Bob Skube Snacks

Because Braun made a big deal out of denying it when the news first came up and was proven to be a liar in the end. I've moved past it, but he made his bed on this particular issue and has to live with it.

The "strategy" of getting around hitting pitchers is often "obligation" not strategy. Double switches, hitting around pitchers, bunting, determining bullpen usage isn't exactly quantum physics anyway. Bring on the DH.

Surprised at the Johnsonville love. I've never liked them. Poor filler, very greasy when you grill them, just no. I've always liked Klements among the mass-produced brats. Best brats I had period were ones my family used to buy from a local grocery in Burlington, but that was years ago.

I've lived in Indiana, more or less, since the late 80s, and this will never happen for a variety of reasons: - There's no MLB-capable stadium and zero desire to fund/build one. - Indianapolis is within five hours of four existing teams and within six or seven of three more, including the Brewers. The Midwest is saturated with enough teams so there's no upside from MLB point of view. Not to mention, the Reds in particular, but also the Cubs, Cardinals and White Sox would oppose it. - Indy has long been a Reds/Cubs city. Loyalties change per region depending on the geography (For example, Fort Wayne is Chicago team, Tigers, Indians, Reds territory. Evansville is heavy-duty Cardinals), but what fans there are have established loyalties with existing teams and that won't easily be broken. - I've lived in five states and Indiana is easily the worst when it comes to enthusiasm for baseball. There are pockets of support here and there, mostly in border areas, but apathy reigns. It just wouldn't work well here. Indy tried to get the Pirates in the mid 80s, but the then-Hoosier Dome couldn't accommodate baseball (it would have been 260 down the RF line!). There was an Indy expansion organization - the Arrows - around the same time, but it faded in the late 80s and nothing has been seriously proposed since.

Some would say baseball failed Montreal. They were on their way to the postseason and possibly their first World Series when the strike wiped out the World Series. They were also on pace to draw almost 2 million fans that year. Fan support dried up after the strike. Not to mention that the same argument posed in the original post was a sentiment that very nearly kept baseball from returning to ... Milwaukee. Recall that the Braves attendance dropped off before rumors of the franchise move became public knowledge. The Braves averaged less than 10K per game in 1962 and 1963 and were second-last in the NL in attendance. An oft-mentioned reason for this was that Braves ownership no longer allowed outside food and drink in the ballpark. A probable move became serious in 1964 and, of course, the Braves played a lame duck season in 1965. Point is, we've been in the same situation Montreal is in. I empathize with them and hope they get the Expos back. They got a raw deal.

Yes! Someone remembers! I was 11 when Skube played and was a member of the Pepsi Brewer Fan Club. In the back of the What's Brewing magazine, they had classified ads to join various player fan clubs. It always amused me that Skube had his own fan club. The only thing I remember him doing for the Brewers was a triple he hit in an early-season 1983 game.

You also have to figure out how to make small-market teams apply that money to the on-field product, not just pocket it as many have done. Cheap, small-market owners have done as much damage to the concept of revenue-sharing as the rich clubs have. At some point, no matter the system, you are what you are. Milwaukee is a small market. No cap or any other system is going to change that. When people shout "cap!" I just don't know where they think it's going to make things better, especially with guaranteed contracts. Can you imagine a NFL hard cap system with guaranteed contracts? It would be a mess. There's no artificial way to put the Brewers on par with the Yankees or other big-market clubs that doesn't have significant ramifications in other ways, not the least of which, is that as tmwiese55 said, they'd never agree to it in the first place. To paraphrase another famous phrase, "it's about the owner, stupid." If you have a good one, and I think we do, you can overcome most of the economic disadvantages a market creates. But if you have a bad owner or a cheap one or an under-capitalized one? You can't because they don't have the ability or wherewithall to be competitive. Look at the clubs that have struggled in the 2010s. I would submit that virtually none of them have an owner that has a vision for his team aside from cost control or profit. The organizations where winning is a secondary consideration show their rear ends time after time. No cap or any economic system changes that.

