scorers thus far. But Liukin's last rotation put her on top of the standings as far as the All-Around scoring is concerned. This is why sports with judges just simply don't work. And what is going on with Michael Phelps, the guy can't lose anymore.

A new report has surfaced that one of the Gymnasts on the Chinese team is actually 13 years old. If this turns out to be true, the IOC needs to yank their Gold Medal fast. The girl is 13! That is blasphemous since they made the minimum age 16 now. Anyone think the IOC will remove their Gold and give it to us?

High School football is coming up on the horizon and since my brother teaches at our old high school, I am forced to continue supporting the Panther orange and blue even though I spent four years trying to get out of the place. Just wondering if any of you have any good ol' memories of high school? I can't believe it will be nearly eight years since I graduated high school and more than 10 years since I was a dorky 14-year-old high school freshman. As a Racine Park High student, I was involved with the school newspaper for awhile (I heard they made into a "newsmagazine" that is only circulated twice a year, ouch) and then was in Student Government for a semester. It's also hard to believe none of my favorite teachers are still there when I last was a student, all my teachers were apparently old and near the end of their teaching careers when I passed by the school, so they basically all retired within two or three years since I had them as teachers. What were your school colors? Mascot? http://journaltimesonline.com/content/prep_images/805bbcf1dadd5d374f14228522e8b3fc.gif When I went to UW-Whitewater, I became friends with or met people who came from high schools with strange school names like the "Monroe Cheesemakers..." I also found Oconomowoc High School to have the most offensive name I have ever heard. I don't even like to say it out loud or even type it. I also went to high school with this guy for one year: http://bleacherreport.com/images_root/image_pictures/0018/8377/7491691_celtics_v_wizards_article.jpg

As a journalism major, I had a chance to meet a few reporters/other individuals from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel during networking opportunities, and came to the conclusion that several people from the MJ-S are not exactly the nicest people. It was like pulling teeth just to get Garry Howard to return my phone calls when I inquired about "shadowing" Drew Olson during a game and Howard always made it out to be a chore just to talk to the common person and seemed to treat aspiring journalists like garbage unless you knew someone. I never really liked the attitude of some of the Journal-Sentinel people and they always often mislead me to believe I could get a better glimpse of their newspaper. I remember when I toured the press building on Burnham St. and there was an "operations manager" who told me he "can hook me up" with Garry Howard and maybe set up a lunch with him to talk about the business as a networking opportunity. A few days later, the same "operations manager" acted like he doesn't even know Howard at all. The only two guys I found to be cordial or nice to me during this one networking opportunity was Rick Braun and Gary D'Amato.

I would have mentioned Sacramone, who is in a class by herself in ALL aspects when it comes to Gymnastics, but didn't want to get this thread blocked. But I will agree with homer on all points about her. But the Olympics is the one time Women's Gymnastics is considered a major sport. I'd say Gymnastics is up there with basketball, swimming and baseball when it comes to Major olympic competition. This is the one time for them to shine and make a name for themselves. By the way, when does Individual medal competition for the sport begin? And I really wish US Basketball would stop softly playing the game and not let up anymore. They need to blow out every team in order to regain respect. I will never forget 2004's bronze medal and their loss to Puerto Rico and Argentina with a bunch of so-called NBA All-Stars.

What is really amazing about Michael Phelps is even the "big stars" are intrigued by him. I often heard that the NBA/Men's Basketball team has made the trek to the pool to check out Phelps in action. I watched some of the Olympic coverage last night and they said that LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony watched some of Phelps meets this Olympics and was amazed by his athletic ability. I am kind of shocked that "prima donna" NBA-ers would be willing to watch swimming, let alone show respect for the sport. Then I heard Carmelo and Michael Phelps started hanging out in the Olympic Village in between their competitions. I think its kind of cool to see some of our guys cross over and show support for their fellow Americans in other sports. Oh, and this is one of the few times I am rooting for the Williams sisters in tennis. I am kind of disappointed in the women's gymnastics team though. I wanted them to win team gold because they had so many good stars and the media could not stop raving about Shawn Johnson potentially being the "next big thing" in Gymnastics. I also came to the realization that rowing is seemingly boring to watch on TV and never thought it would be possible to prefer Badminton over any other sport to watch.

Did You Know? ...that Family Matters is actually a spin-off of Perfect Strangers? Harriett Winslow was Larry Appleton's elevator operator when he worked as a photojournalist with the Chicago Chronicle ...that Denise Richards of Starship Troopers fame had her second ever acting gig as a woman who faked her own drowning to get a date with AC Slater on Saved by the Bell? ...Family Matters phased Judy Winslow off the show when she said she was going to look for something upstairs but never came back down. ...Hangin' with Mr. Cooper used the same exact living room as Growing Pains did in their pilot episode. ...Bob Saget wasn't the original Danny Tanner, as a no-name actor filmed the pilot, but was replaced and the pilot was re-done with Saget. ...AC Slater accomplished the impossible in Saved by the Bell by lettering in track, wrestling, football, basketball and volleyball all in the same academic year. ...it was rumored that the oldest Brady kid (Greg aka Barry Williams) dated both his television sister (Marcia) and mother (Flo) ...that WKRP in Cincinnati's inspiration was WKRC in Cincinnati, which is still running. ...John Stamos' character in Full House had two different last names, Cochran at the beginning and then later Katsopolis. ...Don Cheadle made himself look youthful as Will's friend from Philadelphia in Fresh Prince. ...the TV show, Coach, used clips of University of Minnesota and Wisconsin Badger games for every "game footage" and changed the college name of the Badgers for every episode. ...Speaking of Coach, how was it possible for the Orlando Breakers to root for the 49ers against the Lions in the Christmas Eve game for the goal of playing an AFC team, the Buffalo Bills? ...In Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Diane Neal (ADA Casey Novak) played a rape suspect in the season prior to being hired as an ADA. ...In Home Improvement, Tim always made fun of Al's mother, and yet her character never appeared in a single episode. ...In the show Who's the Boss, how come a former Major Leaguer in Tony Miceli, who supposedly had money accepted a job as a housekeeper? ...In "That 70's Show," the Brewers are only mentioned once. ...David Spade made his first ever acting experience in Police Academy: 4 ...Adam Sandler's first television gig was on the Cosby Show ...Rachel Green on Friends had two sisters, played by Reese Witherspoon and Christina Applegate, yet never heard her mention them throughout the entire rest of the run of the show. Anyone got anymore?

