owbc

Please try to avoid scapegoating. Prince has scored about 2/3 of the runs for us in the past week.

Every owner has his advantages and flaws. It's early, but Attanasio seems to be very interested in pleasing the fans. Perhaps too interested. The Brewers have a very impatient fan base and they don't need to have an impatient owner as well. Attanasio clearly played a role in the Yost decision, and the result of that is that Yost's job security was controlled by public opinion. Of course, you have to make the paying customers happy, but managers are easily scapegoated and Brewers fans are desperate for a playoff appearance. The right decision would have been to let Yost finish out his last 12 games and fire him after the season. Yost admitted that he didn't have the answers, but why would Sveum have the answers either? In fact, it now is looking like Yost was right--the players are slowly starting to work their way out of the slump--just like they did in late May/June. I really hope the Brewers can get within 1 game of WC by the end of the weekend. If they have a legitimate shot, the crowds will be encouraging instead of condescending and they just might get enough momentum to make a final run.

I'm not giving up yet. I have tickets to the Friday Cubs game and I fully expect they won't be eliminated yet. However, in the event that they are eliminated, I probably won't be going. I will also state that this season's result has no impact whatsoever on my status as a Brewers fan. I will be just as excited for Opening Day next year as I am every other year. I will go to just as many games next year as I did this year. The fanbase is discouraged and angry now, but you will all be over it by April. After all, we'll be defending our string of 2 consecutive winning seasons.

How can anyone call Ben Sheets weak or a wuss after this revelation? The man pitched a complete game shutout a few weeks ago with an ailing elbow! He's lost little to none of his effectiveness. I fully expect him to return for the final home stand, even if it is bullpen duty.

We got ours also...can't complain about the seat location since we got pushed all the way out to section 405 for Opening Day. Can't complain about the prices either. Division Sec 424, row 25, seats 1 -4 ($25 each) Championship Sec 423, row 16, seats 16 -19 ($50 each)

It's only one game, and we've already learned that some people will always blame management for everything, no matter who is in charge.

How many punches are going to be thrown at us this year? I feel even more awful than Sunday night. Someone put us out of our misery.

Both Bill and Bob Uecker have occasionally said "County Stadium" in recent years when referring to Miller Park.

Tonight is 1/12th of the Sveum era in Milwaukee. Predicted lineup: Weeks Hardy Braun Fielder Hart Cameron Counsell Kendall Sabathia In that lineup, Sabathia should be batting cleanup. I'm thinking the Brewers will score a few tonight, but the pressure to perform is even greater now than before, so I see them losing 8-5 with 13 strikeouts.

I don't think we can't say anything about the future of booing this year until the Brewers play out the next 6 games. If they go 1-5 or 2-4, I don't know how much will change. 3-3 or 4-2 and a Wild Card tie/lead should result in a wild atmosphere at Miller Park for the Pirates series. I doubt there will be any booing at all. I really think the Yost firing will change fans' attitudes...at least temporarily.

The likely situation for the final weekend is that the Cubs have clinched and the Brewers will still need help. In that scenario, I just can't see how the Cubs will let their rival walk over them. I know if we were in opposite situations, I would want the Brewers to do everything possible to stop the Cubs from making the playoffs.

You mean I have to sit on that sweep for 27 more hours?

No matter what happens, I will never blame Yost for the team collapsing. However, I understand this move had to be made in order to try to salvage the season. I suspect to see the same lineup tonight as always.

Maybe I give the fans more credit/blame than they deserve, but IMO, the comments by Corey Hart suggest that the fans have a bigger impact than we might think. Maybe he's just unnecessarily placing blame, but if the fans would cheer more and boo less, this debate wouldn't even be possible.

That's all true, but you don't magically go from a 20-7 August to this. They're still a really good team--they're a winning team even if they lose every game the rest of the season. I just don't understand why we're ok with the fact that the fans might have contributed to this disaster. The pressure got to them, and part of it was the attitude of the fans at home games. The Brewers played decent defense this year until recently, they hit much better with RISP until recently, they actually could hit the ball until recently. The common denominator is that they couldn't handle the pressure of the pennant race.

Time for another futile argument, but here goes: The Philly series is related. In past years, the downward spiral was started by bad road trips, even going back to the "sweep suits" incident in 2001. This (likely) collapse was started by a bad home stand in which the fans were booing starting on September 1st when Gagne blew a late lead against the Mets. We just had a 20-7 August and the team returned home and was immediately booed. Secondly, I don't care who is getting booed, whether it be Gagne, Hall, Yost, whatever. As fans, we love to find scapegoats. We love to think that everything is rosy except for (fill in the blank) who needs to be (fired/benched/removed/traded) to make things better. The Brewers players don't think that way. They are a team. The are in it together. If you boo Gagne, you are having an effect on the entire team. He isn't the only one on the field, there are 9 players out there. You don't think the other players are thinking, "If I screw up, that's going to happen to me"? Don't you think the players want to be well-liked? They aren't robots, they are human beings who love the game of baseball. They do it for the fans. Even Barry Bonds admitted that baseball players were entertainers. Obviously, there isn't one factor in a (likely) collapse like this, but I definitely would place the overall pressure of the Brewers fans/media as one of the contributing factors. Maybe the #1 reason was that we aren't as good as we thought, but shouldn't we be cheering the Brewers for making it this far if that is the case? Shouldn't we have been encouraging them to continue their amazing run, instead of booing them and placing unreasonable expectations on them? If the Brewers somehow manage to turn this roadtrip around and still have a shot at the Wildcard when they return home, they need to be greeted with cheers and encouragement--they're going to need if it they're going to pull this off.

