Hop on the Brewer bandwagon!

It never rains under the retractable roof!

It occurs to this Sun Prairie high school baseball team washout that Wisconsin is lucky to have the Brewers and the Packers. Are they the two best managed franchises in professional sports?

Consider the Brewers. The Brew Crew lost a previous MVP and their best hitter, Christian Yelich, to season-ending back surgery. Pitcher Brandon Woodruff is out for the season, too; and Wade Miley. Couldn’t afford Corbin Burnes so traded the Cy Young Award winner away after last season. Lost maybe the best manager in the Bigs, Craig Counsell, replaced him with the bench coach. But Pat Murphy seems to be The Guy.

What team has a more renowned broadcaster than Bob Uecker, a national treasure?! Big fans of “the Rock,” Bill Schroeder, too.

The Brew Crew is only running away with the Central Division by 10 full games. Would take a face flop on the order of the 1969 Cubs to keep them out of the playoffs. Did the right thing by signing Jackson Chourio for life. The kid can’t legally drink beer and is already a beast, as his grand slam home run showed again on Labor Day before a sellout crowd at AmFam field. And he seems like a nice guy. They all do.

The team has the fourth-best batting average in the 15-team National League. Their pitchers own the second best earned run average, 3.63 to the Dodgers 3.62 — despite using 37 pitchers on the season. (League average is 29.) Whoever heard of Colin Rea before this season? But he leads the team in wins with a 12-4 record. Their fielding ranks in the middle of the pack but Willy Adames and Brice Turang in the infield seem to get to more than their share of grounders and exciting Sal Frelick and smooth Blake Perkins are money in the outfield. Garrett Mitchell is rounding into the stud he was supposed to be. 

 Limited budgets require smart management

All this with the 7th lowest payroll of the 30 major league teams at $115.1 million. The NY Yankees lead with $291.4 million. Those figures don’t count the 376 employees the Brewers employ in the “front office” —everyone from the general manager to 3 team physicians, a “performance psychology director,” a “bio-chematist,” a youth outreach director, 14 scouts in Latin America alone, a raft of “data engineers.” And a “Major League executive chef.”

Forbes magazine values the Brewers at $1.6 billion — just behind the Orioles but more than 11 other franchises. (The NY Yankees are valued at a leading $7.55 billion. The Miami Marlins are 30th at an even $1.0 billion.)

Baseball does not have the same generous revenue sharing that pro football enjoys. Attendance at AmFam Field is more than respectable but not world beating: their 31,186 per game ranks 14th out of 30, well behind the Dodgers 48,475. The Milwaukee metro area is only the 40th largest — smaller than metros like Indianapolis (34th), Nashville (35th), and even Providence RI (39th) that have no major league baseball. Hellz bellz, Charlotte NC is 22nd largest. Milwaukee’s TV market is even more constricted, hemmed in by Chicago 100 miles to the south, Lake Michigan on its right, and the Twinkies on its left. Can hardly blame the Chicago-based owners of the old Braves for moving to booming Atlanta in 1965. (But we do.)

Historic trivia: Bill Veeck wanted to move his St. Louis Browns to Milwaukee but the short-sighted American League refused. Milwaukee in 1950 was America’s 11th most populous city. (Ironically, the Browns started out as the Brewers in Milwaukee for the American League’s inaugural season in 1901 before bolting for St. Louis the next year.) Lou Perini moved the Braves from Boston in 1953 and the Browns became the Baltimore Orioles the next year. So these Brewers are the third major league team in town.

 Heroes off the field

Bud Selig deserves his statue outside AmFam Field for bringing Major League Baseball back to a dying city in 1970. Management ought to consider at least a plaque for Gov. Tommy Thompson and former State Sen. George Petak, who cast the deciding vote to help fund the retractable roofed stadium and got recalled from office as a result. Guessing few Brewer fans know the names Rick Schlesinger and Matt Arnold. They’re not late-season AAA call-ups, but the team president and general manager. They must be doing something right. Bronx-born Mark Attanasio, who operates out of L.A. but seems committed to the team and shows up more than old Lou Perini did back with the Braves.

Which means the Milwaukee franchise has little margin for error — like trading away Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio, as the Cubs once did. Got to find a way to hang onto Willy Adames — and not just for his stats. He is the yeast in Milwaukee’s Brew, this team’s Paulie Monitor.

Blaska’s Bottom Line: We’ve had this argument with Marc Eisen: the Brewers are fundamental to Milwaukee’s sense of itself as big league. Last year’s $546 million government subsidy can be considered a work-around of MLB’s ban on public ownership, as enjoyed by the Packers. To succeed financially, the Brewers pretty much need to keep winning for fair weather fans like Blaska.

How far can the Brewers go this season?