Bingo. Merely "having money" doesn't guarantee anything. Plenty of teams have spent without reward. Ask the Dodgers under Fox ownership for a good example. They spent like drunken sailors and didn't win squat. The Angels of recent vintage have spent a lot too without anything to show for it. Having the money to throw away is what matters. The Brewers don't have that luxury and never will. A bad free agent signing (cough Jeff Suppan) is an albatross where it isn't for large-market teams. I used to *****-and-moan about this ad nauseum in the 1990s, I fell hook, line and sinker for the 90s era Selig-style whining about competitive disadvantage back then, but I've been over that forever. A salary cap isn't suddenly going to fix what ails small market teams. Milwaukee still isn't going to be a draw for high-tier free agents no matter what system is used. See the Milwaukee Bucks. And I'd submit that a cap that makes teams pay for their mistakes isn't good for a league as a whole. Look at NBA teams that get hamstrung by the cap. While it might be "satisfying" to watch, say, the Knicks, struggle for years on end because of cap problems, it's not good for the competitiveness of the sport or its fans. It's funny to laugh at teams like that ... until it becomes your own team that falls victim to it. (I'm not a Knicks fan for damn sight, just using them as an example.) Without a cap, you just have to be smart with your money. You have to be smart with your talent. You have to be smart about recognizing diamonds in the rough and international talent. Fortunately, it seems our organization gets it. A team is as good as its owner. We're fortunate to have Attanasio, who will spend beyond the bounds of our market when he feels it's worth it, but also gives the front office leeway to build the right way. We could be Pittsburgh. They build the right way, but when it comes to brass tacks and they need a piece or two to augment their home-grown talent, they're miserly and try to do it the cheap way. That's one reason why their window has closed so quickly. They have a half-assed commitment to being successful. If they can't do it with their controllable talent, they won't do it. Can't say that for Attanasio. Hell, we could be Miami, Oakland or San Diego, which seem to exist to be asset-stripped by everyone else by choice of their own ownership (or Miami's former ownership). There's no system that saves them from themselves.

I thought this argument died in the 2000s. It's a weak excuse that covered for the cheap/bad ownership the Brewers had in the 1990s and early 2000s when the sport grew past the point where Selig could afford it. Mark Attanasio has proven that with deep pockets and good stewardship a small-market team can do just fine. No the Brewers will not be able to sign big free agents, but neither can teams in at least half of the markets, and the game has really evolved beyond that anyway. With front offices, including ours, getting far more savvy about controllable years or locking down players early, the day where the success of a team is determined by a free agent signing is waning. And this system only works without a salary cap. If there was a salary cap, there would be all kinds of road blocks in the way of building a team by locking down young talent. The only way I'd ever support a MLB salary cap is if it was a NBA-style soft cap with tons of exceptions and some form of the Larry Bird rule. And I'd say the NFL cap has been bad for the sport. The NFL is awash in mediocrity and the games are suffering. The on-field product is extremely mediocre because the hard cap is anathema to real team building. And, no, I don't care that all 32 teams can theoretically "be in it". I want something watchable on a Sunday to Sunday basis. Baseball doesn't have the same issue.

Agreed. I've essentially looked at this as a Gennett-for-Shaw trade-off of sorts from the beginning. I have nothing against Scooter. I'm glad he's playing well for the Reds, but his WAR for the Reds just now topped his 2013 WAR with the Brewers despite playing more than 50 additional games this season. Why? He has little range and is below league average.

