A bet is a bet, and it's time to pay the piper. In that case, it's Yelper Chadrick J. from…read moreMilwaukee. I'm a man of my word.
The modern day Milwaukee Brewers was established in 1968 as the Seattle Pilots, which was then moved a year later to Milwaukee by owner Bud Selig, who also became the MLB baseball commissioner in 1998. He held the title of acting commissioner since 1992.
Actually, the original Milwaukee Brewers was established in 1901, which then became the present day Baltimore Orioles. So when Selig moved the team to Milwaukee, they became the official Brewers again. They also played in the American League from 1969 to 1997. They were in the West Division from 1968 to 1971, then reassigned to the East Division from 1972 to 1993, then reassigned again to the Central Division from 1994 to 1997. In 1998, they changed conference to the National League staying in the Central Division to present day.
The Brewers is appropriately named to honor the city's beer-brewing tradition. One of their original logo was the Beer Barrel Man, which is designed in a cartoonish way with a barrel for chest, a beer tap for his nose and was nicknamed as "Owgust" to embody and honor the whimsical spirit of the minor leagues. The most iconic logo was the glove design with a baseball in the middle, the three finger webbings as the "M" and the thumb stood for the "B" for Milwaukee Brewers. This was their logo from 1978 to 1993 and it was one of the coolest logos in baseball. The owners decided to change it to generic-looking "MB" with two baseball bats crossed in the middle. I know lots of fans were upset about this, and they eventually brought the logo back to some capacity.
The Brewer player I remember growing up as a San Francisco Giants fan was Robin Yount. He spent his entire career with the Brewers, which is rare nowadays with free agency and ring-chasing among players. He started as a shortstop and finished as a center fielder from 1973 to 1994. A long and illustrious career that resulted in two AL MVP's (1982, 1989), 3x All Star (1980, 1982, 1989), Gold Glove (1982), 3x Silver Slugger Award (190, 1982, 1989), which culminated to being inducted to Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999. During his 20 year career, he batted an average of .285, had 3, 142 hits, 251 homeruns and 1,406 RBI's.
Then when you think of Milwaukee Baseball, there's the legendary Bob Uecker, also known as "Mr. Baseball" given by the late Johnny Carson. He has been the play-by-play announcer for the club since 1971, and is still going strong to this day. He's also played himself in countless movies and his famous line is, "Just a bit outside." He is truly a treasure not just in Baseball, but in sports broadcasting.
OK, being a San Francisco Giants fan, I gotta tie this in somehow. Several Giants players were chosen to play in the All Star game in 2002, which was held at Miller Park (the ballpark's original name), and Barry Bonds participated in the HR Derby. This is also the only All Star game that resulted in a tie, which led to the ridiculous rule that the winner of the All Star game gets the home-field advantage in the World Series. Thank goodness they got rid of the rule in 2016.
On Friday, May 27, 2011, San Francisco Giants Shortstop Brandon Crawford made his major league debut and hit a grand slam against Brewers pitcher, Shaun Marcum, giving the Giants a 5-4 lead, and eventually winning the game. How's that for your first big league hit?
As far as rivalries are concerned, the Giants and Brewers doesn't have must history against each other as they play in a different division. However, there's a mutual respect between ball clubs and Giants play-by-play announcer Duane Kuiper, half of the "Kruk & Kuip" tandem, is from Sturtevant, Wisconsin, and always has a lot of fond stories to tell regarding growing up in the area and the history of baseball.
I hope this review made you proud, Chadrick. Hope to see your team in the playoffs.
