It’s late October, and by now the dozens of Tampa Bay Rays fans in the area have experienced the thrill of seeing the hometown Rays get to the World Series, only to have hopes of victory dashed by a better, scrappier Milwaukee Brewers team.
But even in the unlikely event that the Brewers should lose the Series, they’ll be partying in Milwaukee nonetheless. In fact, they’ve been celebrating since the Brewers swept the powerhouse Los Angeles Dodgers a few weeks ago.
Also, since the Braves, now in Atlanta, beat the New York Yankees in the ‘57 World Series, a year when Yanks manager Casey Stengel reportedly called Milwaukee “Bushville.”
It’s been 44 years (1982!) since the Brew Crew’s Harvey’s Wallbangers team got to the Series. The Brewskis lost four games to three to the hated St. Louis Cardinals. (But don’t ever bring up 1982 to a Brewers fan unless you want to see someone crying in their beer about how the boys would have won it all if Hall of Fame reliever Rollie Fingers hadn’t been hurt.)
Despite that sad outcome, fans stunned the team that year when thousands turned out for a parade down Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Avenue. After the Brewers lost!
The “City That Means Beer,” according to an Old Milwaukee beer ad, boasts an estimated 400 taverns, or about one bar for every 1,800 people in the city. Check the city’s website, and you’ll find 36 pages of liquor license holders. Surrounding burgs in Milwaukee County add even more pubs to the equation.
Indeed, an old local joke says that the first word of a child born in Milwaukee is “beer.” The second word is “more.” A local sportswriter once said Milwaukee fans are so eager to tipple that they would toast a baby-snatching.
The Brewers celebrate the seventh-inning stretch with “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” as they do everywhere else. But the song is followed by “Roll Out the Barrel,” which is as much a mission statement as it is an anthem.
Forbes Magazine called Milwaukee “the drunkest city in America” a few years ago (New Orleans was second), and it was a source of pride for many town denizens. It was also a statement of the obvious.
When former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and erstwhile broadcaster Tony Romo, a Wisconsin native, was arrested in Milwaukee last year after blowing a staggering 0.15 BAC (Blood Alcohol Content), almost twice the legal limit, while driving downtown, many locals reacted with a “there but for the grace of God go I” shrug.
The rest of the nation likely tut-tuts such behavior, and for good reason. We’re certainly not condoning alcohol abuse.
But Milwaukee, like the rest of Wisconsin, likes to party. They also love their beer. The team’s name is “Brewers,” for crying out loud. What would you expect?
The Brewers represent the smallest market in Major League Baseball, with a metro population of under 2 million. The Rays market is larger than 2 million, and while it hardly dwarfs Milwaukee, the Rays’ fan base is a mile wide and an inch deep. Total attendance this year was 1,414,975 and average game attendance of 17,449, according to Baseball Reference. Milwaukee’s turnout was just under 2.8 million (2,789,934 to be exact) for an average game attendance of 34,431.
All this being said, what are Brewers fans to do when they move to Florida and the World Series party is 1,500 miles away, when they’re closer to Havana than Wolski’s tavern? Although charming Dunedin is nothing if not hospitable, there are no doubt some residents who say these Milwaukee interlopers should just go back to where they came from. But nobody who lives in Dunedin would ever move anywhere, even if a new job offered 15-minute free beer breaks, which no longer occur at the few breweries remaining in town.
But it’s lonely without being surrounded by others decked out in Brewers blue, beer in hand, shouting praise to their Brewers and boozily singing “zing, boom tah-rarrel” during “Roll Out the Barrel.”
Of course, local Brewers fans could fill the many usually empty seats at Tropicana Field to get their World Series fix. But ticket prices at the Trop are so ridiculous that even those who can afford to go to a game likely had to lay off their butler or sell a bottle of Domaine Leflaive Montrachet Grand Cru from their wine collection just to sit in the upper deck.
Brew Crew loyalists can always don their Brewers gear around town and wait for a Rays fan to challenge them to a debate. But that would mean finding someone around here who knows the Rays are playing in the World Series. Or pulling their attention away from whatever college football game is on the telly.
Instead, win or lose local Brewers fans will likely sit in the dark of their lanais, shedding quiet tears of joy or sorrow while the folks in Milwaukee dance and drink the city dry.
They’ll toast left field star Jackson Chourio and blazing fastball pitcher Jacob Misiorowski along with other current Brewers heroes such as Jake Bauers, William Contreras and Sal Frelick.
But they’ll also raise a glass to the memory of the ‘82 Brewers. They’ll fondly remember sluggers Gorman Thomas and Ben Oglivie, Hall of Famers Robin Yount and Paul Molitor, even Bob McClure, the pitcher who took the loss in Game 7.
Bob Uecker, the late, longtime radio voice of the Brewers, will get a nod and a wistful wish he could have lived to see this Series.
Local Brewers fans will have their own lonesome little private party and think of Brewers genial genius manager Pat Murphy, but they won’t forget ‘82 manager Harvey Kuenn, infielder Jim “Gumby” Gantner and catcher Ted “Simba” Simmons and all the others who couldn’t win Game 7.
It will be a party, and most of the guests will be there in spirit only.
But there will be beer.
Zing, boom, tah-rarrel.