How many stolen bases have been taken away in the past 20-30 years? You fall over while attempting a "defensive indifference", you're going to get tagged out. A stolen base is a stolen base. I am passionate about this. Hey everyone has their pet peeves . Mine is when a pop fly drops between two confused fielders because no one called for it and the batter gets a 'double' for it, plays like that. Or no error because 'can't assume a double play.' It the relay throw is 5 feet wide of 1st or else the runner would have been out by 3 steps, why the heck can't I assume a double play? To your defensive indifference argument. I'm not terribly passionate about it one way or another, but I guess my counter-argument would be that a stolen base is intended to a measurement of a baserunning skill. It requires no skill to jog on over to the next base when you're not being held on. It would definitely bloat and obscure the stolen base statistic. On your pitchers batting argument, I don't totally disagree. Baseball with the DH is a different brand of baseball. It takes a lot of strategy out of the game, like the double switch. So it would be a big change. I'd still prefer it personally anyway, but some kind of uniformity between the leagues is what I'm really looking for here. And there's obviously a lot better chance of the DH coming to the NL than pitchers batting in the AL. The "strategy" of the double switch is overrated. Would rather have the DH.

Rockies lose. Half-game out of the Wild Card spot.

I'll be in Cincinnati tomorrow. Fired up!

Hell yes!

Weird and counter-intuitive as it sounds, I wonder what a consistent zone would do to the game itself? It might have an effect no one intends. Part of the give-and-take of the game is pitchers and batters adjusting to a strike zone. Be it large, small, wide or narrow. Take away that element and it takes away an adjustment players have to make. It makes it much more likely they master something that's a moving target at present. Whether that would mean pitchers would become ascendant or batters would, there's a good chance it might throw off the balance of the game. And no one wnats that.

Eyeroll. Only irrational fans think they're "on the take".

That's the truth. Try listening to Dan McLaughlin (Cardinals) sometime. The smirk, smarm, and passive aggressive homerism is just brutal. Or, closer to home, imagine having Hawk Freaking Harrelson. I mean, if you want unabashed homerism, I suppose he's your guy, but that's not what I want. (Good news for Sox fans is Hawk's replacement, Jason Benetti, is really good.) Remember, it could be a lot worse. The Brewers employed Daron Sutton. I wanted to jump through my TV and throttle him nearly every time he was on. Talk about no-talent coasting on his last name. Yeesh.

That's the truth. Try listening to Dan McLaughlin (Cardinals) sometime. The smirk, smarm, and passive aggressive homerism is just brutal. Or, closer to home, imagine having Hawk Freaking Harrelson. I mean, if you want unabashed homerism, I suppose he's your guy, but that's not what I want. (Good news for Sox fans is Hawk's replacement, Jason Benetti, is really good.) Remember, it could be a lot worse. The Brewers employed Daron Sutton. I wanted to jump through my TV and throttle him nearly every time he was on. Talk about no-talent coasting on his last name. Yeesh.

I agree. Baseball isn't football. I've always thought strength of schedule is vastly overrated when it comes to a short series. It may show over 162 games, but not three or four. That said, I expect nothing in L.A. The Colorado series is key. If they can take two of three, they can take some momentum to San Francisco.

I don't have Sirius anymore and I haven't purchased the MLB radio package, but it was interesting to survey other teams' crews when I did. I'm surprised Cleveland's Tom Hamilton is getting love. He knows the game, and calls it well up until something big happens, then his calls are so insanely over-the-top it just grates on me. I don't need forced emotion. I've always enjoyed the Reds broadcasts. They're the anti-homer form of broadcasting, especially Marty Brennaman. They BS and all of that too, but when a spade has to be called a spade, they get right on it. Cubs games are fine so long as its Pat Hughes doing the talking. He's my favorite Uecker second banana by a wide margin. Cardinals are OK, if homerish. John Rooney is a pro. Mike Shannon's voice grates and he's getting up there in years ... and he's the homer of the crew. I've found, with some exceptions both ways, that the better radio crews are out west and the cruddier ones are out east. Mets' crew is a notable exception. Then there's the TV crews. We have Reds, Cubs, Cardinals and White Sox broadcasts available to us. Just thank your lucky stars you don't have Cardinals TV. They're unbearable. (Though it was fun to watch them *****-and-moan their way through the game they blew in Boston last night.)

