Batter up: Milwaukee Brewers

It's that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a baseball team who you know fully well won't win. This season, in honour of an popular Internet meme, we'll present 25 things about each team. At bat: The Milwaukee Brewers.

1. The Brewers could be 2009's version of Cleveland, going two steps back to move one step ahead. They didn't do a ton to upgrade after a 90-win season. They had youngest group of position players out of the four National League playoff teams, so there is time to develop a pitching staff and really give 'er in 2010.
   
2. A Brewers follower staking hope on "the Cubs will find a way to screw it up" is like assuming people will keep buying newspapers because they'll miss them when they're gone. Who in their right mind believes that? Ohhhhhhhhh. The Brewers probably end up second in the NL Central behind Chicago.
   
3. Leftfielder Ryan Braun, the Hebrew Hammer, is only due $12 million in 2015, the last season of his contract. That helps explain why Brewers owner Mark Attanasio would like a salary cap.
   
   Braun's PECOTA projection pegs him for 37 homers, 105 runs and 109 RBI.
   
4. Weight Watchers recommends replacing the bad choices in your diet, like drinking V8 instead of Coke. The Brewers are a good substitute for the Blue Jays. They have a Canadian GM and assistant GM, Doug Melvin and Gord Ash. They have a couple Canadian prospects, Brett Lawrie and sinkerball pitcher Alexandre Périard. They even have the same colours and their stadium has a retractable roof. Manager Ken Macha played for the Jays and Expos. Cecil Fielder's son is the cleanup hitter and there's even a player named Corey Hart.
   
5. Speaking of which, first baseman Prince Fielder evidently arrived at spring training in the best shape of his life, but who didn't? The Brewers only signed him through 2010, which means they only lurve him.
   
6. This veers close to "renovating the restaurant you don't own ... or spending the $200 million you don't have" territory, but it's tempting to think of the Brewers reprising the CC Sabathia trade to get Roy Halladay for a playoff run. (MLB Home Plate noted yesterday the Yankees have been calling the Jays about Doc, by the way.) They probably wouldn't give up their top prospect, Mat Gamel, even though they did that last season with Matt LaPorta. It's just tempting, since Gamel, if he can't handle third base, is blocked by Braun and Fielder.
7. There's a scenario that plays out much the same way, but it involves the Brewers including shortstop Alcides Escobar, who will never hit enough to dislodge J.J. Hardy.
   
8. Nominal No. 1 starter Yovani Gallardo should become a big deal, in time, but please keep in mind that '08 was a lost season for him due to injuries.
   
9. Righty starter Jeff Suppan gave up 30 homers in 177 2/3 innings last season. Suppan had a 12-12 record last season and a 10-10 mark the season before, which would make him a, wait for it, a .500 pitcher.
10. That does segue into the question but who the hell is their starting rotation: Gallardo, Braden Looper, ex-Jay Dave Bush, Suppan and Manny Corpas don't exactly put the fear of God into opponents.
11. And the bullpen? It had a 3.89 ERA this season. David Riske and Carlos Villanueva are the best of the bunch.
    
12. The Brewers played close to .600 ball (67-45 over the last 112 games) to get into the playoffs. They had 90 wins even though second baseman Rickie Weeks (.234/.342/.398) and third baseman Bill Hall (.225/.293/.396) never got untracked.
    
13. Catcher Jason Kendall caught more innings last season than anyone in the National League since Gary Carter in 1982 (Baseball Prospectus 2009, p. 299). Two of the team's top six prospects, Jon Lucroy and Angel Salome, are catchers, so burning out Kendall doesn't matter too much.
    
14. Please try to let all the trade rumours about shortstop J.J. Hardy and centrefielder Mike Cameron go in one ear and out the other, until something actually happens.
    
15. Nineteen-year-old bonus baby Brett Lawrie, who's from Langley, B.C., is trying to settle at second base instead of catcher.
16. Cutter Dykstra, Lenny's son, is a Brewers farmhand, a scrappy centrefielder just like his old man. With everything that's been written about his dad in the last six months, do you then cheer for him to become a success, or resent him for not being able to find his own identity?
    