I was thinking about this question, and I decided the answer is no, but in my time being a fan (since 1996), it's the 2nd worst. The only day that was worse was the Big Blue crane collapse. I was only 13 at the time, but I remember exactly where I was when I found out the news, I remember the shock when I turned on the TV and saw what had happened--I was glued to the TV for hours in shock. There was, of course, the anger over 3 people being killed over what clearly was a bad decision. However, there was also the long-lasting, sinking feeling of seeing Miller Park and all it represented full of a mass of twisted steel. In a moment, all the dreams Opening Day 2000 were over, the start of the new future was delayed, and the Brewers were doomed to play another season at County Stadium. I went to the last game of 1999 for about an hour--there was a pouring rain and only about 1000 people there out of an announced crowd of 55,000--which perfectly fit the mood of the entire disaster. Other low ranking moments include the Jenkins ankle injury, the 2002 All-Star game ending (more of a Milwaukee thing than Brewers), the Pirates "sweep suits" series of 2001, the 100th loss of the 2002 season, Soriano's walk-off HR from 2007, or my earliest bad memory--the Greg Vaughn trade. Being an eternal optimist, I'll also note some of best moments from my memory: the opening of Miller Park, the night the new stadium was approved, the 1998 10-game winning streak, Jeromy Burnitz winning the first interleague game at County Stadium 1-0 on a walk-off HR, Bill Hall's heroics in 2004, Ben Sheets' 18-K game, the day the CC Sabathia trade was completed, TGJ's walk-off to doom the Padres, etc... Edit: Correction, the winning streak was in 1997 and it was only 9 games.

At least there's 2 legitimate playoff contenders playing tonight in Milwaukee.

I'm not even angry...I just want to cry. But fortunately, watching the Vikings lose and then turning on the Packer game and watching Kitna throw 2 TDs for the Packers temporarily made things better.

A ticket agency owned by the Cubs buys a number of those tickets at "face value" and then resells them at a higher price.

Cub fans will flock to this. It seems like a rip off to Brewers fans, but to Cubs fans who are used to getting cheated by their own team, it's a deal. It's also a chance for Milwaukee Cubs fans to sit close to the action, which usually is impossible due to high demand. I have no doubt that they will fill the field and loge level on Sunday, probably a smaller crowd on Monday. Sadly, go Cubs!!!

Here's a question for discussion: What if CC Sabathia commented about the booing instead of Corey Hart?

Unfortunately, this discussions largely confirmed my assumptions. Yep, the Brewers fans hate this team more than the 2002 team. That's not an exaggeration. Instead of hating the 2002 team, people just stopped caring. This year, it's more fashionable to keep caring, but to get really upset when they don't do well. These reactions clearly show that nothing is going to change. I know if Yost called for the fans to stop booing, they would just respond with more boos and "fire yost" pleas. I would like Mark A. to tell the fans to grow a pair and start acting like 5 year olds. Some have said that Corey Hart is acting like a 5-year-old. I think he made some very gutsy and mature comments that most of the team has been thinking but won't say. The fans are the ones acting like children. They are fine and content for the most part, but the moment they don't get what they want, they throw a temper tantrum.

The way I interpret Corey Hart's comments is that the fans are causing them to feel more pressure than they previously were. In other words, they are loose on the road despite the pennant race because they don't have angry fans calling them out every time they make a mistake.

The comments really are ridiculous. That's what's so shocking about them. It's one of those perspective issues--like when my girlfriend keeps complaining to be endlessly about something annoying that I do. I don't think I'm being annoying, I don't understand why she thinks I'm being annoying, and I have no intention of changing my annoying habit because there are 5 other things that I know I should work on that are more important. The booing clearly deeply affects the Brewers. It may seem ridiculous to some of us, but they are human beings also and very few of them have been to the post season. I think many of the fans idealize them and don't think they should have flaws because they are professional baseball players. The reality is, they don't have a 26-year playoff drought, only us the fans do. Many of them have only been playing professional ball for a few years and have never been exposed to the tremendous pressure of the Brewers fan base--it's getting to the point where it's almost like playing for the Yankees. It doesn't even matter if the Brewers win 90 games (a tremendous accomplishment), our players absolutely have to win every home game. However, if they do win, it's like they did what they were supposed to do, and if they don't win, they get showered with boos and angry fans. It's really a bad situation to be in. The bottom line is if the players think it's a problem, then it's a problem. They are the ones who are in a huge slump--and they need major help in getting out of it--which includes encouragement from the fans.