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Archive for October 2024

Brewers Season Recap, Plus Personal Update

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Folks, I am down with a sinus infection. I probably had this for a couple of weeks…I felt like I was barely conscious, if that makes any sense, and had several migraine headaches that added more distress to the already awful mix.

Because of this, I haven’t blogged — as you know — in several weeks. But I am back now to write about one of my favorite subjects, the Milwaukee Brewers.

After former manager Craig Counsell left to go to the Chicago Cubs at the end of the 2023 season, I would’ve been like many Brewers fans and thought that 2024 was going to be a rebuilding year. The Brewers also traded away their ace, Corbin Burnes, while their second-best pitcher (who could’ve been an ace anywhere else), Brandon Woodruff, was lost for the 2024 season due to needing arm surgery. While young phenom Jackson Chourio was on the horizon, it was impossible to know that he’d play the whole year with the big-league club rather than, say, a few months with the Triple-A ballclub affiliated with the Brewers.

So, the Brewers hired Pat Murphy as their new manager. He had been Counsell’s bench coach since 2016. He is in his mid-sixties, had already suffered a heart attack, had a terrible bout of Covid…but is quotable, relatable, and gets the most out of his players. The Brewers quite rightly picked him, figuring he knew the team, he knew the players, and the players — at least in one case, that being Brewers superstar outfielder Christian Yelich — lobbied hard for Murphy.

It was the right move. Murphy was a college coach, a very successful one, for many years before becoming a coach in MLB. Since much of his team was quite young (one of the youngest teams in the entirety of MLB), Murphy knew how to help them develop their potential.

Because of him, the general manager Matt Arnold, other staff, and all of the various coaches (including new associate manager Rickie Weeks, himself a longtime Brewers second baseman when he was still an active player), the Brewers massively overachieved. They ran away with the National League Central division, and were the third seed in the playoffs.

But it was a season unlike any other. Seventeen different pitchers started games for the Brewers due to more injuries from two other key pitchers, Wade Miley and rookie Robert Gasser. Miley pitched only a couple of games before going down with arm issues necessitating surgery, and Gasser looked lights-out for half a dozen games before he, too, succumbed to needing arm surgery. (Gasser went to three different specialists, mind you, hoping to avoid surgery.)

In addition to all of that, the Brewers best hitter, the aforementioned Christian Yelich, had to have back surgery in late summer after making the All-Star team due to his excellent first half. He did not want to have this surgery (same as Gasser, in some ways), but he tried to rehab it for nearly a month with no success and no surcease, either. (As someone with long-term back problems, I can definitely relate.)

So, despite all that — all the different pitchers, all the injuries, all the various issues — the Brewers won their division. Chourio at just age twenty became an up-and-coming player, showcasing his power and speed along with a better than average arm in the outfield. Three different Brewers — second baseman Brice Turang, right fielder Sal Frelick, and center fielder Blake Perkins — have been named Gold Glove finalists (meaning they are among the very best defensive players at their positions) despite all being second-year ballplayers. (This only rarely happens. Trust me.) A pitcher no one had ever heard of before this year, Tobias Myers, had a steady season, and the Brewers best healthy pitcher, Freddy Peralta, took the ball all thirty-two times he was asked to start. The hitters weren’t always great, and one new player, Joey Ortiz, looks all defense and no hit at third base. (Ortiz, as I’ve told several baseball fans I know, reminds me of shortstop Mark Belanger of the Orioles. Great, great defense. But Belanger rarely hit much, and his best skill in a high-leverage at-bat was to take a walk so someone else could drive him in.) But they did more than enough to win their division, and were one of the hottest teams entering the playoffs.

Unfortunately, the Brewers once again (as in previous years) ran into an even hotter team in the New York Mets in the playoffs. The Brewers played their hearts out, and they’d taken a late lead in the decisive game three of the best-of-three playoff series…but the Mets were ultimately the victors. It was a demoralizing loss for Brewers fans, not to mention the Brewers coaches and players…this looked like it was finally going to be the Brewers time to shine, and it just didn’t happen in the playoffs.

Still, they had a great year. Pat Murphy deserves to be the Manager of the Year and I hope he gets the hardware along with the recognition he assuredly deserves. Matt Arnold deserves to be the Executive of the Year, too (I can’t remember if that’s the title now, for GMs who overachieve, but there is an award for GMs of some sort). Jackson Chourio is in the mix for Rookie of the Year. And as I said before, three second-year Brewers players, all young men, were nominated for Gold Gloves.

I had to wait a few weeks, mind you, to get over the pain of how the Mets bounced the Brewers from the playoffs before I could post this. Many Brewers fans feel this way, too. It feels like the postseason was snatched out of the hands of the fans and players and coaches (and GM Arnold) at the very last minute (Mets power-hitter Pete Alonso hit a crushing three-run homer in the top of the ninth off Brewers star closer Devin Williams), and while that left a very bad taste in my mouth, I still can’t help but recognize how well the Brewers played overall.

Here’s a stat for you that proves it: The Brewers were the only team in baseball that didn’t lose more than three games in a row all season long.

That’s quite unusual.

So, while the end was difficult to bear, the season itself was a rousing success. Yelich should be back, healthy, for 2025. Chourio has nowhere to go but up after an excellent rookie season. Our three Gold Glove finalists will continue to play stellar defense. Woodruff should be healthy for the 2025 season, and he and Peralta should make an excellent one-two punch with Myers being a durable starter as well. Brewers catcher William Contreras will be back after a season where he put up MVP-like numbers, and there’s still a chance the Brewers can re-sign excellent shortstop Willy Adames (he’s been called the heart and soul of the Brewers, and for good reason). Murphy will also still be back as the manager, Weeks will still be Murphy’s right-hand man, and the various coaches (all of whom did stellar work) will all be returning as well.

