Passionate supporters of the Milwaukee Brewers owe their favorite team a debt of gratitude.
Last year at this time the Brewers were tickling fancies throughout Wisconsin about their prospects of roaring into the postseason and bringing home their first World Series title.
No need to relive the nosedive that followed. But for the record, after leading the NL Central Division by six and a half games and looking unstoppable, the Brewers folded like a piece of origami. In the wake of that disastrous second half were bitter disappointment and shattered expectations.
Not a problem with this year’s Brewers, who from the beginning of this campaign picked up right where they left off. Hardcore sports fans in this locale can now concern themselves with the upcoming football season, or just enjoy the summer without any emotional outlay for their baseball team.
As they have already cashiered one manager, the only mysteries that may need sorting out for this year’s Brewers are of the individual variety.
Michael Blazek and Will Smith have thrown well out of the bullpen, but it is Francisco Rodriguez who appears to be the strongest bet to be selected to suit up for the July 14 exhibition game against the Kansas City Royals.
If you’ve not heard, the Royals have dominated the All-Star Game voting to such a degree that all eight of KC’s nonpitching starters are in position to represent the starting lineup for the American League.
“If you don’t like it,” Royals manager Ned Yost said, “go out and vote.”
Except, it seems that some enterprising Royals fan found a way to hack the computer portion of the voting and stuff the ballot box with votes for KC players. If you don’t like it, get your own hacker.
Computer-hacked votes should not have been hard to see coming. But baseball’s visionaries don’t always get the big picture. For proof of this, look no further than the 2002 Midsummer Classic.
That game, which was played at Miller Park, produced what may be the biggest misfire of common sense, followed by the greatest overreaction to a screw-up, in the history of organized sports.
The American League and National League were tied 7-7 at the end of 11 innings and both teams were on their last available pitcher, both of whom had already gone two innings.
Faced with this unique development, and with 42,000 fans anticipating an outcome to the seesaw battle, baseball’s leading lights had to make a decision.
The sensible thing would have been to do a one-off suspension of the no re-entry rule and allow one or two of the pitchers who’d already thrown back into the game. Both sides had four pitchers who’d thrown fewer than 15 pitches in their appearances.
But, with feet planted firmly in mid-air, the deep thinkers decided to maintain the integrity of the game, call it a tie and send everyone home grumbling.
The post-game rebuke from the fans and the press was merciless. So in a moment of embarrassed hysteria, baseball overreacted, announcing that it really, really was serious about the Midsummer Classic that it seemed to treat so cavalierly the night before. From that point on, home field advantage in the World Series would go to the team from the league that won the All-Star Game.
Huh? Talk about a non sequitur. The World Series, baseball’s crowning centerpiece, would be henceforth tilted because 13 years ago the cerebral heavyweights steering the boat dropped the ball.
There’s your royal scam.
