badgerfan.tgf

Dear First Place, It was nice spending time with you but we must leave. I know you'll understand. Maybe we'll meet up again next year. Have a nice rest of the season. Sincerely, The Milwaukee Brewers PS - Please don't be too kind to the Cubs.

Ned's gotta go. I know it's not his fault that the bullpen absolutely sucks but something is not right when you blow 6 and 5 run leads on consecutive days. Change for the sake of change. Absolutely disgusting. Only the Brewers could manage to put the town in a baseball frenzy and then have us longing for football in the same season.

Well for starters, we're better off right now than we have been in years. We're in first place and for the first time in ages we can legitimately say we're in a pennant race. I'm not saying games like today's aren't painful, but I guess I figured I'd be enjoying the ride a lot more than I am right now. I guess you've got to look at the big picture.

The Brewers haven't been in a pennant chase for 15 years and finally we're back in it again. I'm only 26 years old and always dreamed of the year we'd be at the top of the division driving towards the postseason. Each season I'd watch other teams in the playoff hunt and think, wow wouldn't that be fun if it were the Brewers! Now here we are right in the thick of the playoff chase. Yet every win feels like a relief and every loss is crushing. Half the people on the board think this team stinks. I never in a million years thought a run at the division could be painful yet there is as much negativity among Brewers fans as any other year. What am I missing?

Don't give me this "the whole team sucks" crap. If Cordero had done his job the last two times out we'd be 14 games over .500 and 4.5 games in front of the Cubs. The same guys saying we suck would be crowing about playoffs. Sure the blame can be spread around for any loss but when it comes down to who blew the game today, it's Coco all the way.

Have the Brewers come from behind to win a game in the ninth this year? I know we've had a couple of walk-off's but those were in tie games. I feel like we've seen today's routine at least a dozen times. Maybe it's because Cordero rarely gets a save without at least getting into trouble. I swear we have more gut wrenching losses than any team in the majors.

The only reason we're in panic mode is that the Cubs continue to play out of their minds. If you look at the big picture, we still have one of the best records in the NL. Despite the fact we've played under .500 over since the great start, it's not like we're getting burried in the standings.

Geez, for once the Brewers are acting like contenders by getting a player that will help them this year and everyone is up in arms. I get the feeling that some people on this board would rather have us trading verterans for prospects just so we can continue to stockpile minor league talent. Tell me exactly how many pitchers in the Brewers organization over the past 10 years have come up and had solid careers? There is about a 10% chance that Inman will be a stud...IMO, more than likely he'll be an average major league starter.

Jeez....anyone else smell a walk off?

That's about as pathetic as you can get right there. FOUR different baserunners in one inning and no runs. Does Mench ever consider trying to draw a walk???

Nice one Jenks. That was pretty blatant but no way he doesn't get first base.

What the hell is Estrada's deal??? I know he's slow but not that slow.

The other team drops a routine pop up to short??? Have we turned into the Cubs or something?

I've never liked Costas, but I thought it was great when he was in the booth Friday night and said "Bonds is on steroids, lets face it, I live on the planet Earth not in a cave" or something to that effect. That was the first time I think I've heard any "big name" sports guy come out and make a statement like that.

If Bayless was referring to Ned's managing of pitchers, then yes, Yost is dumb.

Hey Ned, I think Villanueva just walked another guy. Moron.

History would have you believe he'll be back in early September. I mean, when was the last time Sheets (or any of our other injured players for that matter) came back early from an injury. It's just like Hall's injury (relatively speaking), we're hearing how great he's doing and he's jogging, tossing the ball around, due off the DL this week, etc. yet he won't be in the lineup for at least another 10-15 days.

That sounds like Brewers regimes of the past if I've ever heard it. If you're a true contender and you're ace goes down for a significant amount of time, you make a move and try to shore up that spot as best as possible. We're two weeks away from the trading deadline and in first place...it's about time we make a big move to pull away from the pack.

http://www.bigbaer.com/assets/pink-get-the-party-started.jpg

I now officially know why Cubs fans invade Miller Park every time they play us up here. Going to Wrigley Field sucks. I've been their before but today was my first game down there since Miller Park opened. Traffic on Addison and surrounding streets is insane, in other words there is basically one main road to drive to and from the stadium. Obviously there is no parking lot, so you have to either pay $20-$30 to park in a small lot or circle around for parking on the street. Then there is the issue of tickets. I didn't have tickets for the game today so I had to find some on the street. The first scalper I approached wanted $85 each for nosebleed seats in the 500 level....he would NOT budge from the price even though the Brewers were already up 5-0. Walked further and found a bunch of ticket broker offices with people selling tix on the street. They wanted $75 for bleachers and $45 for standing room tickets. I ended up talking to a younger guy walking past who had two extras and offered them to me and the "ticket broker people" were irate. They started shouting at him and yelling for their "bouncer" types that "the guy in the red is trying to sell tickets." Ended up following him to the stadium and he sold us 2 bleacher tickets for $30/each. One thing I noticed on my adventure of trying to get tickets was how high face value was. I guess I'm not used to it, but $45 to sit in the 400 level or $42 to sit in bleachers seems a bit high. Now that I was in to the stadium was the issue of finding a seat. The bleachers are general admission and of course they were packed. Now I know I was about a half hour late but there was not a seat to be found, basically since most people hoard seats and say that every empty seat is taken. My friend and I ended up standing til the 7th inning when we snuck into a "premium" section of the bleachers with actual seats that happened to be empty. The pathetic thing was that half the people in the bleachers weren't even paying attention or were too busy trying to buy beer every half inning. Of course the fact that the Brewers lost in heartbreaking fashion didn't help my opinion but I now know why Cubs fans come up to MP in droves. It's just as fast to get to Milwaukee from most Chicago suburbs, parking is cheap and easy in/out, tickets are roughly 50% less than the cost of tickets at Wrigley, and our stadium is much more fan friendly. Only perk of Wrigley is that there are a lot of bars within a short walk of the park; but on the whole the place is a nightmare to go to more than once a year. So basically we'll never be able to "take back Miller Park" when opposing fans would rather buy our tickets at a huge discount with much less game day hassle. I can't blame them at all.

I'm going down to Wrigley on Friday with a friend and I was wondering if anyone knows of any good way to find reasonably priced tickets down there. I realize their "fans" are willing to pay $100/ticket to sit in the upper deck but I'm not gonna do that. Anyone been down there before? Will we be able to find tickets for around $30 a piece?

Can we ship Parra and another prospect to Chicago for Buerhle before Manny has another injury?

Ok, if you've saw my post from about a month ago I tried to get feedback on a Brewers' t-shirt that my friend was going to have made to see what the interest level would be. Well that fell through so I've decided to take a stab at it myself. I currently am looking into any possibilities of trademark infringement (and should have an answer soon) but if this is a go, let me know what you think of this shirt..... FRONT BACK I'd be asking around $15 per shirt plus a small amount for shipping...these things are surprising expensive to have made unless you order a truckload. Anyways, I'd appreciate any input to let me know if I'm wasting my time/money or if this is something you'd be interested in. Thanks! Go Crew!

Thanks for the input....I'll let everyone know when they become available. Please continue to post here if you are interested. Again, the price will be somewhere between $10-$15 depending on cost of production.

What is more incredible- 20 hits...Only 6 runs? 17 men left on base??? Coco blows another save? Lofton throws out Gwynn (?!?) trying to score from second on a hit??? This has nightmare-ish, disaster ending written all over it. Good night. And for the record, screw you CB Bucknor...we really needed that run.