17. Forty-one-year-old closer Trevor Hoffman is just hanging on to try to get to 600 saves (he has 554 and he is starting the season on the DL).
18. Ask a Brewers fan about Eric Gagne and you'll probably get the same response you get when you ask North Haverbrook about its monorail: "Go away! He never played for the Brewers!"
    
19. Prince Fielder is in fighting trim, but they still have the heftiest set of first basemen in the majors if 266-lb. Brad Nelson makes the Opening Day roster. Nelson grew up on a farm in Iowa, which means you're an A-hole if you ask him if he liked Field of Dreams.
20. Alexandre Périard bears following. He was in Double-A at the end of last season.
    
21. That 70's Show (get off your high horse, you know you watched it more than you care to admit) made occasional references to the Green Bay Packers and the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. It never referred to the Brewers, though. Maybe Red thought baseball was for dumbasses.
    
22. The Brewers made their first post-season appearance since 1982 last season. When they clinched, Wisconsin-based Rattler Radio celebrated the feat through the majesty of song.
23. Their fanbase will take success any way it comes. It would figure, then, that they couldn't celebrate a playoff berth until they had watched an out-of-town game on a video screen.
    
    
    
    
24. J.J. Hardy apparently has been been traded, at least according to wherever the National Post outsourced its deskwork.
    
    
25. All 93,228 views of the cheesy Remington commercial Ryan Braun did with Marissa Miller have probably come from the same 15 very lonely guys.
    
    

By George, if you give a Whit , it's not as simple as Simon

... but it's something to mull over while Wotherspooning out some cereal and pouring a glass of O.J. ... oh, why don't you Buttle out!

Chances are you screamed yourself hoarse cheering on Simon Whitfield in the Olympic men's triathlon.

You might not even able to say what O.J. Atogwe does, since the possible Pro Bowl safety plays for the dismal St. Louis Rams. How about Julián de Guzmán -- do you mean the architect? George St-Pierre, to some people, doesn't count as an athlete, although the ticket sales for his fight in Montreal would say otherwise.

This is really about the politics -- one hates to use that word, given how it's been devalued in Canada over the past couple weeks -- of the Lou Marsh Trophy and Lionel Conacher Awards, the country's top athletic honour now that the Leafs can no longer give Mats Sundin a new set of wingers every second week. The Toronto Star rolled out its Lou Marsh nominees last week (men and women can win it. The Canadian Press separates the Conacher and Bobbie Rosenfeld honours).

Atogwe, of Windsor, Ontario, wasn't included on an expansive list that included a guy who rides a horse (Eric Lamaze), an actual horse, a couple of curlers and myriad silver and bronze medallists from the Beijing Olympics. Atogwe, who might be an All-Pro for the way he plays safety, was playing left out on this list. St. Pierre, the UFC welterweight champ, was conspicuously absent. So was Jason Bay, who had the best season of any Canadian ballplayer.

There is a lot of apathy, judging by how many matches for "Lou Marsh" and "Lionel Conacher" came up in a Google search last night. The lack of interest leads to lazy thinking, which come to think of it, has some application to the gong show on Parliament Hill.

As an illustration, over in England where they speak really good European, The Guardian last weekend took the starch out of the BBC Sport Personality of The Year award, which actually is a big deal to the Brits. Trouble is, the criteria of the award is murky beyond belief. Sub in "puck" for "football" -- or sub in "baseball" or just picture more than one kind of football -- and you pretty much have the problem with the Canadian awards.

"According to the 40 sports editors from around the country who drew up the short list ... we are asked not only to compare swimming and boxing, tennis and motor racing, but we are to ignore their sex.

"Consequently, the archive of winners reads like something out of the Eagle Book of Sports, compromises at every turn, all squeaky clean and harmless and jolly fine, rarely a football in the frame, but a river of swimmers and tennis players and athletes, championed by the arch sick-making choice of them all, Princess Anne on a horse, ahead of George Best and Barry John in 1971."

(In Canada, analogues would be harness racing driver Hervé Filion over Cy Young Award winner Fergie Jenkins in 1971. Jacques Villeneuve over Larry Walker in 1997. Mike Weir over Eric Gagné in '03. Cindy Klassen over repeat NBA MVP Steve Nash in 2006.)

"... It is as if the judges are struck annually by some sort of be-nice bug: let's pretend, just for one day, that there is no difference between these sports and these men and women. Let's carry on comparing apples and pears.

