The Milwaukee Brewers held "Brewers On Deck" Sunday and by all accounts, thousands of people showed up to get their spring training groove on.

During the off-season, the Green Bay Packers stage a bus tour around the state, met at every stop by throngs of fans decked out in green and gold and hungering for autographs.

The Milwaukee Bucks also have some off-season activities, but they don't generate nearly the excitement that the Brewers or Packers do.

I bring this up because a couple of weeks ago, in a column about the need to replace the Bradley Center, I mentioned that there was an anti-NBA bias in Milwaukee, but didn't say much more about it. Since then I've gotten e-mails, some telephone calls and (incredibly) one snail mail asking me to explain what I meant by that statement.

Here goes.

The National Basketball Association is, for my money, the place to watch the best athletes in the world perform. Think about it for a minute. There is no other sport that places such a premium on stamina, strength, reaction time, hand-eye coordination, speed, jumping ability and toughness.

In the almost 50 years that I've been covering sports I have seen countless games in all sports. I have absolutely no idea how many there've been, but the most dramatic, the most exciting, the most intense have been basketball games. For sustained drama, nothing can match the the explosive bursts in the NBA. Every night? Of course not. But there is plenty of excitement.

The NBA has also been in the forefront of finding ways to give back to the communities where teams are located. The Bucks, under the careful and caring guidance of Community Relations Director Skip Robinson, do as much or more than any other team in this state when it comes to giving back.

And yet, somehow, this franchise has never developed the two-way love affair that the Brewers and Packers have. There is no single reason for this of course, but there are several that are part of the answer and one that is difficult to talk about.

Take a look at the flagship radio station for the broadcasts. They say they are the home for the "Packers, Brewers, Badgers and Bucks." Why are the Bucks last in that promo?

Look at the daily paper, although at the rate it's going we are going to see it go away before too long. The paper used to have a veteran, Tom Enlund, covering the Bucks. He did a good job but was clearly getting burned out.

Now the paper has turned the beat over to Charles Gardner, who writes like a sophomore in a college journalism class. Nothing against him, but the Packers have four or five major- league reporters covering them. The Bucks have a minor leaguer and that says something about how important the team is in the big scheme of things.

It's also true that the futility of the Bucks in recent years has not helped the situation. It's hard to love a losing team, and the Bucks continue to fight against that.

But the elephant in the room when talking about the Bucks, is the question of race.

The NBA is a black league. Almost 80 percent of the league's players are black. The stars are almost all black. And while the league is filled with gentlemen like Charlie Bell and Ray Allen --  who are very active as good citizens -- you get the occasional Gilbert Arenas or Ron Artest. They have given the league an undeserved reputation as a place populated by thugs.

In some cities the issue of race is not a big deal. But in Milwaukee race matters.

This is a town where the former president of the Milwaukee Brewers fought tooth and nail to keep the new stadium from being built downtown because he didn't want it near the central city (read black population). Perhaps the toughest part of the battle over Miller Park was between those who wanted it Downtown and the guy who didn't.

Milwaukee is also a city that has long been one of the most segregated in the country. Our school system has turned into a ghetto of minority students with occasional bright spots for children of all races.

In Milwaukee, if you talk about race, people wonder what's wrong with you. White people can't talk about blacks and blacks can't talk about whites without someone getting their nose out of joint and blasting you just for telling the truth.

This is not an area that has been either comfortable or welcoming to people of color. And while that's not the only reason, it is part of the package that has kept the Bucks from becoming as beloved as they should be.