pebadger

Wow. That inning reminded me of the old days. A not-so-good team leaning on a not-so-good pitcher doing not-so-good things and yet everyone is on their feet cheering the effort to throw a monkey-wrench into the apparatus of a superior, playoff bound team. Almost brings a tear to the eye.

Ahh (to heck with) it, let's go bowling.

I'm with Rev when it comes to the Cards. NL playoffs wil be very easy for me to have a rooting interest. Dodgers and wildcard yes, Phils and Cards, no.

Thing is, they really haven't been bad pitches they've been hitting.

Well, with school starting and HS football already kicked off, this is shaping up to be a "Last Dance With Mary Jane" type series for me. Make it a good one, Crew, and maybe I can be persuaded to stick around just a little bit longer.

I don't know if 'enjoyed' is the right word, because this is rather bittersweet, but in observance of the 20th anniversary of the banishment of Pete Rose from baseball I bet the Reds and the over the entire series. KA-CHING!

You think that was painful? I had to watch the game while seven 12-year-old girls screamed their heads off at a sleep-over birthday party. Heading back to the basement man-cave with a large bottle in my hand.

OK, barring 2-out comeback, I think this game moves directly to the top of list of contenders for 'Microcosm-of-the-Season Game'. And it's official.

Don't know which is uglier: this game or the ankle injury the Packer kid just suffered.

Interesting as these comments are, they are on BF.net and as such they represent only a thin slice of what is probably fairly committed portion of the Brewer fan base, and probably a pretty baseball-centric group at that. I think it might be instructive to compare tonight's Brewer TV Wisconsin rating with the rating of the Minnesota Vikings preseason game on the NFL Network in the same markets to get a broader view on this issue. It takes pretty solid sports fans to be watching Brewers/Nats or preseason out-of-market NFL action on a Friday night. If even the committed Wisconsin sports fans tend to prefer a few plays of Brett Favre in purple to regular season Brewers baseball, it's a pretty safe bet the casual fans would fall that way in droves.

I'm torn on the whole Prince thing. I'm a big believer that you need big-time players to really make a dent in the playoffs, and to me that is the ultimate goal in assembling a team. I understand that first you have to have a team capable of making the playoffs, but trading away a guy like Prince to improve the team may also imply potentially capping the team's ceiling for some amount of time while simultaneiouly making them 'better'. Not a certainty, but something I'd want to guard against in making any trade decision. For a franchise like Milwaukee that simply can't buy guys of that caliber, you most likely have to catch lightning in a bottle with one of your picks or one of the guys you pick up in trade if you ever want to replace a guy like Feilder (or Braun) any time soon after you trade them, and that's a pretty dicey proposition. Guess that's why the GMs make the big bucks, and why there isn't a huge degree of job security for most in that position.

I used to watch every night. I don't anymore because I simply don't enjoy it. I know I care too much about this stuff to begin with, so that doesn't help me gain any perspective. I approach most sports from a coaching perspective and gain a lot of enjoyment from seeing things done well or done right, regardless of the final result of a given game. (Though of course I still really want to see my teams win, first and foremost.) I just haven't seen a whole lot of anything of real interest in most recent games. The Brewers haven't been very good and their opponents, though frequently winning, often haven't been that much better; they simply are mashing terrible pitching and not having to do too much else to secure a victory. There is hardly any drama, there is little to learn from, and though it's interesting to see Escobar, there is little else of interest to me on this team right now. It's simply not 'my team' right now, given the recent turnover (due both to moves and injuries) of guys I had become accustomed to watching. Don't get me wrong. I fully appreciate the value of strategic changes to the roster at the right time and for the right reasons. This will again grow into 'my team', but right now this is just a group of guys I'm not all that invested in playing poor quality games of limited significance. My greatest realistic hope is that the Brewers will have some meaningful late seasion games with the contenders, but a quick look at the schedule leads me to believe that other than possibly the Colorado series, there won't even be that to look forward to, barring a STL or PHI collapse.

When the 2 runs come on yet another homer this series by Cedeno(!), you have to start wondering if the franchise is already starting to repay the obligation incurred in last season's deal with the devil.

I forgot about the off day, too, but only because I've stopped caring about the schedule. I didn't want to stop caring, I just did. Sort of like falling out of love. If only that feeling could be bottled and sent to the Brewers with respect to Kendall . . .

Last one here please turn out the lights.

I wouldn't give him anything to hit. Away, away, away.

After next off-season his friends on the team may consist of 1 or 2 guys.

Yeah, but would Lopez get the same run support?

The Brewers letting Molitor go probably cost them more fans until the last few seasons than any single move in franchise history. I know that it didn't help my interest in the team at all. Was pretty happy Paulie got to win a ring with the Jays though. Robin was just being Robin and telling things the way he saw them.

Was out of communication all day, and just got back to see that half inning and see the rest of the news. I'm this close to not really caring about this organization until spring.

That's still more likely than holding the Pads to 13.

I have the feeling that STL could play .400 ball the rest of the year and it still wouldn't make any real difference to the position of the Brewers in the standings.

Maybe the Brewers should petition the league to institute the 10-run rule in their games not pitched by Gallardo.

You know the fan base is at an emotional ebb when the Doorman barely bats an eye at a homer like that.

Mr. Anderson, that is the sound of inevitability.