By Andy Tarnoff Publisher Published Jul 16, 2000 at 9:52 PM

I've always had a certain respect for those fans who come to County Stadium to support the visiting team. That's real loyalty, flying in from Atlanta or driving up from Cincinnati to root on your team. How great it must be to love your guys enough to watch them both at home and on the road. I've always wanted to be that kind of Brewers fan. And last weekend, for the first time, I was.

Thanks to some cajoling from an old college friend who lives in Kansas City, not to mention some cheap airfares I found online, I made a last minute decision to see the Brewers take on the Royals at Kauffman Field. Actually, Bob Uecker really made the final decision for me Thursday, explaining on the air that Kansas City is one of his favorite places to catch a game. Hey, if it's good enough for Uecke, it's good enough for me.

So I stuffed all the old-school Brewers clothing I could fit in a duffel bag and headed Southwest. Despite the 100 degree temperatures enveloping KC all week, the climate seemed just right for a little July baseball.

What first struck me about watching my Milwaukee Brewers play outside the friendly confines of County Stadium were the similarities with Spring Training. This makes sense, as the only place I've seen the Crew play other than Milwaukee is in Phoenix (as well as in Boston as a teenager). Watching the guys take batting practice, I realized most of the kids waiting for autographs couldn't tell Ron Belliard from the bullpen catcher, but I knew each and every Brewer on sight. Same goes for the Cactus League; only the die-hards and the retired fans follow their team out west each spring. Taking advantage of my unique position as the resident expert, I made sure to point out each and every player to my bored Kansas City host. Standing there, I felt like a superfan. And I loved it. Less impressed was my buddy, Oscar. He just told me I was a dork.

Our seats more than sufficed for both the Friday and Saturday night contests. Kauffman Field has a intangible intimacy to it, as most seats seem close to the action. Now with natural grass and flanked by huge fountains in the outfield, it's a lovely stadium, though it's pushing three decades old. The Big K filled up both nights, drawing 30,000 and 23,000 fans, respectably, in the 45,000 seat capacity stadium.

Fortunately, I quickly found out that I was not the only fan to make the trip to support the Brew Crew. The first night, a displaced Milwaukee couple from the South sat in front of us. Though they moved to KC 25 years ago, they still remained fans and brought the old school logo hat to prove it. We high-fived when Jose Hernandez cranked one out of the park and winced whenever Jeff D'Amico hurled a bad pitch.

The second night, three guys from Milwaukee parked behind us in the lot. We spotted them easily; their jerseys, hats and strong accents gave them away. Talking shop, I reaffirmed my suspicion that Brewers fans still exist out there, and the gooney ones (myself included) are just as gooney as other team's boosters.

Though Saturday's game was typical Brewers baseball (walks, errors and stranded runners), one spectacle made it all worth while (as if just being there wasn't good enough). High up in rightfield some Milwaukee fans hung a home-made banner that read, "We Believe! Go Brew Crew!" I almost wept.

And that was that. The Crew won the series, 2-1, but split the games I saw. Throughout my Brewers pilgrimage, I did notice a few things about our KC counterparts:

  1. The Royals have very respectful fans. No one booed the Brewers, and many even applauded the several defensive gems the Crew turned out. I followed suit and kept my rabid cheering, hoots and hollers to a minimum. Not that I expected any fisticuffs to break out, but you have to watch your back when you're outnumbered 30,000 to one.
  2. The national media has a rather low (and possibly unwarranted) opinion of the team Milwaukee now fields. The Kansas City Star called the Brewers a group of "Milwaukee etceteras" in its Saturday morning wrap up. This is after the Crew held the Royals to one run in 18 innings. Much more attention was paid to the upcoming series, their so-called "Series of the Summer" against the Cubs. Sure the Cubs have a right fielder named Sammy Sosa, but check the standings; they also have a worse record than Milwaukee. I'd bet a KC barbecue sandwich that the Cubs can't waltz into Kauffman and take two out of three as easily as did the Brewers.
  3. Speaking of barbecue, everyone was raving about one particular concession new to the park: Sheboygan Brats. No, they don't have Secret Stadium Sauce, but it's nice to see Missourans enjoying a little something from Wisconsin that has nothing to do with Interleague Play.

Finally, one more anecdote strikes me as unusual, and more importantly, reminds me just how small this world is. After the Saturday game, we returned to downtown to enjoy a cold beverage and unwind from this baseball extravaganza. Imagine my surprise when I saw five guys at the table next to me, all wearing Brewers hats and jerseys. Of course I walked right over there to see what was up. One guy proudly whipped out the official game lineup card. Another yanked off his hat to show me a bunch of Brewers autographs. Just who were these guys, I wondered.

Right as I was about to ask, I looked at the guy sitting across the hat, who bore a remarkable resemblance to Brewers skipper Davey Lopes. Sure enough, these happy guys introduced me to Davey's first cousin, an attorney from Lawrence, Kansas. I sat down, talked a little ball, paid my respects and headed back to my table. In the words of Uecke, "Mmm! How about that?"

After my brief trip to Kansas City, I have now realized one of my little goals in life, and that's to see the Brewers play in as many stadiums as possible. If you can work it into a vacation, definitely do it. It's an energizing way to turn up one's appreciation of the sport another notch, and the memories baseball on the road will generate just can't be beat.

Andy Tarnoff Publisher

Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.

Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.

Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.