"... This not meant to diss the deeds of the finalists. The thing is, though, any one of them deserves to win. They have all performed brilliantly in the same 12 months but are expect to accept that their heroics, the pinnacle of each of their careers in most cases, will not be good enough to win the acclaim of the public because of this truly daft system, sporting Oscars with not enough envelopes. We and they deserve better."

It's not that much different in Canada, except in our case it's not open to public balloting. Every year, the ballot has to be balanced, with the right mix of millionaire pros and amateurs, females and males, individual and team-sport athletes, as well it should. Diversity is important. The problem is that there's maybe not enough diversity among the selectors -- and this is a problem.

The bias comes in with the idea that the winner must stand for something beyond her/his sport, representing the way we would like to see ourselves. We want to see us, staring right back at us in the person of Klassen, Nash Sidney Crosby or Mike Weir. It's supposed to be about more than who's just the most talented person, or who had the best year.

The Canadian media has been slow to adapt to the changing face of Canada or its changing sporting tastes, present company included. These type of awards often come down to what you did when people were somewhat paying attention.

That means JDG, GSP and O.J. are SOL.

De Guzmán, whom our soccer guys can speak more about with more authority, has conquered terra incognita for a Canadian, playing in one of the world's best domestic leagues with Deportivo de La Coruña of Spain. He received 45% support in a Star poll, but that's hardly scientific and hardly indicative of what support he'd get in a nationwide poll. He was Deportivo's MVP this season, but Canada's failed World Cup qualifying run hurt his chances.

St. Pierre? This is coming from someone who has no interest in MMA (but believes it's high time Ontario licensed it), but he's important. He is the No. 1 welterweight in his sport and an icon in Quebec. He upstaged the Montreal Canadiens in the middle of a Stanley Cup playoff series against the rival Boston Bruins. At the end of the day, though, it's doubtful most journalists have open to voting for a MMA fighter when they can make the safe choice and vote for Simon Whitfield.

Any consideration of Atogwe is academic this time around. However, it seems like he doesn't get much notice in Canada -- although it might be as simple as the fact he's from Windsor, which is more part of Michigan than Ontario. He also plays defence in a league that builds its marketing around offensive stars. Only NFL nuts or people from the vicinity of his hometown, Windsor -- which culturally and geographically, is more aligned with Michigan than Ontario -- are really aware of what he's all about.

As it stands, there are good picks. Eric Lamaze winning would be a joke, but hey, it's an Olympic year and some people think they've got to vote for an Olympian. Whitfield also has the Beijing bounce, although going by the unscientific Torstar poll, it didn't help Carol Huynh . Tennis' Daniel Nestor probably has a shot.

Who knows who should be the female and male athletes of the year, the team of the year and the Lou Marsh honouree. Feel free to have at it in comments.

What is known is that is odd how some athletes from some sports aren't in the discussion.

Related:
A horse as Canada's top athlete?; Fans of Somebeachsomewhere push for pacer to win Lou Marsh (Halifax Herald)
Sue and Gary the only equals in the blandest show on earth; BBC Sports Personality of the Year is lazy smug broadcasting of the worst kind (Kevin Mitchell, Sportblog)

MORNING... RED SOX ARE PANICKY, BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE NUMBER 23

That refrigerator can't defrost itself... or can it? You owe it to yourself to wait and see.

• Talk the Boston Red Sox fans in off the ledge after last night's eighth-inning epic.
  
  Cool Standings says the Sox will hang on to win the AL East by four games. Good thing Boston has Eric Gagne to mop up after Jon Papelbon blows a big a lead.
• Women's World Cup: Canada 4, Ghana nil. This is the first time a soccer victory has ever been described as "comprehensive." That's a good word when the only drama after the break was whether Andrea Neil would pass Nepean's own Charmaine Hooper for most caps in the history of the national team. So it's a must-win Wednesday vs. the Matildas.
• Fred Nykamp might get a severance package from Canadian Soccer Association without ever working a day for footy's national governing body. Those guys in the black shirts are on to something.
• CFL: Eskimos 47, Alouettes 28. Bet the grocery money on Montreal for next week -- blowout loss at B.C., blowout win back at home over the Lions, now a blowout loss in Edmonton in the front end of a home-and-home.
  