This thread is ridiculous. Try living outside of Milwaukee for a while. You learn to appreciate Uke real quick. I listened to him for a week when I came home and he was fine. Never thought, not once, that I didn't know what was going on in a game.

It's silly and historically stupid. Cecil Cooper was, by several factors, a better player than Jim Gantner was. I mean, I love 'em both, grew up in the late 70s/80s, etc., but if the Brewers issue 15 they ought to issue 17. Has any media outlet every written about why this is? Oh...nobody dislikes "Gumby" more than me. He is the most arrogant, obnoxious person I've ever met. I bumped into him a couple times when I was younger and the guy was just creepy and belligerent. The first time was when I was 20 years old. I went to a bar/restuarant with a GF. I was a fairly big guy and was wrestling in college at the time. Anyway, we had a table, we ordered some food, I walked up to the bar to purchase a couple beverages and he sits down at the table that I was at. He puts his arm around my then GF and and is pulling a Joe Namath...almost. He's kinda pulling at her...and I walk over and try to be polite. I shook his hand, and then kinda forced my way in between the two as she was pulling away. So I didn't push him or force him away. The guy, blood shot eyes and all looks at me slurring, "do you know who the ----I am? I'll..(then suggest he would engage in activities with my GF whenever he wanted). Bumped into him again about 4-5 years later at the same bar. Not as interesting a story, so I'll cut it short, but he's just as drunk...not certain he was JUST drunk, but don't want to speculate more than that and he's playing pool...and he's just awful. So the place starts to fill up, people have their quarters on the table...he loses and he goes to put more quarters in. Cut to the end, he's arguing with several people, they ask me for my "opinion," though I don't know why...you lose, you lose the table. Basic bar rules. So I said that and he went off on another little tantrum telling me he doesn't care how "bad" I think I am, he could still kick my rear" in not so many words. Now in between those I did see him 7-8 times and I saw him with Auggie as I knew the family fairly well and he was usually drunk those times, but those were parties or events...like a bar's own little out-door parties. Bottom line, every time I've seen him he was pretty drunk and twice he wanted to fight me without really any provocation and he's pretty aggressive with much younger girls(though to be clear he never cross a line...just made her uncomfortable). So yeah, not only do I think the ONLY thing Gantner had going for him was he HAPPENED to play with Molly and Yount and helped form a trio that had more hits than any other trio in MLB history due to the two HOF'ers, not the league average 2nd basemen(at least it used to), I think he's personally an obnoxious drunk. My experience with Gantner couldn't have been more different. He was first-class in every way. I'm not here to bury Gantner. I just think the number thing is a silly anomaly. But it's also ranked about 5 billion on the list of important things. Just brought it up to pass time on create some conversation on a lazy Sunday.

They're full-time coaches. Gantner isn't.

It's silly and historically stupid. Cecil Cooper was, by several factors, a better player than Jim Gantner was. I mean, I love 'em both, grew up in the late 70s/80s, etc., but if the Brewers issue 15 they ought to issue 17. Has any media outlet every written about why this is? Because Jim Gantner still throws batting practice and serves as a part time coach with the team and Cecil Cooper does not. So they're holding up a number for a part-time coach? I mean, whatever, it isn't the end of the world, but it just seems silly. I am glad that No. 16 (Sixto Lezcano's old number) just hit a three-run home run though!

It's silly and historically stupid. Cecil Cooper was, by several factors, a better player than Jim Gantner was. I mean, I love 'em both, grew up in the late 70s/80s, etc., but if the Brewers issue 15 they ought to issue 17. Has any media outlet every written about why this is? Because Jim Gantner still throws batting practice and serves as a part time coach with the team and Cecil Cooper does not. So they're holding up a number for a part-time coach? I mean, whatever, it isn't the end of the world, but it just seems silly. I am glad that No. 16 (Sixto Lezcano's old number) just hit a three-run home run though!