The future looks promising. Very, very promising. And as a long-time Brewers fan of (mumble-mumble) years standing, I can’t wait to see what happens in 2025.

Written by Barb Caffrey

October 17, 2024 at 12:38 am

Posted in Brewers pitchers, Milwaukee Brewers baseball club

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The Appalachian Crisis, Courtesy of Hurricane Helene

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Right now, people in Appalachia are suffering due to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (Any US newspaper will have details.) Being up in the mountains wasn’t as beneficial as it usually is due to the heavy rainfall. Some homes washed away completely. So did streets, major highways, all sorts of thoroughfares…the people who managed to get out with their families (including their pets) have said they know how lucky they were to do it.

You may be wondering why this blog is focused only on Appalachia. Of course Florida got hit, too. Most of the people in Florida, though, knew what to do to either shelter in place or leave before the storm ever showed up. That wasn’t the case in Appalachia for the most part, especially in rural North Carolina and rural Virginia. North Carolina got hit especially hard, and the first responders are having a very difficult time getting help to those who need it. (Basically, until proven otherwise, everyone’s going to be presumed to need help.)

I am aware of the devastation a flash flood can bring, even a much smaller one that was not caused by a hurricane. That’s because years ago, in Colorado Springs, I was in the midst of one. I had a very small car back then, a hatchback that seated two people (there was a quasi-backseat, but that was only if you folded it down.) I managed to get through an intersection just as it was starting to flood out. I saw later that people had not made it through the intersection behind me, in bigger cars than mine, and had to be rescued from the tops of their cars by helicopters or even by canoes. This flood was bad, was sudden, and there was property damage…but fortunately, no one lost their lives. And within a few days, you’d have never known the area had flooded out.

My experience happened before the widespread use of cellular phones. (And yes, that’s what they were called back then. No shortening to “cell” just yet.) But people were told to stay off the phone lines for the duration of the emergency, and if they were able to go home safely, they should. (I saw all the coverage of the storm, with people getting picked up from the tops of their cars, etc., because of the evening news.) The other things people were told to do were commonsensical: Stay out of the way of the first responders, go home and stay home, and wait to hear if and when you could return to work in that area (or at least drive through it safely).

Right now, such commonsensical things aren’t able to be applied, for the most part, because Appalachia (the mountains and surrounding region) goes through fourteen states on the East Coast. It’s mostly rural. People up there are self-sufficient to a fault. They didn’t get the word early enough that this was going to be an especially bad storm and it would affect them high in the mountains…but even if they had, they might not have been able to get out. Many communities in North Carolina in particular have been described as having few ways to get in and out, and some of the ways people could get up to those rural places was on major highways (some now washed out) with bridges (down or washed completely away) and other such things needed to get them out.

I can’t tell how much road rebuilding will be necessary, except “a lot” from this distance. I am worried, though, because with cell towers down, no electricity, many cars and trucks washed away, houses destroyed, there’s no way to find out except by going door to door — and by using bicycles, of all things — who’s alive, who’s not, and who needs help. (See what I said before, though. Until proven otherwise…everyone needs help.)

If you have family or friends in that area and they’ve not checked in, the authorities are telling people to text. Not call. Text, because it’s more likely to get through. Text also doesn’t clog the emergency lines as much.

Food, water, medical supplies, and other things will be needed in the upcoming days. It may take months or even years to bring back all that was lost — at least, the buildings, the infrastructure, and the roads. People in Swannanoa, NC, which mostly got obliterated, are already vowing to rebuild. Their families came from there, generations back, and they do not want to move. Other communities either have said or will say much the same thing.

At any rate, while I worry about my friends in Florida, I know they have a good idea of what emergency services there are, they knew how to plan for a week or more without power, and the state government usually seems to do a good job at getting things up and running again.

None of that — absolutely none — can be said for these poor rural communities in Appalachia. Most had no idea how bad Hurricane Helene was going to be. There were no plans to get people extra food or water beforehand (or lay in some at the nearest church or community center). No procedures in place for any of this, as it’s not happened before that far up in the mountains.

The cities in North Carolina were much more prepared than the small towns and hamlets. The coastal areas were much more prepared, too. The former, because they had procedures in place; the latter, because they’ve seen some of this before.

At the moment, all I can do is pray for those folks up there who haven’t been found, but are alive — hungry, thirsty, perhaps needing medicine desperately, but alive. I hope they will be found quickly, they will get the medication they need, they will be fed, clothed, sheltered, and given as much water as they’re able to drink.

This is so new to the folks up there that there’s no widespread call as of yet for help. The ability to ask for help isn’t there in some places. In others, maybe they can ask, but they’re worried they won’t get it…I’m pretty sure the National Guard will be mobilized, and the Reservists may get called up as well, as people are going to be needed in a big way to help others and rebuild roads and bridges.

So, the TL;DR of it all is: If you have family up there, text them. Don’t call. Leave the lines open as much as possible for the emergency responders. Look for ways to help the people suffering in Appalachia, as that’s the only thing we can do as presumably civilized people — helping others is what we need to do, to prove that we are human, we care, and that if at all possible we’ll get them on their feet again. And pray. Pray. Pray.

Written by Barb Caffrey

October 1, 2024 at 6:36 am

Posted in heartbreaking stories, in general, Informational Stuff

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