  Yes, Ricky Ray now has thrown for more yards for Edmonton than Warren Moon. It made us felt dirty inside even before checking the numbers.
  
  Ray has averaged 8.24 yards per pass and one touchdown pass every 24.7 attempts. Moon averaged 8.91 yards and a touchdown every 16.5 attempts. Sure, he had the greatest team of all time around him, but this was also when refs didn't throw a penalty flag whenever a receiver was breathed on too hard.
• NCAA hockey isn't on the radar screen, but this bears mentioning: Some you probably already know Phoenix Coyotes phenom and Super Series standout Kyle Turris is one of three first-rounders playing for the Wisconsin Badgers. Sam Gagner had committed to play there before deciding to join the London Knights, so it could have been four.
• Twenty-three years ago today, a pair of redheads who would grow to have a penchant for the ribald, Prince Harry and Shawn Sager, Official Little Brother of Out of Left Field, each came into the world. The similarities -- the hair, the well-publicized youthful indiscretions, the many, many ladies, fairly demands a tale of the tape.
  
  Prince Harry vs. Shawn Sager
  
  Special skills
  PH: Tank commander, British Army
  SS: Kicks ass in World of Warcraft
  
  Personal kryptonite
  PH: Faux-blondes in cowboy hats (see Cymbalisty, Cherie)
  SS: Not so fussy about the need for a cowboy hat
  
  Bloodlines
  PH: Charles, Prince of Wales
  SS: Dan, Driver of Nails (he's a contractor)
  
  Accomplished older sibling
  PH: Brother, Prince William
  SS: Sister, Trina (the other sibling, not so much)
  
  Avril Lavigne connection
  PH: Once personally invited pop singer to play at a charity function
  SS: Has the same hometown of Napanee, Ontario
  
  Known formally as...
  PH: Prince Henry of Wales
  SS: Freckle
  
  Happy birthday, Shawn.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

JAYS-SOX: AND THEN YOU GO AND SPOIL IT ALL... (OR, SHUFFLE OFF, BUFFALO)

Wednesday, Jays 6, Sox 4: Any temporary glow raised by Troy Glaus and Vernon Wells smacking the tying and game-winning homers (good thing the Massholes picked up Eric Gagné!) lasted only long enough for Sportsnet Connected to come on the air.

It's embarrassing enough to be 30 years old, home alone and watching a ballgame when your team is dead to rights in the playoff race. About 10 minutes after the final out, Connected played up the fact that the Buffalo News said John Gibbons "deserves consideration for manager of the year honors." No offence to that broadsheet, the city or its pro sports teams -- say, how is it possible that the Bills are already mathematically eliminated from playoff contention? -- but for most people, the reaction is "big woop what the Buffalo News says about anything other than the three major fires per day in North Tonawanda."

Instead, Sportsnet Connected practically treated this as the baseball equivalent of an author having her book praised by Oprah Winfrey. It must have been some convincing argument, yes?

"Gibbons has kept the Jays in shouting distance of the Yankees despite a rash of injuries. He lost closer B.J. Ryan for the year. Gustavo Chacin hasn't pitched since April. A.J. Burnett has been on and off the DL. Roy Halladay missed three weeks. Reed Johnson and Gregg Zaun missed most of the season."

In fairness to the News, the Jays aren't a team of interest and no one knows if the guy who wrote that is even a fan (most people in Western New York tend to go for the Yankees). But...

• Jeremy Accardo has filled in for Ryan to the extent B.J.'s shoulder surgery barely gets asked about on the post-game shows and besides, the value of closers is overrated;
• Opie Litsch has an ERA a full run lower (4.03 to 5.05) than Chacin did in 2006 in about the same number of innings;
• Burnett will end up throwing more innings than he did in '06, when the Jays won 87 games, which they won't this season;
• Doc will likely make five more starts, which would be 32 for the season -- the exact number he made last last season when the Jays won 87 games, which they won't this season (what, heard that one?);
• Reed Johnson? Three words: Matt effing Stairs. Oh, and get this: Zaun has already batted more times and caught more games than he did in '06. His broken thumb has clearly killed his stats, but how does that help exonerate Gibbons, who's written Zaun into the lineup card for 27 of the Jays' last 33 games? (Jason Phillips, who was signed on Gibbons' recommendation, didn't work out.)