Lechner is still around? Ugh, I remember when he was considered "old" even when I was a sophomore/junior at UWW. I would have thought he'd leave by now. Last time I spoke to him was at Pumpers and Mitchells like four years ago when he wanted to punch me out for joining an "anti-Lechner" facebook group.

It's been a good three years since I last was a student at UW-Whitewater and I just got re-admitted to the school two weeks ago and am waiting on my Financial Aid. I am going to feel awfully weird walking around campus as an eventual 26-year-old fifth year senior since there probably is NO ONE left since I last was a student there and may be in classes with students who were born in 1990 (I was in second or third grade when they were born, heck I don't even remember). All I have left are 17 credits (3 credits remain on my minor, 3-5 credits on a math or science course, 1 credit of Phys ed and then the remaining can be filled out by crap 100-level courses) to graduate. I am probably not the first or last 26-year-old guy to return to school but man am I going to feel old when I realize most of the freshmen were just 11-12 years old when I was a freshman there. What makes matters worse is although I will be 26 in October, I got the receding hairline of a 35-year-old guy and can grow facial hair to look like a 40-year-old so I feel like I am going to get weird looks. I know the University Center was renovated, three or four buildings are torn down and students still complain about parking on campus. Anything else I should look out for?

I was looking through MLBTradeRumors.com and there was a snippet about Buster Olney targetting blogging type websites about breaking trade news and faking the time stamps to show the blog sites "broke the news first." Nerd alert: This is probably too inside baseball for many people to care, but we find it interesting. A reader sent in an interesting nugget from Buster Olney's column today: Here's how we saw the Tex deal go down: Reader Cortes sent us an email saying that Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus wrote something about Kotchman being yanked off the field in Boston, perhaps because he had been dealt. But we couldn't find this link on BP, so we punched in Tex's name into a google news search, and Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports popped up with the first report of the trade, shortly before 6 p.m. (We quickly posted the link in the comments section.) Then, the 6 p.m. Sportscenter came on and ESPN opened with Keith Law reporting the deal. To the best of our surfing, we couldn't find anywhere else reporting the trade. Anyone? The whole 'website' thing is throwing us off, though. Would he really refer to Fox Sports as a website, instead of a news outlet or a competitor? But if he's not talking about Fox Sports, then what website is he mentioning? I am not sure how this works, but could someone please explain this to me in layman's terms or perhaps in plain English?

Howdy all. I have finally come to terms and accepted that I am a single and basically stopped looking for someone with the realization that if people are "looking" it never really happens. But my friend told me there are advantages to being "single at 25": 1) More money saving 2) The longer you wait, the more you will be happy when that time comes 3) Better chances of not getting divorced when marriage occurs because the appreciation of relationships will be far better. 4) Better chance of finding a girl younger than you when it comes (I am 25 and if I wait another five years, my age bracket preference will increase much more) 5) Better chance of finding a woman who isn't "deemed crazy" by my fellow guy friends. 6) Better chance of finding a woman who I am not ashamed of bringing home to meet Mom and Dad. Any others? Anyone care to disagree with the above six?

One of the guys we got for Gary Sheffield http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pics/matt_mieske_autograph.jpg Joey Belle at his finest http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/06-96/06-04-96/forearm.jpg This is how we Brewer fans felt when we found out we traded for him: http://www2.jsonline.com/sports/brew/image/2000/gris409.jpg Lopes in one of his rare "no-sleeping moments" http://www2.jsonline.com/sports/brew/image/2000/lopes403.jpg http://www2.jsonline.com/sports/brew/image/2001/april/belliard0408.jpg

http://josephpicciolo.com/photos/Newfield.jpg Marc Newfield looked like he meant business

Ugh.... why can't my Google posts last longer than 3 posts? brewcrew is right on. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif Maybe I should try something other than obscure 1980's celebrities.

Sorry for being a Google freak today. I tried finding the most obscure celeb there was so here it goes... http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z317/jaybird2422/14324323.jpg

The Milwaukee Brewers website already has a Durham jersey up for sale. I wonder how many of these will sell... http://lp.imageg.net/prod?set=key%5Bname%5D,value%5BDURHAM%5D&set=key%5Bnumber%5D,value%5B5%5D&set=key%5Bdisplaysize%5D,value%5B500%5D&load=url%5Bhttp://chains.imageg.net/graphics/dynamic/chains/p1989927_customback.chain%5D

Maybe I should have picked someone a little more obvious next time. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z317/jaybird2422/114038_2.png