Milwaukee, I feel your pain.
Your baseball team has a state of the art (sort of) new ballpark, yet a stone age set of players running around inside of it. A little over one year from the christening of Miller Park, it is painfully clear that the novelty has rubbed off faster than a gumball machine tattoo.
The crowds, they-are-a-dwindling. The team, it-is-a-floundering. The cynicism, it-is-a-mounting.
Was building this thing really worth it? Couldn't we have paid extra for better heating and air conditioning? When the roof finally stops working, do we want it stuck open so fans can at least stare at the sun to blind themselves to the awful baseball being played in front of them?
Or maybe it's better stuck closed, so the stench of unwavering incompetence doesn't drift too far downtown.
Last week while driving past Miller Park with a friend, I could sense that even the most ardent supporters of the stadium several years ago, are now seeing it as a half-cent white elephant that will haunt their cash registers for decades to come.
This was supposed to make the Brewers good again. Revenue from luxury suites, increased attendance, a chance (just a chance) at landing a decent free agent every now and then.
Yeah, right.
All the extra cash Wendy Selig-Prieb counted last year, was bum rushed to the Brewers bank account, not reinvested in the team. Not for better players, or more scouts, or a new training facility in Latin America to find the next Pedro Martinez. In the meantime, the Commissioner's daughter and neophyte GM Dean Taylor are extending the run of losing years, with another sub-.500 whopper to make it 10 straight warm-beer summers in Milwaukee.
Do you have a right to be bitter? You're damn right you do. Especially when the Twins are 16 games in the clear just up the road in Minnesota with a comparable payroll, and a stadium known for its trash bag outfield walls.
Bud Selig is (on the whole) an honorable man. His biggest sins are exaggerations of the owners poverty in front of microphones, and a really bad haircut. Overall, he's not even Mini-Me on the evil scale. Bringing baseball back to Milwaukee by plucking the Seattle Pilots out of bankruptcy court and dragging them to town took the kind of perseverance which is Selig's strong suit.
If and when baseball ever gets good again in Milwaukee, you can at least thank Bud for getting a team back some 25 years ago. It's the "getting good" portion of that statement which looks hopeless under the current regime.
If Bud still truly cares about baseball in Milwaukee, he would fall on the family sword and sell the team to a wealthier, more baseball-agile ownership group who could take the new stadium and run with it. Giving your daughter an expensive gift is fine, as long as it's not something like a baseball team, which is considered a "public trust."
Bud's work is mostly done in Milwaukee. He got a team back. He helped push through a stadium. The team isn't going anywhere for a good 25 years. By selling the team he could even score points in the "sky is falling" category of baseball's impending economic ruin.
{INSERT_RELATED}Some would think: "If the Commissioner himself got out of the business, maybe it really is that bad."
As if the current woeful state of the team wasn't enough, you have the double-edged sword of incompetence and nepotism at work. And here is where I feel your pain. The Washington Wizards have a similar run of on-court misery in the NBA. To recap: just three winning seasons in the last 20 years. The last playoff victory (just a single game mind you, not a series) came in 1986. The last playoff series victory came in 1982 when it was (don't laugh) first round "Best of Three." Since their 1978 NBA Title, the "Bullets" are a collective 282 games under .500.
Who is the Wizards Team President? Susan O'Malley, the daughter of Abe Pollin's original business partner. She's essentially an adopted daughter. And Pollin (like Selig) is a decent, kind, and loyal man. Too loyal. Far too loyal.
The Wizards (like the Brewers) even changed buildings, and yet the team's actual performance didn't budge. They changed coaches (like the Brewers) and the standings didn't blink. They hosted an All-Star Game (like the Brewers) and yet nothing changed once the circus left town.
I have hoped for many a year now that Abe Pollin would do my city the ultimate favor and cash in his chips by selling the team to a more nimble, enthusiastic, and capable ownership group. One with better people from top to bottom, put in positions based on merit, not on family connections.
Well, I am still waiting.
Sadly, for you battered Brewer fans, I imagine the wait for a new baseball regime that doesn't have "Selig" somewhere in the name is also a long, long, way away.
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
