Archive for October 2025
My Favorite Baseball Team, the Milwaukee Brewers, Are on the Brink of Elimination
Folks, I’m still in a holding pattern with regard to my housing situation, but I can at least write about my favorite baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers, even if it’s not what I had hoped to write.
“What are you talking about, Barb?” you might be asking.
The Brewers are in the National League Championship Series (NLCS for short) against the “best team money can buy,” the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers have a huge payroll that’s almost four times as much as what the Brewers can afford (Milwaukee is the smallest “market” in major league baseball, though if you add in the entirety of the state of Wisconsin, it’s comparable to a few others even if nowhere near the Dodgers), and in particular, their pitchers are very highly paid because they’re all proven winners.
That being said, you still have to perform. You have to do what got you here, or you’ll lose. That’s true for any team at any time, regardless of how much (or little) they’re getting paid.
So, the Brewers had the best overall record in MLB this past year. They beat the Dodgers six times and lost none. That had Brewers fans optimistic that this may finally be the year the Brewers go back to the World Series (the team hasn’t been there since 1982; I was very young then but still a huge fan and did attend a World Series game), even though the playoffs can be a “whole different animal.”
But it appears our optimism was misplaced. The Dodgers have steamrolled over the Brewers, and with the exception of game one (where the Brewers had loaded the bases in the ninth inning, only not to score the tying run), they have dominated every game they’ve been in.
Bluntly, the Dodgers have looked like the champions they are and have been for many years. The Brewers batters have looked more like chumps than champs, though most of the pitchers have been excellent and have done exactly what they’ve needed to do to give the slumping Brewers hitters a chance to tie or win the games.
I hate to write words like that, mind you. These guys try hard, and I know no professional athlete wants to end their season in a huge slump. No one wants to have a season that started with “Win one for Ueck!” (Bob Uecker, our longtime radio announcer, also a comedian and TV actor, passed away at the beginning of 2025) end in such ignominity.
But the facts don’t lie.
Now, if I were a sports psychologist, I’d tell the Brewers hitters one thing, and the Brewers pitchers another, but it would amount to the same thing. “Control what you can control” is the overall message, but I’d say to the pitchers that they did everything they could and controlled what they definitely could control. But the pitchers can’t bat for the hitters (with the exception of someone like Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers superstar, pitchers no longer bat), and they can’t control those at-bats or what the hitters do whatsoever. I’d tell the hitters that all they can control is how they approach the at-bat. (Some of the players have had long at-bats that have helped to tire the pitcher out over time, and those are considered successful at-bats or at least not failures even if they don’t result in a hit or walk.) Are they going up there confident in their abilities, confident in what they’ve shown all year long? Or are they going up there expecting to be beaten? (The latter is almost impossible for a professional athlete, mind. You don’t go into that field if you are that defeatist because the odds are very long to get to “the show,” as MLB is called, at all.)
See, if you put it that way, the athlete knows he’s doing his best. (No women, not even female umps, yet in MLB, though there are some female executives and coaches.) He can focus on the process of hitting, rather than dwell on the outcomes they’ve seen. Every day is a new day, and providing you’ve maximized your odds and done what you can to play your best, you have nothing to apologize for.
Anyway, the fact is that the Brewers must now win four games in a row against a Dodgers team that suddenly seems like the best team ever (AKA the 1927 New York Yankees, which featured both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, among other superstars). This seems like too big of a bridge to cross, at least from what I’ve seen out of the Brewers in this series. Yet, I still have hope that the Brewers can win at least one game, so their fans won’t feel awful, and so they, themselves, won’t feel awful.
Last year, I said to my friends and family that I felt the wrong team went on in the playoffs when the New York Mets won against the Brewers (a last-ditch homer by Pete Alonso, the slugging first baseman of the Mets, was the killing blow). This time, I can’t say that, because the Brewers have simply not been on the same level as the Dodgers during this series.
I will note, for the record, that there have been two teams in the 2000s that have forced a Game 7 after starting a seven-game series down three games to none. Those teams were the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who won Game 7 and advanced to the World Series, and the 2020 Houston Astros, who battled back from that three-game deficit but lost in the decisive Game 7. I will also note for the record that my favorite ever team, the 1982 Brewers, were down two games to none against the then-California Angels in a five-game series and won the final three games to advance to the World Series that year. (The Brewers lost. But they played hard and well and the city of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin celebrated them then and continues to appreciate them now. They were the equivalent of this year’s “Average Joes” in having a blue-collar, anything for the team outlook.)
So, it is theoretically possible that the Brewers can still win a game or two and make things feel less awful for themselves and their fans. It’s even theoretically possible that they can still advance to the World Series…but if they’re going to do that, they need to win later today. And as big of a fan as I am, I can’t be sure of that.
Still. The Brewers should focus on winning game 4. Do that, and then you can focus on winning game 5.
I hope they can do that. I’d feel a whole lot better about things if they did, even if they still lose this series and even if the Dodgers still advance to the World Series.
