Why My Marriage to the Milwaukee Brewers Needs Couples' Therapy

There was a time when I could watch my beloved Milwaukee Brewers on television and my friends didn’t have to worry about my personal well-being or the safety of things in my house that were within arm’s reach.

There was a time when I opened my morning newspaper with exhilaration, anticipation, and glee, instead of dread, a grimace, and a now-all-too-common choking on Raisin Bran in disbelief that they lost to the effing Padres again?!? There was a time when being a Milwaukee Brewers fan was fun and exciting and made you feel good.

That time is gone.  Lost to the past and to memory and to the Yankees for $160 million.

The Crew have lost 23 of the last 36 games, fallen below .500 and are 7 1/2 games out of first right now, the most they’ve been all season.

If I had to come up with an unnecessarily corny, contrived, and drawn-out metaphor to describe my feelings about my favorite baseball team, it would be this: The Brewers and I are like old friends who decided to start dating, thought we were in love, got married too quickly, and now the frustrations are an everyday occurrence.

Let’s protract that metaphor out and see how we got to where we are now together, and think about what we can do to save the relationship.

See, I’ve known the Brewers all my life—like a good friend, they’ve always been around and, for the most part, I’ve always been a fan.

Back in the mid-'90s when I first began to care about them and go to games, they were awful. Really, really awful. Just a terrible, exasperating, reprehensibly wretched team to follow. You understand? They were bad.

Back then, being a Brewer fan was like being a less-obnoxious version of a Red Sox fan—eternally pessimistic and cynical, just without the insufferable self-loathing aspect. They were a good friend of the opposite sex that you always appreciated for being there, but never really felt passionate about.

They would trade away popular players in their primes, bring in has-beens (or, to borrow a phrase from Coach Reilly in the first “Mighty Ducks” movie, “You're not even a has-been. You're a never-was”) and film crappy baseball movies at the stadium—“Major League” at County Stadium and (shudder) “Mr. 3000” at Miller Park—presumably because movie producers could pay us the least for the filming rights.

In those days, you didn’t expect much and they didn’t give you much, but you appreciated them for not moving to Omaha or something.

Then in 2001 the Brewers built Miller Park, a brand-new, beautiful stadium that reminded people Milwaukee still had a baseball team and made them actually take notice (I’m trying very hard to resist comparing this to the friend getting implants).

The result was fans flocked to the games, with some going so far as to actually enter the stadium to watch instead of tailgating in the parking lot drinking PBR the whole time. And I had become more acutely aware of my friend and had new feelings I’d never felt.

Around this time, ownership changed and Mark Attanasio took over, vowing to increase payroll and make the team competitive once again, which was music to the 36 or so ears that still paid attention to the Brewers.

He stayed true to his word, too, bringing in better players that, along with some savvy personnel moves and a talented farm system, started to give the Brewers hope in the mid 2000s—hope that was repeatedly and agonizingly dashed by the ineptitude of former manager Ned Yost, of course.

So by now, the Brewers and I had started to casually date, having been disillusioned seeing other teams and realizing we weren’t as young as we thought. It was going pretty well, too, a comfortable romance that really heated up when the team finished 81-81 in 2005, it’s first “non-losing” season since 1992 (that’s how we evaluated success in those days, “non-losing”).

Then in 2007, they finished over .500 and only two games out of first place, as Prince Fielder became the youngest player to ever hit 50 home runs, Ryan Braun was named Rookie of the Year, and Ben Sheets’ arm miraculously remained attached to his body for another year.

It was around this time that things really got serious between us. I don’t want to sound like a bandwagon jumper, because I’d been with them through thick and thin, then back to thick, and now back to thin again, but after the 2007 season I basically bought a ring. I said to myself, I love this team and I want to spend the rest of my life with it.

At the start of last season, I proposed, and on July 7th, 2008 when the Brewers traded for Cy Young winner CC Sabathia, we were married. (Did I just insinuate that a 6’7”, 300-pound man inspired me to get married? It’s possible.)

The honeymoon was incredible. CC was invincible, going 11-2 down the stretch and leading us to our first playoffs since 1982. In other words, the team looked great, we were passionately in love, and I couldn’t be happier.

Then in the offseason CC left, taking with him a part of my heart. It just wasn’t the same after that.

The starting rotation was in shambles after he and Sheets departed, the bullpen was similarly decimated, and Brewers fans everywhere were collectively biting their nails about the 2009 season. “Who are our starters?” we asked each other worriedly in March. “Who’s in the bullpen? What about third base? Catcher? What happens if we have injuries at key positions and lack the depth to replace somebody?”

Well, those concerns proved prescient when this season did, indeed, go south, as the starting rotation imploded, the bullpen deteriorated, and injuries and underperformance doomed the lineup.

In short, my honeymoon period with the Brewers is over. The team has really let itself go and our relationship is stuck in a rut. They have lost series to the Reds, Pirates, Nationals, and Padres (twice) since the All-Star break, and I’ve been spending a lot more time at the bar than at home recently.

Nevertheless I will stick by them, because I vowed to love them in sickness and in health, and I’m no deadbeat fan. They’ll probably make two to three big moves that will save our marriage and then we’ll grow old together. For now, I can look forward to the future, 2010 and beyond, and hopefully becoming an insufferable, self-loathing, old fan.