A general-interest sports column's bullet points will be off the mark occasionally. It happens. The onus here is on Your Home For The Jays for taking a throwaway observation and running with it, apparently without checking whether the rationale could even stand up in a faint breeze.

Besides, what does it say that Canadians in North America's fourth-largest media market can't form its own baseball opinion, but needs one from a U.S.-based writer in, what, the 50th-largest market? It's not participle physics or even the Bowl Championship Series, it's frigging baseball. We can figure out for ourselves, although this is the same network that had Gibbons playing on the "1986 Miracle Mets" (he did do that, but the nickname applies to the 1969 Mets) a while back.

(In fairness, Connected and sportsnet.ca sometimes comes in for criticism that would not be levelled at TSN and tsn.ca, since yours truly hasn't relied on either since the end of hockey season. By the way, check out The Tao's post on small ball.)

Tuesday -- Sox 5, Jays 3: Manager Boomhauer wasn't totally out of it for letting Roy Halladay pitch the bottom of the eighth. Aren't all y'all the same ones who complain about the overemphasis on pitch counts? Besides, Doc's splits suggest he's OK from the 101st pitch onward. Still, blind pig, meet acorn; acorn, meet the blind pig.

UPDATE: Chuck Swirsky opened his 1-4 show on The Fan 590 on Wednesday by inviting callers to weigh in with what changes they would recommend to Toronto's sports solons. His suggestion for what people should implore Jays president Paul Godfrey to do was, "Change the uniforms and the manager." Effin' A, Swirsk.

Monday -- Sox 13, Jays 10: In honour of the first day of school, write out, "I will not second-guess John Gibbons' handling of the bullpen," 100 times.

Doing so would presumes (a) there's still a debate over whether Gibby should be back next season; (b) that there's still a chance at the wild card and (c) it really matters whether the Jays finish 83-79 or 84-78. That's just mental masturbation, even though they probably will finish with a better record than one of the division champs in the National League... again.

That said... Josh Towers, who'd come in to mop up, should not have come out for a second inning of work after that eight-run rally in the Jays sixth cut the lead to 10-9. (The Red Sox got three -- a field goal -- to put the game away.) At that point it had gone from whatever gets you through the night to actually being in a close ballgame, so using a starting pitcher who hadn't worked in two weeks didn't make a whole lot of sense. Neither Scott Downs and Brian Wolfe -- isn't he supposed to be trustworthy now? -- each threw less than 10 pitches to live batters in Sunday's win over Seattle and didn't have a lot of ups, so they were ready.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

UP AT 6: STICKING UP FOR VICK

What everyone who's camping out at the theatre to wait for the premiere of Underdog might have missed....

• Michael Vick, indicted for his alleged role in a dogfight ring, is a thug, sure, but please take a second to look past that "dogfighting, what an idiot!" spin and think about the big picture. Guys out of places such as Newport News, Virginia (aka "Badnews") such as Vick and Allen Iverson get it 10 times worse from the media than they should since they're straight up about not giving a damn about what is expected from common-sense white guys.
  
  Bottom line, Vick came up through a place that isn't exactly Rosedale, a place that's a punchline to suburbanites. He was put through a failed public education system, then a failed athletics-over-academics college system. Then people get PO'd when he isn't Tiger Woods. You like sports so much, learn to like the crazy bastards who are wired to play 'em.
• On the same day, Daunte Culpepper (pictured) gets released by the Dolphins. How pathetic is it for a Vikings fan (namely, this one) to wonder if there would be any way they would give a second chance to a QB who has completed 64% of his passes as a NFL starter? Frankly, how about Daunte as a backup to Tom Brady in New England?
• Do yourself a favour, visit Raptor Land, a newish blog dedicated to our favourite hoops team.
• Eric Gagné is close to his old self in Texas, writes Yahoo! Sports' Tim Brown. It's just not so noticeable when he's pitching for a last-place team in football country.
• Daily Norseman has a take on Detroit Lions president Matt Millen's latest ill-conceived personnel move that's really funny if you believe those Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" radio spots are the highest form of comedy.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.