My reasoning for that is simple. The rallying cry “Win it for Ueck!” won’t work next year. So if they really do want to win it for Bob Uecker, the time is now.
No Housing News Yet…But Milwaukee Brewers Continuing to Thrive
Folks, I knew I owed you all some sort of update regarding my housing situation. I wish I had a better one. I’m still looking for a place and remain on quite a few waiting lists. I am moving up on those lists, but not quickly enough.
I’m still staying with a relative. This is not an easy situation for either one of us. I appreciate the help, though I wish I didn’t need it, and every day is a struggle.
One of the few bright spots I’ve had to consider has been the overall play of the 2025 version of the Milwaukee Brewers. Last year, in the MLB playoffs, the Brewers were eliminated in the first round at the very last minute by the New York Mets (a late homer by Pete Alonso, a slugging first baseman/superstar, off our star closer, Devin Williams, was what caused the Brewers to be eliminated). So this year, in order to have a better playoff chance, the team set a new record for wins with 97 and had the best overall record in the entirety of MLB. This guaranteed the Brewers would have more home games than road games in the playoffs, and also guaranteed a first-round bye so the team could heal up a little.
What’s been so outstanding about the play of the 2025 Brewers is how everyone called to help has stepped up. There was an outfielder called up during the summer, Steward Berroa, who made a great highlight-reel catch in centerfield to save one game, and he was only up a few days with the Brewers. Other standouts were the pitching of Chad Patrick, shuttling back and forth from Triple-A to the big-league club, the pitching of Logan Henderson (who showed without a doubt that he’s a big-leaguer, but was not able to stick in the bigs due to too many people ahead of him at the position), the fact that good players like Blake Perkins and Robert Gasser were able to heal from injuries and come back to contribute…no matter what, the Brewers found a way to win.
And they even turned one odd situation into an advantage, in that pitcher Aaron Civale did not want to be a reliever even on a team that could well win the World Series. He felt he would not make enough money next year if he became a reliever, so the Brewers had to find a trade partner in a hurry. They did. The Chicago White Sox had a struggling first baseman named Andrew Vaughn, who they’d sent to Triple-A over his lack of productivity at the plate. The Brewers swapped Civale for Vaughn, and that was one of the turning points for the Brewers as Vaughn (after an injury to starting first baseman Rhys Hoskins) stepped up in a big way for the Brewers and became not just a star with the team, but a fan favorite.
There’s no quit in the 2025 Brewers. They just keep going. They’re relentless. Their manager, Pat Murphy, has described them as “woodpeckers,” which seems accurate as they just keep pecking away. They are a resilient and determined team, they get along well with each other (always a plus), and they’ve just found a way to keep getting better all season long.
Right now, they are preparing for Game 4 against the Chicago Cubs in Chicago. The Brewers lead this series, two games to one. (The Brew Crew lost last night to Chicago, 4-3.) And they’ll have their very best starting pitcher, their ace, Freddy Peralta, pitching tonight.
No major reporter for MLB picked the Brewers to be as good as they turned out to be. (Most had the Brewers finishing in fourth place, and not even winning more games than they lost. They were quite wrong.) Even now, the Brewers are not expected to beat teams they handily beat all season long if they continue in the playoffs (I’m looking squarely at you, Los Angeles Dodgers), and they’re certainly not expected by the major media outlets to be the National League’s entrant in the World Series.
I hope they will be, though. I like this team a lot. It reminds me of my favorite-ever team, the 1982 Brewers (then in the American League), which was another team that just did not quit and kept going no matter what. The ’82 team is the only one that has ever reached the World Series, and it did not win (though it did take seven games to eliminate the Brewers and end their season without the WS win). It’s about time a new Brewers team gets a chance to win a World Series…and the 2025 team is in an excellent position to do just that, providing they can get by the Cubs and whoever else they might have to play in the next round (the NL Championship Series, or NLCS) — right now, it would appear that team is likely to be the Dodgers, but it could still be the Phillies if the Phillies scramble and are able to win three games in a row (they won one game last night; two to go).
This team, like the ’82 Brewers, gives me hope that if you try hard enough, and you maximize your talents, and if you get some lucky breaks, you can still do very well for yourself. (The Brewers had a fourteen-game winning streak after an eleven-game winning streak earlier, and an eight-game winning streak as well. To win fourteen games in a row meant there were some good breaks happening; that’s when the phrases “Uecker Magic” to commemorate late baseball announcer and friend of the Brewers team Bob Uecker, and “Brewers Magic/Milwaukee Magic” were coined.) Mind you, that doesn’t mean you can take your eye off the ball. You have to keep doing your best, even when it seems hopeless, even when it seems like there’s no way you can win…you can only lose if you give up inside your head, and I refuse to do that.
So, I will cheer on my Brewers tonight as they take on the Cubs in Chicago. I’ll also keep trying to find a good place to live, one that I can afford, that has heat in the winter and air in the summer, in order to improve my overall physical health and give me the best chance to write, edit, and compose music.
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