And maybe, one day, if I’m lucky, paying off the mortgage and seeing the Brewers win a World Series.

In the meantime, here are the top six moves I wish the Brewers would make (think of it as marriage counseling) to become playoff competitors once more, and to help me fall in love with them again.

1. Trade J.J. Hardy (even though it will definitely alienate the young female fan base that clamors for J.J. “Hotty”) and Rickie Weeks—not necessarily together—for young, major league-ready pitching.

The Red Sox have a stockpile, so do the Giants, and both teams have been rumored to consider dealing with Milwaukee.

Hardy, with his .220 batting average, played himself into the minors this year, but that could be dismissed as anomalous because of his production the previous two seasons (.277 BA, 26 HR, 80 RBI in 2007, .283, 24, and 74 in 2008). He is a good defensive shortstop and still has above-average value on the market.

Weeks would be tough to let go, as he finally started showing some of his potential this year. Before getting injured yet again, Weeks was having the best season of his career, and the second baseman would command significant compensation in any trade.

The bottom line is the Brewers cannot hope to contend again until they improve their starting rotation. If they could net a No. 2-type starter or more for Hardy and Weeks, they could start entertaining playoff contention fantasies.

2. Promote prospects Alcides Escobar, Matt Gamel, and Hernan Iribarren to the majors for good. They’ve all had their cup of coffee in the big leagues by now, and next year they need to finally be allowed to unpack their suitcases. Escobar is the club’s top prospect, a future Gold Glove winner at shortstop who, despite looking like he’s 12, immediately becomes the fastest player on the Brewers roster. If he’s not leading off opening day next season it will be a crime.

Gamel, meanwhile, is being touted as the organization’s top offensive prospect, a Braun-type player who carries a big stick but doesn’t field third base well enough to play there in the majors.

That’s OK, give him the Braun therapy and stick him in the outfield, where Braun is now a good left fielder with a plus arm. It’s worked before, and Gamel could develop similarly. The Brewers need his left-handed bat in the lineup, and his offense would more than make up for the additional errors.

Iribarren is a less-heralded prospect who has been to the past few spring trainings. He’s a good offensive player who would fit nicely as a utility/backup infielder, and he’s too good to become the next Tony Gwynn Jr. (a quadruple-A player the Brewers cut who is now doing a decent impression of his dad in San Diego).

3. Re-sign second baseman Felipe Lopez to permanently replace Weeks. Lopez is a fundamentally sound, .300 hitter with a good OBP who is less of a defensive liability than Weeks. The Lopez acquisition at midseason was a good one, and it would be wasted if they let him walk after the season.

4. Give Suppan one last chance. Seriously, one last chance. Let me say that again: ONE LAST CHANCE. The last month and a half of 2009 can be his make-or-break time.

He has one more maddening year left on the idiotic contract the Brewers signed him to three years ago, and if he can’t pitch at least as well as my friend Joe (real raw stuff, maxes out at around 67-mph, gamer though…), cut him.

Eat the $10 million left on his contract, buy his plane ticket, and ask that he please never return to Milwaukee unless he’s pitching against us.

Suppan seems like a really nice guy and has done fantastic charity work in Milwaukee with his wife, but enough is enough. One last chance to be the No. 5 pitcher we can only now dream of or he’s gone. It will send a message that underperforming players, no matter their contract, will not be tolerated.

5. Let Jody Gerut, Mike Cameron and Jason Kendall walk. Gerut’s been a rich man’s Bill Hall, which just means he’s been a poor man’s crappy major leaguer. He needs to go.

Cameron has been exactly what they signed him to be and precisely what we knew he was.  Decent at the plate and solid in center field. But for $10 million a year, the money’s better used elsewhere than on an aging, strikeout-prone outfielder.

Kendall has been a controversial player the two seasons he’s played in Milwaukee, for reasons largely outside his control. He was signed as a defensive catcher who was known for being a superb handler of pitchers, and his signing was lauded by the Brewers front office and managers.

But fans have run out of tolerance for that explanation, because his .230 average combined with the pitching staff’s meltdown, does not seem to justify his alleged value. He, too, did exactly what the Brewers signed him to do but it’s time to move on and improve that spot in the order.

Mike Rivera deserves a shot, if only for the patience and class he’s displayed the past two seasons playing unreasonably rarely. And Angel Salome, a mini-fridge of a man at 5’7” and 200-pounds, is a top catching prospect who could also help the team in 2010.

6. Finally, re-sign…(Gulp)…gimme a second for this. (Deep breath) Okay, I can do it…re-sign Craig Counsell.

Counsell went to my rival high school, weighs as much as the average middle school girl, and hit .220 the past two seasons, so you can understand my hesitation. But this year he proved his worth. Any guy that can play three infield positions marginally well (even if Prince looks like he’s waiting for a bus to come every time Counsell throws from third to first), hit almost .300 at Counsell’s age (53?), and inexplicably become my dad’s favorite player, is worth keeping.

So did I make this a top-six list instead of a normal top-five just to include Craig Counsell? I think so, but there’s no way to tell for sure.

After 2,100 words I’m just going to go lie down for a while.