The Wisconsin Sports Rant

With the signing of A.J. Hawk last night, we have everyone in camp and ready to go! I am a firm believer in the absolute necessity that rookies need to be there for the entire camp to be prepared for the NFL season, and sometimes even their career. We have seen it before…rookie holdouts whose careers never blossom because they couldn’t get their feet off the ground in training camp. I am pretty excited about the Packers now, and here are a couple of reasons why:

• Expectations are pretty low by Packer standards - meaning, while we all would love to think our team is Super Bowl bound, realistically, we are not a projected playoff team. Coming off a 4-12 season, which I believe was not totally indicative of the team as a whole, there is nowhere to go but up.
• Personnel improvement - We retain Brett Favre, who from an athletic standpoint still has it, and we have improved our defense. We have some good looking rookies, and at least one potentially huge free agent. Let’s not forget we are returning a group of pretty good running backs as well.
• We are playing a last-place schedule - Remember that every season we won the NFC Central, we had to play the first place schedule the next year, and that sort of caught up with us last season. This year, we get to play last year’s bottom-dwellers, so we may benefit from that as well. Of course, Philly bottomed out last year too, so we have to play them again.

So, with all that being said, I am cautiously optimistic about this year. I think we definitely have a chance at the playoffs, and Favre will play smarter than he did last year. I still have faith in Ahman, and I can’t wait to see A.J. Hawk and Charles Woodson out there together! Go Pack!

I have to say I am not sorry to see Mark Roman go.  He has not provided anything close to productivity in his 2 years with the Packers.  It’s amazing how that is possible on the NFL’s top rated pass defense, but hey…when no one needs to throw the ball on you because they can run it down your throat, you will have that.

Look, I totally respect what Doug Melvin has done for the Brewers, even though they haven’t really improved this year, but sending Cruz away with Lee is a bit puzzling.  You get rid of one of the best sluggers in the league, which in and of itself is frustrating (even though I realize he wasn’t going to sign), but to also send away the prospect that was supposed to replace him is similarly bewildering.  I just don’t understand.  As Brewers fans, we are used to the team falling apart (unless they sucked from Opening Day), and then all the decent players are sent away to “build for the future”.  This year, we again have self destructed, but now we have an owner with deeper pockets than the Seligs did, so why do we need to continue this two steps forward, two steps back routine?  This team continues to be joke, as I have mentioned in previous posts.  It’s ridiculous that it now costs a ton to go to a Brewers game (remember when box seats at County Stadium were $15?), hope is imposed on the fans, and management still holds a fire sale of our best player and prospect!

I have three words for you Mr. Attanasio:  Packers training camp

Losing 2 of 3 at home to the lowly Pirates (hey…who the hell are we to call anyone lowly?) is just about enough for me. I am calling it a season. Sure, there are 2 months left to play, but there is no way in hell the Brewers are going to right this ship that dramatically. It’s done. Over. Finished. This season is most certainly a failure. Remember what we were saying at the end of last year? I was frustrated that they couldn’t get that one win to get them to 82-80 on the final weekend, but we all agreed that the season was a step in the right direction, and therefore a successful one. This season is not. This season has become a debacle. Melvin and Yost looked pretty good there at the beginning of the year, with all the great personnel moves and on-field play. Fans came. It looked like the Brewers finally had turned the 14 year string of sub-.500 campaigns around. Nope. Not quite. There simply is no excuse anymore. This team is rotten, and is still mired in a culture of losing. Boo.

The Brewers have two types of big money players.  The ones that get hurt, and the ones that are flashes in the pan.  Turnbow is proving himself the latter.  Come on, really…do you think the Angels would have let him go if he was going to be a long term star?

Seriously though, I do hope he can turn it around someday, but that day can’t be today.  It’s time to take the closer role away from him and give it to someone, anyone, else.  He is costing us a realistic shot at the playoffs, and it may already be too late.  However, I want to sign Carlos, and I want to be in contention in September.  Sticking with Turnbow will not allow those things to happen.

I knew having 3 All Stars on the Brewers was too good to be true.

The front page of this week’s The Onion has hit the nail on the head! Too bad they were referring to Pittsburgh and not Milwaukee…

Well…yet another loss on the road and another waste of good starting pitching (by the returning Ohka no less!). And to top off the great day, now Hardy is done for the year. As the Brewers’ World Turns.

Turnbow must have really worked on his efficiency at the All Star Game! Let’s look at the numbers:

Pitch 1 - Ball

Pitch 2 - Ball

Pitch 3 - Double for Luis Gonzalez

Pitch 4 - Home Run for Johnny Estrada. Game Over, Brewers lose 4-3

2 runs, no strikes, no outs, blown save number 7. Some All Star.  In fact, how the hell was he an All Star anyway?  His ERA is over 5.00, he had blown 6 saves before the break, he had lost 4 games, and although he started out hot, I can’t remember a single outing where he actually put the order down 1-2-3.  Of course, the Brewers’ offense blew several chances in the last three innings. The Brewers have now dropped 4 in a row like they do every time they had previously looked like they were on an upward trend. They are a joke. They have the 2nd worst bullpen in the NL. All those great moves by Doug Melvin aren’t really paying off at the moment, are they? I don’t know what this team can do to turn it around, but whatever it is, it continues to elude them as it has for the last 14 years.

For comparison’s sake, let’s look at a club in a similar situation, but with a much different outlook. The Astros are just about where we are at the midway point. They are also hovering around .500 and have had a disappointing season. No one on ESPN will say that the Brewers have a chance to make a playoff run, but they all say Houston does. The difference? They have a proven Hall of Fame pitcher coming back to help and they have experience at winning when it counts. The Brewers have “good” pitching coming back, but Sheets and Ohka represent possibility, not probability. And we all know about that winning thing.

I am sure this rant will start to sound repetitive, if it hasn’t already, as the summer moves towards football season. The Brewers are the only thing going, and thus, will get my commentary the bulk of the time until Packer preseason begins. But I have to call them like I see them, and they simply continue to perform the same way they have for a long time…poorly.

I had thought the first game featuring Marquette and Syracuse wouldn’t arrive until the 2007-2008 season, but hot damn!  The two will meet at the Bradley Center this year!  Looks like my brother might find his way home an extra time next winter?

What could be more fitting than a Milwaukee Brewer ending the All-Star game unsuccessfully for his team? Carlos had the chance to be the hero. Instead he popped out meekly to the 2nd baseman. In the national sports spotlight, he represented his Brewers colors perfectly as the team that just can’t get it done.